A Sunday Stroll

We did not work outside today. Too sore. Too many blisters. The rest of the gravel will have to wait for next weekend.

We did, however, go for a nice walk. It felt nice to stretch out our aching muscles and Ralphie was in need of some exercise, as well. While walking I took pictures of some houses to share with you. Enjoy (hopefully). This funky Queen Anne is broken up into a couple of different units. You can’t really tell in this lighting, but it is a dusky lavender. I remember at one point when we were apartment hunting the attic unit in this place was available. It is accessible via a giant rickety looking exposed wood staircase around back. I cannot imagine carting everything up and down those stairs in the rain. I imagine the stairs must get supper slick. But, still, a really fun looking house. The second floor unit would be my pick. You get access to the turret and have a sweet balcony big enough to bbq on. The yellow house on the left has gone through some major renovations these last few years. In fact, you can still see some scaffolding up against the right side of the house. I think they have done a nice job updating the house. It looks great. I also really like their fencing, particularly the gate. When we finish fencing in our side yards I would like to add some cute gates, possibly similar to that one…

If you notice in these pictures the skies differ drastically. The weather today has alternately been gorgeous and warm with blue skies and big puffy white clouds to dark ominous massings with gusting wind and torrential downpours. Ah, spring in the PNW. This house is cute. I love the wrap around porch and bay windows. I like to imagine that the second floor balcony is off the master bedroom. How perfect would it be to drink coffee and read a book out there in the morning? Well, despite the fact that it is a Western exposure, not Eastern. Oh well, I guess drinking some wine or microbrews and watching the sunset wouldn’t be half bad either. I keep being drawn to blue houses. I just really really like them. Hurm. It is always interesting to see the basically the same house interpreted 3 different ways. Well, that is when it is a period home. If it was track housing it would be a completely different story. Ugh, track housing developments. You might find this shocking, but I like the blue one the best (You win again, blue. You always do.)This little green stucco house is so darned cute. It is unusual to see stucco painted a mint green like this. I would never think to do it, but it works here. I love the arched windows. I also really enjoy their landscaping out front.I love this house (which happens to be owned by one of my colleagues). I really like their color palette, especially the reddish brown accent color on the trim and gutters.  It really highlights the relationship between the exterior paint and the exposed brick chimney. We have talked about doing a similar palette on our house, but switching the black for dark brown, and the light green for more of a tan/cream. On our house you can only see the very top of our chimney, so I don’t know if they reddish trim would be as striking.  Then again, I do love blue houses… Well, that’s it for this weekend. Happy Spring, everyone!