Un-Wearing of the Green

I've talked quite a bit about trying to make my house a greener one, but in one area I've been wanting it to be much, much less green.

The house and its neighbors were built in the 1970's when avocado was a hot decorating color, and the builder apparently got a smoking deal on a load of avocado green brick, because our subdivision is full of it.  Hardly a house in my neighborhood has not been afflicted with at least a little of the horrible blotchy stuff, and mine is no exception.  The right side of the front of the house was faced (or defaced) foundation to roof with it.  (The bricks looked a lot like the ones in this picture.)

I could have lived with the color and pretended it was the currently trendy "sage green" except for one thing: the house has desert landscaping, which means rocks instead of grass, and the rocks in the front yard are also green.  A different, clashing shade of gray-green.

Add to this the yellow paint on three walls of the house, the gray west wall, the nasty rose-taupe trim, and the front door with only part of the molding painted (also in taupe) and you will understand why this weekend I invested in some paint to improve the poor home's curb appeal.

The front door, eaves, and  shutters are now "Slate Green," a greenish gray that goes well with the rocks in the yard.  The part of the front of the house that's covered in siding is "Navajo Sand," an off-white formulated by the manufacturer specifically to go with the slate green.  The formerly green brick was painted with a white base, then rolled with the off-white and dry-brushed with the gray-green.  (It looks pretty good, if I say so myself.)  I also bought new striped cushions for the bistro set on the front porch that incorporate the slate green, another dark green, the off-white, and a brown that goes with the quarry tile on the floor of the porch.

I suppose it was churlish of me to do away with the green just before St. Patrick's Day, but I don't often have two days straight that I can take off completely from working on the computer.  I hope I can squeeze out some more in the near future, though - that's one side of the house painted and three more to go.  I believe the odd gray wall is destined to be the next to go.

"If bad decorating was a hanging offense, there'd be bodies hanging from every tree!" ~Sylvester Stallone