Like I said a few posts back, we’re in the process of changing the exterior of our house.  The top priority is our roof.  Back in April, we had a pretty severe hail storm that damaged our roof and some of our gutters.  Thanks to good homeowners insurance, we’re pretty well covered to have a full roof replacement.  At the same time, we also have a few lingering exterior issues that have been on the to-do list – most important being fixing some of the soffits (that’s the underside of the roof overhang) that a few birds have taken a liking too.  We’re also going to be fixing some gutters and hopefully solving some water/ice issues we’ve had in the past.

We’ve also known for a while that our house needs a new paint job.  Don’t get us wrong, we’re not trying to go overboard – we know this is a lot to take on at once!  And we knew it would need to happen within a few years of when we bought our house in 2009, so we’ve been mentally prepared  and having conversations about it for a while.  But, that doesn’t mean we have a CLUE what our house will look like on the other side of all of this!  Ha!

We’ve taken many walks around town looking at similar Victorian homes, googled endlessly, and considered paying for a professional color consult!  I’ve even spent some time fiddling around with virtual painting on various websites.  And yet, we still are more confused than ever about what colors to choose.  Since we’re hoping it will last a long time, we want it to be JUST RIGHT, and that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself.

Call us color confused if you want, but we’re truly at a loss.  I’d love to enlist your help!  Here’s a recent photo of the front of our house.

Our house currently has 2 siding colors (the top scalloped gable is a bit lighter than the main siding) and 4 trim colors (white, plum, a darker grey blue that you can see best on the front steps, and a lighter shade that’s on the soffits that is close to the main siding color).  And then, of course, we have the red roof

At some point, we may get rid of the enclosed porch and have pillars and a railing, which would be more period appropriate, but for now it stays.  One big constraint we have is our windows.  Some genius thought it would be perfect to replace all the beautiful functional wood windows with cheap vinyl ones.  Thus, we cannot paint the sashes of our windows except for the fixed pain windows on the third floor, and even then, it’s only the smaller rectangular ones.  Because of this, and because new windows are not in our new future (even though we’d LOVE to do it) the window sashes will have to stay white.  This bums me out since Victorian homes look BEAUTIFUL with painted sashes.  *sigh*

Other constraints we have in terms of color scheme: we don’t want all white since two of our neighbor’s homes are white.  And if we go more neutral/tan, we’d like to jazz it up with some fun trim.  Other than that, we’re pretty open to ideas!

We’re also quite happy to ditch the red roof, even though it is helpful when giving directions to friends.

If you have ideas, please let me know!  For now, here’s a few fun inspirational pictures we’ve found that have some color schemes we like.  In general, I think we’re gravitating towards greens, blues, and grayish colors for the main color.

Porch is for the house below.

Another angle of the same house…

We’ve been busy around here at the Jewel of the Prairie, sprucing things up in our foyer, building a compost bin, and now, updating our guest room!  Eventually I’ll post more about progress on the spa bench for the bathroom, but for today, you get pretty pictures of our (very much still in-progress) guest room!

Here’s what it looks like today:

Now, for the story…

When we bought our house, this room was occupied by a young boy and was decked out with a sports theme, complete with baseball fan, football cross bars, and a wallpaper border.  And let’s not forget the forest green ceiling, shall we?

Since we A) don’t have an 8 year old boy with a sports obsession, and B) don’t enjoy cave-like rooms, we knew this would be a HUGE overhaul.  Soon after we closed, we got to work on removing the wallpaper border, and priming the room for some fresh paint.

I seriously have nightmares when I remember priming and painting this room!  With that dark green paint, it took two coats of primer to get good coverage on the walls and ceiling before we could paint.

Already looking brighter, right?  We chose a light blue color for the wall, hoping to coordinate a bit with some furniture I’ve had since I was a teenager, which formerly belonged to my mother as a child.

A little brighter than we expected, but it was still a HUGE improvement from what we started with.  \

We added furniture into the room, and the wonderful quilt my mom made for me, and for a while, the room looked like this…

Again, let me remind you where we started:

So much better, right?  Well, there was obviously still a lot more we could do with this room besides paint and change the fan out for a light from a different room.  I had dreams for drapes, artwork, and hopefully, a bedspread that matches the room a bit better (the quilt will have a new home in a different room).

Fast forward a few months, and I finally was able to snag the last missing piece to complete the furniture set – the headboard!  In the 10+ years I’ve had this furniture, we were never able to get the headboard from my grandparents due to the size of it.  After a quick trip in April to help them move, I was able to bring back the headboard in a U-Haul trailer, and at last, she’s with the rest of the family!

Ignore the awful color in this photo – take a cue from me and never take pictures at night!

We switched out the quilt for something blue, which works a bit better, but still doesn’t quite fit.  Maybe I need to recruit my mom to do something custom once she finishes the half a dozen other quilts she’s making  We also put in another lamp on the left that was a garage sale steal for $1.  Sure, it’s huge and probably would look better in a living room, but it works for now.

The most recent update to the room is something I’m super excited about – drapes!  I found some inexpensive drapes at Ikea, and after some drilling and leveling (thanks DH!) we now have some glorious flowing drapes to add a little bit of softness to the windows.

The print is a bit more modern, but still soft and organic looking, which is just what I was looking for.

I also snagged a white throw pillow on sale at Macys for $10.  The quilt stays for now, along with the gold sheets. Obviously this combo is SO working!  *cough cough*

A couple of other additions to the room include a vintage fan we found at Good Will for $3, a huge stack of art books in need of a home, and a little print that I might hang somewhere in the room.

What do you think of the floor lamp with the orange, blue, and white?  Do you think it’s too much?  I kinda like it, in a very vintage-meets-traditional-meets-modern kind of way.

Over on the dresser, I added a negative botanical print from a photography class I took in high school, a handmade glass hurricane that used to be in my great grandparents summer home on Washington Island that I rescued from my grandparent’s basement , and three Swedish and Danish painted plates and hangings that belonged to DH’s grand parents that I’m going to hang in the room somewhere.  Oh, and a cute little stack of books

I love the changes so far

For wanting to paint our master bedroom?

I mean, the room is freaking HUGE. (this is from when we went house hunting)

And it has the same color of paint EVERYWHERE, including the vaulted ceilings.

It’s not a bad color – a nice soft sage green.  But, it’s kinda boring and ho-hum to me.  I’d kind of like something a little bit closer to turquoise, a la my favorite two inspiration pictures:

But, it would take FOREVER to paint our room.  And I’m not sure I could convince DH to pay someone since he’d probably be more than fine keeping it the way it is.  I know it’s not a huge change, but I love the look of the slightly blue/green turquoise with the salmon/orange and white, plus all the natural colors.  Feels very soothing and calming.

Maybe some day…