Dressing up the exterior

15 years ago

Hi All. I'm a new poster to the Old House forum, although a long time GardenWeb member. My husband (of less than two weeks) and I bought a beautiful older home in the Keweenaw Penninsula (that's waaaay up north in the Michigan UP - sticks out in Lake Superior). We absolutely love the house and the town (which is full of many many old houses, a lot of them in beautiful condition). We would like to dress up the outside of the house and have a lot of great ideas for the garden (which unfortunately is very small), but we'd like to do something with the house too. We've talked about window boxes and we will probably do those next summer. But we'd like to do more. The outside of the house has been sided with vinyl siding, and since it's in excellent condition we won't mess with that at the moment. We've talked about painting the foundation, stair treads, and trim in a dark color like a deep green or a deep rich burgandy color. We've also talked about shutters, but don't know how folks handle that on the type of bay window area that we have. There is too little room to put shutters between those areas. I'm just looking for good ideas. Can anyone help? Do you have pictures of things you've done with similar type houses or windows that you could post?

Here's our house:

Thanks for any and all ideas!

Joyce

Comments (4)

scryn
15 years ago
Wow!

I can see your house has a lot of potential. Right now it is too white!!! I think shutters would be a nice addition. Also I would paint the window trim a nice contrasting color. Right now the windows just blend into the house.

I am not sure how to put shutters on the bay window area. Maybe someone has suggestions for that.

We have an older farmhouse, not shaped like yours though. Our is very "square" and bllahhhh. We put up window boxes this year and we LOVE it. They were pricey tho, but it is worth saving up for!

painting the door and stairs would help too. I know people have special software and can paint colors on the areas so you can see what it would look like. Maybe someone here can help you out on that!

-renee
jenangelcat
15 years ago
i had a quick play in photoshop but i must warn you, I was nursing my baby and doing it with my wrong hand. Add to that the fact that I'm just figuring out photoshop and it's probably the worst photo job ever. But it shows you the impact of the colours you chose.

{{!gwi}}

it's so bad...lol i'm so embarrassed. but the green really looks great on the house.
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lucy
15 years ago
Hey, it looks great, especially one-handed :-)! And the flowers are neat. I'd keep the flowers, but what if jel48 were to 'go for it' and use a slightly brighter color rather than 'just' a dark green... maybe too conservative for newlyweds! What about a buttercup yellow, or just a lighter, springier green, maybe a bright, if not light blue? I don't know if I would put shutters on the bay window though, just paint the trim the same as the others (if she decides to paint trim at all, but I would scour wherever she shops, garage sales included, to find antique crocheted doily-type of window 'hangings' (or just old lace) inside - the kind with its own border of some kind and some one or goose, etc. in the middle.
jenangelcat
15 years ago
If it were me I'd do either a light grey blue or like you said a buttercup yellow. Honestly any colour would do wonders for this house. The flat windows need coloured shutters and the bay window would do with the frames painted the same colour.