Remodeling Our Hut Part 22: Final Color Choices and More Rain

August slowly slid into September.   We were getting closer to needing to pick the siding and roofing colors for the house.   We had hired an interior designer to help us with the remodel, and though she was expensive, she was very helpful with flooring choices, plumbing fixtures, colors, etc. and recommended an excellent cabinetmaker that we would have never have met on our own.  She also knew of my indecision on the Marine Blue siding and the trouble I was having picking a roof to coordinate. 

When I talked to our builder about the indecision, he suggested a few newer neighborhoods we could drive through for visual aids as many of them were decked out in the darker colors of siding lately available.  

Carl and I took him up on the idea one afternoon after picking up supplies for the house.  Driving through suburbia and countless new homes, we finally found one similar to what I was thinking of: a dark blue house with white trim.  

 I will say that having a small piece of siding to look at is entirely different than seeing a sided house.  I realized this wasn't the look we were going for, it felt cold. 

 Back to Square One on color choices.

Have you ever driven by (or, lucky you--- owned a home of your own) that made you feel all warm and fuzzy when you viewed it?   Well, that's what I was hoping for with our remodel.  I wanted to look at our house every day and feel Heart Happy.  I was looking for a warm color that would tie the house to the garden surrounding it.

Later on that night, our friend Cody was working at our house and his wife Briana and the girls stopped in to see how the remodel was proceeding.  I told Briana about the blue house we'd seen and wondered out loud if maybe I was too hasty in my judgment, maybe it would look better the second time around.  Off we went to see the house for the second time in one day.  My opinion hadn't changed.  Maybe we'd just go back to white siding, at least I was used to it.


Not put off by my melancholy ways, Briana drove up another street and came across a house in the process of being re-sided.  

Briana said, "Look at this one.  What do you think of that color?"

Well, that was different, it was a mid-tone brown color, similar to milk chocolate. 

I was instantly struck by how nice the house looked, even though it was only half-done at that point.   She drove down to the corner and turned around and came back and we looked at it from the other direction.  I liked it even better.  

The owners of the house were outside looking at their siding themselves, and they noticed us stalking them the first and second times, but when we came back for the third time, we both got out of Briana's vehicle to explain ourselves.

 "We were just noticing how nice your siding looks," I said. "We're remodeling our house and I need to decide on a color.  Would you mind if we looked a little closer?"

Thankfully, they were very friendly people and invited us into their yard.  Briana was able to take pictures of the boxes of vinyl sitting on their lawn so I would have the manufacturer's name.  The official color was 'Montana Suede'.

The owners said they also had trouble picking out the colors for their house and we all commiserated on the difficulty of holding a six inch sample of vinyl in your hand and imagining your house clad in it.  We thanked them for their help and we were on our way back home.  

I told Carl about the house and he agreed to go look at it with me the next day.  We drove by the house slowly and saw the owner was working on his lawnmower on the front lawn.  Carl parked the car and went to talk to him, explaining who we were.  The man remembered me from the night before and was very gracious.  (And probably creeped out wondering how many other people were going to stalk their house.  I promise, we have quit now.  Well, ok, we did go back a few weeks later just to see how their house turned out when it was done.  It is beautiful and no, we didn't bug them again.)

But, as much as we liked the siding color, this put us back in the dilemma of what color of tin roofing to buy.  The colors of tin available in brown were rather boring.  I was mowing lawn the next day and while going around our river birch, I was struck by the colors in the bark. 

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, this year it really rains when it pours; we had to buy a new zero-turn lawn mower in July because my twenty-one year old Dixon ZTR finally gave up.  I do love this new mower, it's an Ex-Mark and mows like the wind, but we really didn't need the expense, especially now.  Hopefully this mower will last me another twenty years, if I make it that far, by then I'd be eighty-one.

Anyway, back to the birch tree I was mowing around; the bark is a chocolate to cinnamon brown with creamy highlights.   I plucked a piece of the exfoliating bark off the tree and brought it with me to show Carl at dinnertime.  'Montana Suede' siding with a creamy colored trim instead of stark white?  This might work. 


 

River birch bark

After lunch, I told Phil the 'Marine Blue' was definitely off the table, and taking over the number one spot was 'Montana Suede'.  But, sadly once again, I was hung up on roof colors.  He looked at me quizzically while nailing up a board.  I can only imagine what he's thought of this working relationship we've had since July.  It's a good thing I can't read his mind.  



Hmmm.

I talked to Phil about this latest development and he said, "Did you ever try a house color visualizer online?  Go to a few websites and pick a house similar to your house and you can change the colors of it." 

Really?  

That very night I found a website and started my quest of house colors.  Some websites allow you to upload a photo of your own home, but I was lazy and picked a reasonable facsimile.  I could apply 'Montana Suede' to the siding color, 'Cameo' trim and pick any color of roof. 

Tan roof

 Dark brown

Gray

Green

Black

Darker brown

Ok, how about if we go back to white siding?

A red roof with red siding?

A red house with dark brown siding?

A white house with a red roof?

Choices.  So many choices.

The interior designer was consulted and the very next day she emailed me with a suggestion.  How about the chocolate brown siding with cream trim and a red roof.

A red roof?   Well.....I hadn't tried putting those together.  Back to the website.  

I remember Carl looking at me like I'd lost a few more marbles.  When I showed him the picture below, he said, "I guess that's ok, but I don't think I would have thought of it."  

Me either.  Let's see.

Huh, well......that's not bad.  

We scurried off to Menard's again to look for steel roofing.  There were quite a few red colors to pick from.  Carl liked the burgundy and I did too, until the interior designer noted it can look purple in some light.  So we opted for 'Colonial Red'.

The next day I told Phil to order 'Colonial Red' and 'Montana Suede' with 'Cameo' trim.  My final answer.  (Finally.) 

While I was obsessing over the color choices, the builders had been working steadily.  Phil had to take some complicated measurements before the roof tin could be ordered; he hoped it would take two to three weeks.  We would end up waiting for almost a month for delivery.  
 

It was a good thing we finally had the tin color figured out because the incessant rain was not letting up.  I found another slew of five-gallon pails and set them around in the upstairs room.  This routine was getting very old. 

Upstairs Room

Even with the tar paper on the roof, we were still having problems with rain running through the bay windows and into the house, too.

It's never wise to wish time would go faster since it already goes too fast, but we certainly were looking forward to the day when the roof was on.

Carl and I started painting the interior of the house on Halloween.  I apologize for not 'cutting to the chase' of this remodeling project, but I'm trying to document the entire process so I can reread this and never, ever take on the task to remodel a house again.  :-)