Bogieblog

The Rest of the Exterior Paint

As promised, here are the results from painting the other two sides of the house.

Yes, the color does change from blue to green to gray depending on the lighting - both strength and angle.

These two sides of the house were challenging because the kitchen windows are original and everything was painted brown. She did a fabulous job of painting around the panes.

I am looking at 3 different colors for the front door:

Benjamin Moore AF-505 (Blue Echo)

Benjamin Moore 2136-40 (Aegean Teal)

Magnolia Home MAG011 (Sir Drake)

Yes, this post was started yesterday, but after 3 different errors when trying to upload the pictures, I gave up.

Rest in Peace My Friend

Jeff Soyer was one of the first bloggers I ever met way back when blogging was THE thing. He and I hit it off because our preference was to stay at the outskirts of the goings on at the shindig at the Weekend Pundit's old Manse. He generally gave up blogging to turn to modern FB and forum formats. He had great presence amongst several gaming and writing online communities and he asked me to take over moderation of one of those FB communities about a year ago when his health really started deteriorating. In March of this year the doctors weren't quite sure why he was still above ground.

He was an older generation gun nut with a love of reading, a cat lover. a big donor for varous projects in his community, and a gay guy with a great sense of humor in a time when being "other" was not as acceptable as it is for the younger generations coming up.

Rest in Peace my friend. Although sad for the loss felt by family and friends, I am so happy you are out of pain and have joined all your 4-legged furry friends who passed before you.

His preliminary obituary is here.

Jeff's FB page (for posterity)

Dramatic Change

First, let me say that for the first time in a long time, I had absolutely NO ISSUES getting Typepad to grab, uploade or publish any of the pictures. That has happened so rarely in the last couple of years that I think it is noteworthy!

The house has had a couple of color combinations since I bought it. Originally it was yellow with brown on top

Last year I covered the yellow with Ben Moore Blue Heather (1620)

One issue I have is the brown. When the sun is on the west side of the house, that side heats up massively. On top of that, the color scheme just stuck out way too much for my liking. People should be looking at the gardens as they pass by, not the house. Another issue is the foundation paint has a bluish tint that didn't quite mesh with the Heather Blue paint. And then there is the edge of white from when I primed the new wood for the new garage door.

However, coming up with a color combo that would go with the windows and garage door (which had been purchased with the original paint scheme in mind) was daunting. And, I believed that I needed two colors for the different orientations of siding. In fact, everyone I had talked too, including the guy I had repaint the house a few years ago, couldn't think of a better color combo.

Then late last fall, I was talking to a gal who walks her dogs along my road, and lives on the next street over (I can see her house from mine). Turns out she paints for a living. She prefers to do interiors, but does exteriors sometimes too. It took us some time, and a lot of back and forth, but we hit on a combination we thought would work. Part of that premise was she didn't believe that I needed different colors between the two different sidings. She started painting last week. She does all her painting by hand, so the going is slow, but I'm liking it.

Ben Moore Tranquility AF-490 (blueish-greenish-grayish and changes color according to the light) for the siding and Jute AF-80 (beige-ish) foundation give the house a whole new look with a dramatic difference. Bonus is that the foundation color is close enough to the eave color that the eaves don't have to be touched. Just the front and north sides are done. I was unsure about my color choices until the brown garage trim got covered - now I love it.

I will have to figure out front door color in the future and perhaps the garage frame (or just the inside portion of the frame) although I may not touch that. I kind of like how it blends with the foundation but has just that tiny strip of rubber showing.

It's supposed to rain Monday and Tuesday so painting the south and east sides may take some more time. She did get the foundation to the south side done Friday, so at least she doesn't have to worry about water splashing up from the ground. It's possible, depending on how hard it rains, that she could do the brown portion as well as under the overhang from the bach porch and stairs, but it is her choice. The east side will not have the foundation painted, as it was never painted with the porch and ramp in the way. We both think that the gray of the block will be fine.

I'll post pics when those two sides are complete.

Rain is a Good Thing Here

Updated with pictures 8/12/2024

Finally got a good amount of rain, so my dry spell is over for now. I got about 4" of rain spread out thru last week, so no flooding issues. Even the remnants of Debby only put down about an inch since I was on the west side.

I was able to mow Thursday evening, after the first 3" of rain, but before Debby hit. I still didn't have to mow the part between the house and the rhodies. That section also extended down to between the driveway and the rhodies (except a couple of tall weeds), but I did mow everything else. That was the first time since July 2 - so 37 days (except the drainage ditch which was mowed once between those dates).

The Clethra (Summer sweet) busted the blooms out after most of the rains and the air is full of its sweet scent. Various insects are enjoying the blooms. I've seen bumble bees, honey bees, blue mud wasps, and a bunch of others, including this beauty.

Well, okay then - I can't upload pictures again, so I'll try again later. I also need to upload my first Rose of Sharon bloom since I planted them fall of 2020.

RoH - the bud apparently opened during some of the pouring rain, so isn't in the best form. But, It is the first flower from either shrub since planted, so wanted to document it

More Pics from the Weekend

Now that Typepad consents to actually grabbing pictures, here are a few more from last weekend

Joe Pye weed in the drainage ditch to the south. Next picture there are at least 3 bees, maybe more

 

The shade garden, which I allowed to go wild. the bright pink is tall phlox, the blue is Endless Summer hydrangea and the tree hydrangea in the background is starting to bloom

 

Butterfly joined me while I was pulling laundry off the line

This picture of Timothy grass is from about 10 days ago. It is growing in the southern ditch near the Joe Pye weed (you can see JPW starting to bloom in the background)

I don't think I published any pictures of the Endless Summer blooms (just that group photo up top), so here are some from a couple of weeks ago

Have a great week everyone!

Do I Get to Name It?

Yesterday I noticed and extremely late day lily over by the front door. That entire bed is covered by the regular orange ditch lilies, and all of them had gone by and dropped all the old flowers a couple of weeks ago, so it really stuck out. Since I rarely use the front door, I decided to go take a look and found this - which must be a natural hybrid since I didn't plant it.

Pictures of what I believe the parent lilies were for reference (sorry, you don't get a pic of the orange ditch lily - because, Typepad). With the ruffling of the petals on the above lily, and the downward curl of the petals like a ditch lily does (whereas the petals on the yellow are not curled down), I believe it is a cross between the ditch lily and the yellow lily.

Well, Typepad won't let me load anymore pictures (it has taken me 10 minutes to get this far (and this is an even different issue than I've had in the past - it doesn't even try to grab th pictures at all or give me any errors). Since pictures is what this post is all about, I guess you don't get to see them until such time as Typepad decides to play nicely.

(A bit later) - the standard ditch lily that I believe is the other half of paternity of the flower at the very top.

Joe Pye weed is flowering at the culvert on the south side of the yard. I planted that in the shade garden when I first put it in, then I think I forgot about it and kept pulling it (when I used to try to keep control of that area) - so it decided to grow in the ditch. And, apparently I exhausted Typepad, because it won't let me do more pictures. I swear, if I weren't so lazy, I would find another host.