Painted House

Choosing paint colors and seeing the colors go from a 2"x2" concept square to a life-sized, you-have-to-live-with-this-decision is both terrifying and awesome.  Yes, I am exaggerating about the terrifying bit.  I realize it is only paint, and it can always be changed.  But after having spent so many, many mornings in paint stores all over Portland wondering "does this green have too much brown in it?" or "is this cream not serious enough?" it really can seem like the most important decision ever.  First world problems.  Agreed.  But in the end, I'm happy with the colors, and I was thrilled with the painters we hired to do the job.  

We Need a Murphy Bed

When we first moved to Oregon, Bud worked from home quite a bit, so our guest room doubled as his home office. The room was crammed full of furniture, housing both his desk and a queen-size bed. We needed a solution so that the office felt more like an office, but we weren't having to haul a mattress up from the basement each time we had an out-of-town guest. A futon was out of the question. It was too reminiscent of college furniture days.

Enter the Wallbed folks - we purchased all of the working mechanics and plans to build a murphy bed, which we did over a series of weekends. We dressed it to look like a large media cabinet, but the doors and drawers are of course "false."

We have since added an angled shelving unit to one side of the bed, and the plan is to complete the other side with a bookcase as well. We'll see if that ever happens!

Picking House Colors

When we first moved in, everything about the house was khaki, inside and out. The trouble with khaki is that it is so neutral you can let it slide for a really, really long time. I was itching to paint the house immediately when we moved it, but (a) it apparently costs money, (b) it is not smart to attempt to paint a house in the late fall/early winter in Oregon, and (c) the khaki grew on me as a non-offensive, whatever color. I guess all that "paint your house neutral colors" advice has some merit.

It actually took us a while to get around to painting. That did not stop me from hitting up the paint stores for chips every so often. I visited often enough to know that the house would eventually be green, and the window trim would be a nice chocolate brown. It was the porch color and the trim that evaded me for so long. I have to say, I am thrilled with the color selections and glad we took our time, because I am relatively sure I would have gone another, less awesome way if I jumped on painting right away. As it is, I have dealt with a not-so-stellar porch option for the past few years, but just this summer found "the" color. As we will be painting the porch ourselves, I do hope we can muster up the energy and project excitement to follow through this summer. Will post pictures once we finish the porch, though I may wait until spring when our bulb bed is in full bloom.

The Before Photos

This is what the house looked like when we found it and were immediately interested in buying it. Our real estate hunting trips were basically brutal 20 to 40 house weekends that just ruined us each weekend. Roller coaster rides of:

• "This could be the one;" to
• "Are you sure this is the same house as in the pictures?" and
• "Why didn't they mention that people have smoked packs of cigarettes in this house daily since about the 1920's? I think I just got post exposure lung cancer in there."

So when we found this place, clearly being prepped for sale, but not yet there, we felt like we finally had a leg up on the competition. No one else knew about this place!

We decided immediately that we could work with it and make it our very own. And we really have not looked back since.

The Way Before Photos

We moved to Portland in 2003 and settled in immediately in the Hawthorne neighborhood. These photos are what we call the "way before photos." We never actually saw the house looking like this. I mean really, I don't think we would have had the vision or the energy to start here, exactly.

These photos were taken by a neighbor so that she could make a nuisance complaint to the city about the weeds and the fact that no actual permits were pulled when two giant holes were ripped in the roof, in the middle of winter, thus beginning the upstairs dormer/master bedroom/master bath project. Can't really say that I blame her as she was undergoing her own renovation project at the time, and permits are a costly pain.

The house was vacant for approximately five years after the previous occupant passed away. Well, it remained legally vacant, anyway. The house was apparently host to a sizable homeless camp, many of whom set up shop inside while one man claimed the front porch as his residence for over a year, sleeping on one side, with his own master bath on the other side of the porch. Super sexy.

Even now, seven years later, we occasionally have transients wander by and tell us that they used to live there before us. Even now, seven years later, I'm unsure how to respond to these statements. I mean, do you ask, "Wow, are you the one who dove through the dining room window when the police came to get everyone out?" Or, "Are you the one who spray painted the giant swastika on the basement floor?" Really, what is the appropriate response?

So we got here in September 2003, and that began our very slow, always ongoing renovation of our little Hawthorne bungalow.