Friday, September 30, 2022

Time For a Change

Our neighbor is a great guy. He's always ready with a friendly wave and more in-depth conversations a few times each year but he's never nosy or noisy. He's almost always outdoors, planting mums, patching bare spots in his lawn, repairing downspouts, and sometimes even brushing sand out of the cracks in his patio pavers. His last name is Potter and we've started saying "we're Pottering today" if we are doing low-key maintenance tasks around the house. 

His summer project has been to take down the wooden shutters on his house, prime and paint them by hand, and put them back up. He has 18 pairs of shutters so this is a project that has taken him much of the summer. John has observed all of this and decided he needed to paint our shutters. 

When we bought the house the shutters were dark green, which I quite liked. 

Somewhere along the line (probably 15 years ago or so), John decided that they would look better painted red, so that's what he did. 

Our shutters are metal, just decorative, and there are only nine pairs of them plus some lower window trim that will need to be painted, but it's not nearly as big a project as our neighbor's. John started on Wednesday, swore at the sprayer when it clogged after 10 seconds, and bought a fancy new one, so now he has to finish the job. Guess what color our shutters are now? 



They're Ford Blue, and they're quite bright. He did buy tractor paint, so I'm glad he didn't choose New John Deere Yellow or Kubota Orange.


John asked what I thought (I wasn't consulted before this project got started) and I asked him if it mattered. (I know it doesn't now that there are eight shutters painted.) I don't think it will look nearly as nice with my usual Christmas decor of wrapping the columns like peppermint sticks, but I didn't have to do anything*, so that sort of works for me. With his attention to detail, John has also painted the hardware. 


I'll post a few photos when all the shutters are painted, put back on the house, and the window trim is painted. I do hope all that gets done before it gets too cold (and before I have to help paint). 

Wishing you all a good weekend! We're supposed to get rain from tropical storm Ian (which we still really need) so I don't think there will be much painting going on here.

* ETA: I did have to do something! Thursday afternoon John decided to take down the second-story shutters to paint them, and they were a bit more difficult. I had to help carry the terribly heavy wooden 40-foot extension ladder up from the barn and then hold the bottom while John climbed up to unscrew the shutters. Then I had to go halfway up the ladder to bring down the shutters as he handed them to me. It's a wonder neither of us was injured, but we do still have to put the shutters back up after they are painted. I am not looking forward to that!

13 comments:

  1. Oh my. I am also glad he did not pick Green or Orange... but maybe if you tell everyone it is Cerulean Blue... I kind of like that!

    Stay safe with ladders (and I hope you got in a word or two when you had to help!)

    Have a great weekend... a painting free weekend at that!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ladders . . . make me nervous. Please be careful. XO And I think those blue shutters are going to look very, very cool, Bonny. I can't wait to see it all . . . done and dusted. (And I'm sort of betting you feel the same way.) (Think how great those blue shutters would look with, oh, say . . . lots of red geraniums on your porch????) :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. that is a nice blue! Can't wait to see them on the house :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. I happen to love the color, but then I've never met a shade of blue I didn't like! And I suppose the two colors that could have been picked would have been worse. I'm sure you'll still find a way to make the house look festive when the holidays come around. I hope you have a relaxing weekend and can stay dry!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love green shutters but I like that blue a lot! I think Kym nailed it with her idea for red geraniums!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am 100% behind FOR the blue shutters!! What a spark of life it they will bring to the house. Yes, what Kym said. Or yellow marigolds!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I really LIKE the blue. You could go with an ICY theme for Christmas this year. Blue ribbon and white lights ...........yeah! I like that.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I find it difficult to picture how these will look until they are on the house, but I bet it will look good. Ladders really scare me, but not enough to keep me off on them when I am determined to get a job done. The last time I got on one, I kept thinking it was not a very smart thing for a 71 year old woman to be doing, but then again I am a very stubborn almost 72 year old woman. LOL I have one last ladder job to do before it gets cold, and then I may retire my ladder ambitions. Please be careful (both of you!) when doing that second story. That is high!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Your peppermint stick treatment might not be quite as perfect with blue shutters... but you can go all in with snowflakes and people of snow, or Hanukkah, or Easter!

    ReplyDelete
  10. That is a pretty blue. Stay safe on the ladder.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Suzanne! I like the color, I'm just not sure how it looks on the shutters now that we've put some of them back up. Hopefully, it will grow on me!

      Delete
  11. Man, be careful on that ladder with those heavy shutters. Maybe snowflakes and a winter theme come Christmas?

    ReplyDelete
  12. I love that color - and sending all my best wishes that your shutters will match the sky the day you get to take that new photo!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment! :-)