Hope everyone had a great weekend! This is an update on our progress... We talked over the weekend, and for inspiration I kept looking over the photos that suero and roobear did for us-- turns out we are both really leaning toward staying with the white... Hubby thinks we should paint the shutters black and door as well, but I am not sure how I feel about a black door. I like the idea of a red door such as "Brick Dust" (Lowes- Olympic paint)or BM's country redwood and I would love to hear your suggestions on this. If we are going to stay with an all white house, I am looking for a combination that would really help the front porch to stand out there and say "Welcome". I would also love to hear which whites you recommend since the white currently on the house is one that I can't seem to locate anymore. It's called "picket white" which is a color wheel paint but it is no longer in their paint deck. I remember I tried to keep it somewhat soft and not stark white... a fairly close match might be SW Pure White but it's hard to tell. Our painter uses ICI (glidden) paint company so most likely we will be color matching to the more familiar/popular ones. I am prepared for this and I have my SW and BM fan decks ready not to mention the bags of swatches I have gathered from Lowes and Home Depot! However, If I am unable to find an acceptable ICI/Glidden white do you think it's possible to color match one? I am just not sure how that will work out with a white. Good news is that we are getting closer thanks all of your help and encouragement so I hope you won't mind sharing your thoughts once again on what you think would be a good combination (any brands specific color names would be great!) for the shutters, door, and a white for the body. I should add that we will be considering the stone, since it would be a nice touch, but depending on the cost it might not be an option for us at this time. For now, we have to work with what we have. Thanks once again!

Oh sure Squirrel, breeze by and blow up a picture but you won't come out and play? Just giving you a hard time..tee hee! It was pretty blurry to work on but it came out okay I guess. If those windows are easily accesible from inside, I would do metal window boxes. I soooo wanted these for my house but my window wasn't within reach. I also put some of your stone (blurry) around the window for accents. I think I'd keep the shingle on the far left and over the garage but maybe it needs replacing???

Congratulations! That is one awesome house. With a few special touches to make it yours, it will be the special place for all of you to call HOME. Can't wait to see what decisions you make going forward. And sorry, I thought you all had been living in it for a while. Makes this really exciting to see going forward! Congratulations again! :D

The central front yard tree is not going to serve you well in the future if you allow all the low limbs to develop into main trunks. And it needs to have foliage removed from the bottom area so as not to obscure the view of house beyond. The house needs some small tree forms closer to it to break up the long expanse of roof and add some interest to it. They would best be in beds of groundcover. Presently, the foundation planting seems like a smattering of this or that. It would look more purposeful if shrubs correlated to windows and the remainder of foundation space was filled in with uniform blocks of plants ... perennials, groundcover and annuals.