Pepper Design Blog

Curb Appeal: Transforming the Side Yard, Part 1

And we’re back! Something buggy was going on with WP that wouldn’t allow me to post yesterday, but she’s up and running again .

Time for another catch-up on our curb appeal project for this summer. Our home painting process is moving along slowwwlllyyy… but there is one project around the house that is gaining quite a bit of momentum and that’s the makeover of our side yard (home of a future deck + outdoor dining area! I’m picturing a big farm house table, mismatched flea market chairs and beautiful Moroccan lanterns…).

Before the deck can be built, the brush must be cleared and a block wall is on our to-do list to separate our yard from the neighbors (and to provide a little privacy for above said awesome dining space).

There’s our little side yard from the front of the house, and from the back:

But don’t let that narrow corridor fool you! It’s actually a pretty decent sized space over there.

It’s also quite the jungle…

One. serious. jungle.

I wasn’t sure he’d find his way out, but after hours of pruning and snipping he did – thank goodness.

Dang, look at all of that available room! Now I can begin to picture that great outdoor dining area with plenty of fun lighting hanging from above.

Next up, a wall! and then a deck! and then finally relaxing and fun dinners outside in this beautiful San Diego weather. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

More outdoor projects can be found right here.

Curb Appeal: Speaking of Trim…

Wednesday I revealed the newly painted house and shared that we are still pretty up in the air about what color to paint the trim. Up in the air might be an understatement. Completely unconfident in our decision is probably a better description. And this is one of those decisions that you want to be confident in. These babies are only getting painted once (well, you know, for a while).

Part of the delay is that we’re actually considering a little restoration work with a few of the windows that have chipped, don’t open correctly or have been painted shut (they’re the original 1930′s wood sash windows, so they’ve been through a lot) before we move ahead on the project because now’s a great time if ever to knock that out.

But despite those decisions, a big first step is deciding which paint color to have on standby. {sigh}

Hmmm… now to the untrained eye (aka one that hasn’t been squinting at the above image for hours on end), I can see how this might be both uninteresting and uneventful. But rest assured, I’ve been running circles in my brain on which of those two dark browns I prefer more – the chocolate or the huskier grey-brown? (The latter.) Which of those whites? Pure or off-white? (The latter.) It’s starting to get dizzy.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been absolutely certain I would go with a clean, crisp white trim. Certain of it. But then I kept walking out the front door to this image every day:

And the fact that our plantation shutters on the inside of the house are more of an antique white did not settle well. (See how the tan is much richer in the above pic than the version at very top of this post? This color is my favorite time of day.)

So I headed back to Lowe’s and picked out an antique white for the trim as well as a couple of browns – perhaps a contrast is nicer, after all?

Here we are getting dirty after dinner. Sorry for the late night pic .

I did a sloppy job of throwing my colors up (that’s way too large of a brush and I definitely didn’t tape or lay any drop cloth… but it was late and I wanted to have a fresh perspective in the mañana – with all of my options up). One tip I can throw into the above photo is that working inside of a plastic grocery bag saves loads of clean up time. The edges are rolled down and when it’s time to toss my used supplies (paper towels, empty sample cans, foam brushes, etc) I simply roll up those side handles of my plastic bag, tie a knot at top and my loose paint and trash is well contained and ready to be tossed.

In this photo I’ve done the squinting for you. It’s got that blurry, I-can-almost-picture-all-windows-in-that-color look:

Maybe try squinting a little more and hold one finger up over each window for a few seconds.

The off white is in the lower right corner, the grey brown right above that, the dark brown on the bottom right side of the first window, and the pure white on the top left side of that first window. Below that (lower left corner of left window) is one shade darker than the house, but it doesn’t have much pop or umph.

Here’s another look at the two browns side by side. The one on the left is a traditional dark chocolate brown, the one on the right is that grayer, hazier version of brown.

Leaning towards antique white… but desperately fearing I’ll regret not going with a bigger contrast (like brown) or with the pure white option in a few months. It’s like the time I let my cousin talk me into painting the trim and doors inside of the house an off white because it would match the walls better. I finally remedied that this spring and the trim and doors are  now a brilliant white. Which is 10,000x better.

