painting predicaments

The painting of the ramshackle farmhouse continues. Still not finished. What should have been a two week job has turned into more like a two month job due to all this rain we've been having. No matter, I thought I'd better keep you up to speed - here is the house before we went to Darwin, grey undercoat on and windows prepped...

Please excuse the dying plants...must do something about that. After much deliberation and one random door knock on a house in a nearby town which I liked the colour of, we finally decided that the main colour of the house was to be Colorbond's 'Dune', with 'Surfmist' as the window colour. 

Here is the farmhouse as it looks today...

The baseboards are yet to be painted the double-strength, and the little front porch roof fascia hasn't been done yet either. The windows have been done though, hallelujah! Most of the windows in the farmhouse were painted shut, now with a bit of elbow grease and a new paint job they are slip-sliding like little beauties. Love, love, love the old sash windows, especially if they are actually functional.

I thought it was going to be as easy as picking a main colour and a window trim colour - wrong! I had questions coming at me from the painters about baseboards, fascias, gutters, downpipes, the chimney, the back porch support post?! All these things I hadn't really thought about. We ummed and ahhed for awhile, scratched our heads and then went ahead and told the painters to do the baseboards in a double strength of the 'Dune' (to 'ground' the house, these are still to be painted) and to paint under the eaves and the back porch roof the 'Surfmist' (to 'lift' the house). The chimney is the standard 1950's-60's yellow/orange brick, nothing too special, but we still wanted to keep the exposed brick as a bit of a feature. Plus we'd like to convert it into a working fireplace again one day so a painted hot chimney would probably just peel and blister.

At the moment the windows have been done but the house needs another coat, as you can see with the cutting in around the windows. This little window is in the lounge room, isn't it cute? I want to get a special stained glass to go in it (at the moment it's not even glass, it's like a diffused perspex? Weird).

So far I am loving the colour. I wanted a taupe/camel colour but didn't want to go too yellow or too green, I wanted the undertone to be grey and totally neutral which I think we have achieved. Mr M was super skeptical about the white windows, but is now convinced with the 'Surfmist'. He wanted a darker colour and would not be convinced with my ideas of cooler colours receeding. What would he know - who has the creative arts tertiary education here? Pfft.  

The western wall, which was the worst area of the house copping all the weather, has scrubbed up a treat. You can see how bad the paint job, or lack there of, was in this post here. Just a few more patches and cutting in around the windows to be done now. And how well does my lovely 'Dune' blend with the colour of the hot water system outside the bathroom which used to stick out like a sore thumb?

Painters reckon they only have another two days with good weather and they'll be done. Praying for sunshiney days here. I am sick of stumbling out of the shower to come face to face with a tradie in the morning. 

Images by Emma Durkin for Cinderella at Brindabella

P.S. Winner announced for the CWA Cook Book giveaway! Scroll down...