Hello all, thank you! Cawaps, I've got a sample of the Formica Grass, and IRL it looks nice with the tile, but only nice. What I'm hoping is that something will really wow me. I would settle for even being somewhat wowed, haha. I wonder if stainless would work, as Jterrilyn suggested? In and of itself it's too cold a color, but maybe if it's surrounded by yellow it would warm up? Does anyone have pictures of stainless counters in warm-colored kitchens? We have stainless right now and functionally speaking it's excellent, particularly with the nautical edges, but I'm so SO not into grey. The only place I like grey is on cats. Or maybe dogs. That's about it. Of course, our stainless looks as grey as possible because our cabinets are grey and the walls are putty-colored. (The whole abomination is due to Tasteless Previous Owners with No Common Sense... see rants on other threads.) Black or charcoal grey I'm fine with, but not dull cloudy-day medium grey. Lavender, the black counters in Mama Goose's kitchen look great. Our first thought for counters was soapstone, but then we got a quote and I realized that my brain refuses to process any sentence that contains both the word "countertop" and the words "six thousand dollars." They just do not compute. :-) It's not about being able to afford it, it's about refusing to pay that much. The ghosts of my grandparents rise up and remind me that they grew up in the Great Depression, and then they say, "It's a COUNTERTOP. It's just a COUNTERTOP! You could lay BARE PLANKS across the cabinets and it'd work just fine! Do you realize what else you could do with $6000 etc. etc. etc." So that's what we're dealing with here... :-) And Lavender, I'm a total sucker for jadeite and also for carnival glass. Colors! Give me colors! Love 'em!

Wow, so many responses so far. To answer a few questions: The front of the house faces north, the rear (with all of the awnings facing south. The awnings that exist today are actually all black. The green awnings must be a slightly older generation of photos. The garage door is black too. Possible the current owners were starting to tweak the color scheme before they moved. The shingles and trim are all wood. the windows are all steel except for the big window in the front (far right) that we think actually filled in the original one stall garage, which is vinyl or aluminum clad. Since that window is brown, we would be inclined to keep the windows brown and work it into the color scheme. I made the assumption that the tree in front is a crab apple based on the fruit observed last time we were there, but I could be wrong since it hasn't leafed out yet. I'm pretty sure that the trees out at the street are Bradford pear. Those would definitely stay one way or another. Not visible in any picture, and kind of swallowed up by landscaping, but the bottom of the chimney is rough stacked limestone with a slate roof in dark green, dark red, and blue-black that may have once been on the entire house. We thought we might use those two elements and the brick as a foundation to construct a better color scheme. Emmarene, I'm curious what type of awning you would recommend as more appropriate? Other than what is there and a dome shape, I'm not sure what else is possible. ptreckle, we haven't seen any plaster issues in the house to date except some bubbly paint in the basement (near the center of the house). The plaster in that area at the front of the house has heavy trowling that we are pretty sure is original, so we don't think anything has been patched over either. When these photos had been taken at listing, we had just gotten 1.5' of snow in 2 days. Everyone's house had massive icicles on them like that including our own. But it's something we will definitely be keeping in mind going into the house inspection.

Its a very cute house. Congratulations on your new home. I dont blame you though, I would be wanting to paint too. That blue doesnt go with one darn thing. i do really like your brick, and it looks like it belongs on your house, please dont paint it. I would look really close at the brick, and the color of the mortar and pick a color of either the mortar or a color in the brick itself ad repaint that blue really fast. I would paint the window trim white, which is probably the way it was when the house was built. I cant tell exactly what color that foundation is, except that it is way too light. It makes the house look like its sitting on a big box on a green yard. Try and pick a color really close to the brick, or a darker gray or brown (I cant tell the color of your roof for sure) so that it looks grounded.

It looks quite good. I would recommend removing or at least trimming back the shrubs next to the house. Nothing keeps a house wall wetter than shrubs that are planted too close.