One fish two fish red fish blue fish

We knew right away that we wanted to give the house look more antique its then its original 1986 vibe. (not knockin' the year, just don't like the design of the era) The original plan was to pull off the shutters, put 6 over 6 grids in the windows and do an over sized trim around the windows to give it more of an old antique New England cape kind of feel.

But when we pulled off the shutters.... We found that they hadn't been painted over the original color of Cape cod grey underneath!! The house "new " color ( Cabot stain in Slate) had faded, so we would have had to paint the whole face of the house to be able to keep the shutters off. We didn't have it in us to do that right then, as we were also ripping up carpet and laying flooring inside at the same time.( That's a whole other story.It. was.horrendous. ) (This is a actually a later pic)

So we ended up going with Sherwin Williams Super Paint in bright white and doing all the trim and shutters. We dithered on the door color for a bit but then eventually I painted that white too. though I cant' seem to find a pic even though it stayed that way for a year!

Oh and I forgot to mention that I removed and/or transplanted twenty-some mature bushes from the front yard. By hand. Like, with a shovel. No pics of that for some reason, probably because it was a huge giant overwhelming project. It took me two summers as a matter of fact. Though if I am being honest, two of those were pulled out using a back hoe run by a nice fella who goes by the name of "Boomie". I also moved a couple of bright red gates from the front yard. They had some of those dang bushes around them and they were the first thing I moved. Then I pulled those gates out of the ground. (thanks rock bar and cantilever effect!)They were truly out of place by their size and color. They cut the front yard in half bordering the edge of what was additional parking. Yes, In the front yard.Next to the large driveway. (????) Anyway with the help of my father in laws rota-tilling expertise and copious amounts of grass seed that area is now a front yard again. The giant red gates were moved to my in laws 8 acre pasture, though I keep forgetting to snap a pic when I am over there. The two gates largess (probably about 4ft tall by 4 ft wide each) looks very appropriate on their farm pasture. They are now the sentinels to a lovely mediation path that leads to a pond in the middle of the field. ( or as my kids and their cousins use it, "a path to run really fast down and look at the frog pond") So anway... We felt the white simplified the house in the way we were looking for, but it took another year before we got the look we were really going for- though we still have got to order those window grids.

You may have notice that all of the foundation plantings are missing from the last photo. That is because we are taking this:

Which happens to be the "pool" deck out back,though we never did see a pool attached to it. We are Lake and Beach (also swamp, apparently) people so we are ditching the pool deck, dissembling it and magically turning it into the base of a farmers porch on the front of the house! This particular brand of magic means pulling off gnarly exterior carpet and wrestling with corroded rusted screws....but eventually we will get there. And did you notice the swamp past the pool deck? That's why we call it Swamp Hollow! it's actually quite beautiful despite its name. And that other thing? Oh well that's just the bonfire we've been meaning to burn...for two summers...but like everything with this house, we'll get to it... eventually.