Exterior Paint ~ Almost Finished

 After a month and a half up in Washington, my Dad finally returns tomorrow to help pack up the ranch in Waterford, California and begin the official moving process up north.

  This one here is of one the side entrances to the house.  The decided to go for a black door (which I quite like).  The original plans were do to do a dark forest green, but after some tests on the window frames, everyone pretty much agree the black popped and looked far more handsome.

See picture before where you can see the forest green to the left, and the black window frame to the right.  The black is much better!

Forest Green    vs    Black

Refinishing the old doors

  As you may have seen in some of the pictures we've been posting (see here for original door picture), the doors are all pretty awful looking.  They're sturdy though, heavy solid wood doors.  Worth keeping.

  My Dad set to work removing them and sanding them down, according to him, the old gluey stain became so gummy, it was actually clogging his sander.

  He did however manage to sand them all down, and refinish them.  Though I haven't seen them for myself, I can tell from the photos it's a huge improvement.

 He also purchased some vintage hardware (from link provided to the right of our blog) to keep with the old Victorian feel.  Can't wait to see the finished product hanging!

Exterior Paint ~ Wow, it's really coming together!

  Received this picture yesterday from my Dad.  The paint job is really coming along nicely.  The lighter brown trim was actually a last minute change, as originally it was set to be a dark Cherry-wood color.

  It's interesting how everything is finally coming together, the yellow on the top shingles and the olive on the bottom.  I mentioned to my Dad the the brown unpainted shingles on the bottom portion of the house (where the basement begins) actually can remain the color they are, the seem to blend nicely with the brown trim.  A happy accident.

  Unfortunately there has been nothing but rain the past few days so the painters haven't been back in awhile.  Already though the neighbors stop and admire the house, they're so excited to finally see this old Victorian get the love it deserves.  As our neighbor Audree said, "It's good to see her with her knickers back on!  She's been naked for so many years!"

This is a a larger picture of the side part of the house (not street facing).

Finally a clear day for painting...

   Well currently my Dad is the only one up in Port Townsend working on the house.  He's spent majority of his time there working on getting all the baseboards up and other random things like chair-rails and moldings.

  It's been pretty rainy these past weeks, but finally some clear days have come and the painters have been busy!

Here is a picture of the main body in the Ochre (or "olive drab") with the light Yellow on top.

This shows one of the trim colors (the Vic is getting a four-color treatment), this is a light Cherry-wood brown, with another darker reddish brown (AKA Japanese Maple), and a lighter Cream (not pictured yet).

The Day The Trees Came Down

"Who leaves the pine-tree, leaves his friend,
Unnerves his strength, invites his end.."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

     Well, with that said, I guess we've now officially invited our end.  Yesterday two pine trees we're sadly removed from our yard.  Not without great thought and care.  The trees were not incredibly old, they were planted by previous owners.  They were becoming a menace however, they were growing so large and fat, it seemed like one side of our house was being buried by them both.  So the decision was made to have them taken down, and surprisingly...it was to our neighbors delight.  They agreed the trees had gotten too big and they were dominating the skyline.  We do feel rather awful about it, one does not make these decisions lightly.

My Dad sent me these photos from his phone. 

Check out the pattern inside one of the pine trees stump.

Looks like we may have cut down a holy tree!

What the house looks like as of yesterday.  Both trees removed from the right side of this photo.  You can see the painters have finished priming and caulking the house.  A few color samples painted near the bay window too!  Sneak peak at what's to come!

Chair Rail & Baseboards

   My Dad and I spent the better part of 4 weeks getting the staining done for the chair rail.  Lots of trips to Home Depot, and many sample stains later we're finally satisfied with the color match.

   

   We had ripped out the previous owners baseboards (they were huge and made the rooms look smaller), so this is the first time we've really seen rooms with all the proper moldings, chair rails, and baseboards up.  It's a wonderful thing when things finally start coming together. :)

You can see Johnny worked day and night on this project.  Of course the staining took forever, but the cutting moldings and baseboards to fit smoothly together is NOT an easy task either.

Final product, this picture is of the Parlor.  The baseboards in the other rooms of the house were painted to match the color of the rooms trim. 

The "Library"

  On the last couple days we were all up in PT, Missy picked out colors (as a surprise) for the Library/Office.  This is a small room located in the very back of the first floor, connected to the kitchen.  It's not a huge room, it was added later on and was not part of the original house design.  It tends to be on the darker side, as it only has 1 window.

   Originally this room had carpet, which my Dad and Missy spent our first days up together tearing out.  Missy spent hours on the floor, hand removing every carpeting staple they'd placed in the floor.  My Dad and I tossed the old rolled up carpet through the window, and it felt really good to be rid of that old thing.

   The room itself is painted in the same drab taupe that the entire kitchen is painted in.  The moldings were also painted, so instead of keeping them, Missy decided to just remove the moldings and start fresh.  She set to work removing the old ones and preparing the room for new paint.

With the moldings all down, and the paint procured from Home Depot, Molly and Missy worked together on painting the Library.  Missy decided on Martha Stewart Geyser for one wall and part of the ceiling.  The opposing wall was done in a much darker almost teal blue called Washed Denim.

  At first, my Dad and I were both suspicious.  My Dad always hates having ceilings painted, and almost all the ceilings in this house were painted!  We spent majority of our first few days here painting over that awful rose color the entire parlor and great hall were painted in.  So a compromise was made, only one small portion (pictured to the right) of the ceiling was painted, the rest will be in our classic Behr Cottage White.

   The Geyser color seemed a bit too bright at first, but luckily it dried into a nicer calming tone.  My personal favroite, is the Washed Denim, it's such a fantastic color, it really pops.  Wish I'd done the upstairs bedroom with it!

  After a few weeks, my Dad got the baseboards all in, he went with a white baseboard.  Just to give us a better idea of what it looks like in there he sent this pic to me via his iphone.  It's of the library with what little future we have up there at the moment.  One of the two patio furniture they bought, and the new rug (which is actually going in the dining room), but it was great to see it against the new blues.

The new rug pictured with some random furniture (temporarily in the library), but meant for the Dining Room.