Spillage Issues?

In the spirit of full disclosure - I have to start this blog posting letting you know that it is totally biased. Kent is in Minneapolis on a business trip and not here to defend himself - and it just so happens that something that has been a bit of a controversy in our house arrived on the front porch when I got home.

Bare with me - this is going to take a bit of explaining. See Kent and I bought our house about 8 years ago. It's about 20 years old so there was definitely a flavor of the 80's about it when we bought it. We've done a lot of work on it since we moved in and believe that it's important to keep it updated.

We had two big projects going this summer one refacing the kitchen cabinets (still in process - which I will be writing about soon) and the other getting the house painted. This gets me back to the topic of this blog.

We have actually had the house painted once before, right after we bought it. We had a pretty good idea what we wanted it to look like and it just did not turn out well at all. The contrast between the trim and the main house color was terrible and looked washed out - but we lived with it. We hired a company called College Pro Painters. Piece of advice - run if they come calling, they did a terrible job!

Here are a some pictures of the house along the way -

Here's before.......

During.......



and after!.................

This time around we worked with a designer Julie Evans of JM Designs, that we have used before to help us choose the paint color and the painters - Pinnacle Painting Inc. We really like the final paint job and the painters were wonderful to work with and finished on time! We would highly recommend them if you are looking for painters.

Okay so now we really are back to the blog topic.

Kent tells me that I have what he calls - "spillage" issues. That is - I can't start one project without letting it "spill" into another one. Here's an example - after painting the house we had to get new house numbers, front door hardware, kick plate - you get the picture.

I went to every hardware store in town looking for just the right house numbers. I just could not come up with anything I liked. I finally found a company on-line that makes custom house numbers called Apollo Marconi and found the perfect house numbers. I did something I don't usually do - I ordered them on the spot. Usually I think about it for a few days but I had looked at so many in the hardware stores - I knew these were the one's!

The conversation with Kent went like this - "I found the perfect house numbers on-line today and ordered them." "Really - how much were they?"(he's goes right to the bottom line). "Oh, they weren't too bad." "How much?" "They were $XXXX." (you will have to check the web site if you are that interested) "Jim! - that's too much for house numbers, the old one's were just fine!"

It's hard to tell from this picture but they are plastic and the little holes are where the nails go. My photography is so good that it actually makes them look like they are better quality than they really are! They just don't "go" with the new house color.



Trying to come up with an answer that will help him understand - "Painting the house is like getting a new dress - you buy the dress and then you need shoes to match." "Well I wouldn't know anything about that." he says. Okay I say, "it's like buying a bike and not buying a new helmet". That he understood!

I'll spare you the rest of the conversation but ultimately I got to keep the numbers! Which arrived today!

I love them and can't wait to see them on the house. I'll post a picture once I get them on the house. They really are cool!

So there you have it - my biased opinion of our new house numbers! Let me know what you think about our new house colors and the new house numbers - Inquiring minds want to know!

Later -

Jim