Ladonna and Jaymielo, Thank you for the nice comments. Both your houses are beautiful. LaDonna, your doors are gorgeous and what great porches. Jaymie, love the gables and the beam accent trim. The stone and paint color on your siding really complement each other. We went back and forth on colors, we did the soffits and trim before we settled on house color so decided to match up to the roof and hoped for the best. We weren't sure about having roof trim different than the main house trim, but are happy with the results. We may leave the cedar shingles natural with a clear coat or do a semi-transparent mahogany stain. Heck, I'm just glad to get the last of the Tyvek covered over! Jill

so it's actually more orange, you'd say, then pink? I liked the pink tones! and yes, I hate the brown tones. totally here ya on that one. Such a cool looking house. I suppose doing a lime wash on the brick is a no? I mean, I think you could really brighten her up if you went that route. Look at Romabio and their before and afters. just spend a little time online looking at the transformations. It's not a regular paint either, so it's very very low maintenance. try these. instead of doing tans/greens/sage, try moving over into the blue/green and blue grays, along w/some white and tans. These blues, along w/the orange brick, are natural compliments. I love these two blues w/the white. you have the porch and railing that could use the diff blue tones. don't forget the porch ceiling in the pale blue.

The black locust can be stained using a Sikkins product. It comes un-oiled It will age to grey like your cypress if you look on their website you will see at the Apple Cupertino offices as well as boardwalks the world over that they have supplied the wood for. But if you don't want to wait Sikkins makes a lovely grey. c ps the company is headquartered in Pennsylvania so not far from you. It only took a few days for shipping but it takes 6 weeks after you order to then ship.

Is there hardwood underneath? The carpet is bought and paid for (as part of the house price). To remove and install new wood, you will be adding in another $10-$12/sf for it. Carpet removal/disposal is often quoted at $1/sf. If you have 1000sf of flooring to replace (I'm just guessing...this is for mathematical purposes only) you will have to finance another $13,000 (just guessing). The carpet is in good shape. It has many years of wear before you have to think about replacing. It is already part of your purchase. You will have 5-7 years to save up $13K to get the wood in the house. Yes it is annoying. But the benefit is you have SAVED 5-7 years worth of 'financing' and you have used the carpet that came with the price of the house. By that time you will have lived with the 'noise' in the house and will be FULLY AWARE of how loud it WILL BECOME with hardwood. And in those 5-7 years (where you did NOT have to pay for hardwood) you will have new and exciting things happen that require money. Dishwashers that exploded. Refrigerators to replace. Windows or roof or siding or insulation to replace. Maybe even a plumbing event that causes serious damaged to the UPSTAIRS carpet. Now imagine trying to finance ANY ONE of those events while STILL paying off the hardwood (or in the alternative you emptied your savings to put in the hardwood and now have zero capital to deal with these types of repairs).