And to throw a little curve ball in, Kevin recently brought home a sample of a mossy green and is wondering about ‘colors’ (as in not brown and white) as a trim option. Oh boy.

What do you think? and Happy Weekend!

PS Here‘s a link to all of ouryard-related posts, especially those involving this summer’s goal for our family: more curb appeal!

Curb Appeal: The House is Painted!

…okay, so the garage isn’t quite finished in the back, and there are still a ton of small spots to fix up… But I couldn’t wait to share the results of our new color on the house!

It’s really the perfect color for this home and Kevin and I are so happy with our choice. Over the top happy!

It might not read the same on all computers, but picture a slightly smoky tan that is not quite a true beige (in the yellow ways that beiges can go) but a tan with grayer undertones and one that really highlights the true Spanish charm of this bungalow. And one that goes so, so well with those red, umber saltillo tiles.

Both of the houses on either side of us are a little bolder in color choice (brown on the left, a light orange on the right), so it was important the the home still keep that light, neutral, casual color between the two (both are beautiful – we lucked out with a set of neighbors that are invested in some curb appeal as well).

What’s amazed me most about the transformation of white to tan is how much the home appears to have grown up! It’s hard to explain, but I drive home now and think ‘wow! check out that mature, sophisticated house. That’s my house!’ If a you could compare a paint color to a a clock, our home went from a teenager (not that there’s anything wrong with being a teenager) to a classy, polished Spanish overnight (or over a month?).

Bah, I’m trying not to go over the top here but seriously we’re pretty stoked on how it looks in person.

Yes those windows are a bit mismatched . Still haven’t decided on a trim color… more on that soon.

Here’s a before and after, a quick reminder of the white coating that adorned her prior to very recently:

And today!

If we really want a blast from the past, here’s a reminder of the house the year we moved in:

Tan suites her well, don’t you think? I could not be happier with the Dusty Trail color we chose from Olympic. Choosing paint can be so risky! And even if you love a 5×5′ swatch on the side of your house, it’s quite the adventure covering your entire home in it, fingers crossed while you anxiously await how it will look as various light from various angles hits it, how the different times of the day result in different shades…

Now that it’s up I’m sure we could not have chosen a better tan. As I mentioned above, in person it’s sort of a husky, grey/green tan – no under tones of yellow or orange or pink.

It’s beautiful in full sun, but it’s equally alluring at dusk when it most reminds me of a new and improved house. I will have to take a setting sun shot so you don’t have to just take my word for it… but it’s very pretty.

What was a really helpful tool in helping us with this process was this online ColorClix tool that Olympic suggested we use when we first began our partnership with them earlier this summer.

Which led us to uploading a photo of our exterior and playing with different shades. Here’s Dusty Trails (and here’s a few others that we considered):

Maybe a little bit darker than how the house actually turned out, but pretty darn close, right?

Ignore that bright white retaining wall! That’s on the to-do this week.

I believe the tool is at peak performance for playing with the color of indoor rooms, so it’s definitely worth a trial if you have any indoor painting projects coming up (and it’s so much faster than photoshopping! for those of us that try a bazillion colors by using my favorite photo editing tool).

Here’s that upgrade one more time:

I wish you could all see it in person at this moment, I know you would love it even if you weren’t a full blown Spanish home type person (it’s a Southern California thing, I think).

But I would only ask that you ignore that trim. We’re not there yet, and we’re very. very. slow decision makers. We know that both the house and the trim colors will make a huge difference, and that we won’t be changing them for a very long time! So we are patiently painting and repainting those two window frames there in the front (just as we did with big ol’ swatches on the side of the house) until we either A. happily agree on a color or B. let the mutual patience run out and make a swift decision. We have four color ideas left in the running.

And you can always find more yard-related posts right here!

PS We worked with Lowe’s, Olympic and Graco on our summer curb appeal project and we plan on sharing all of our feedback on the application of paint, recommended exterior types and suggested tools very soon.