My Green House

If you’ve heard this story already forgive me and feel free to skip this post.

I just know that recently I have eluded to it and so for those of you unfamiliar with the tale of my green house, here it is.

In the fall of…wait, was it Spring? I can’t remember anymore but sometime in 2004, I left Hubby home with the kids for a week while I went to B.C. with my friend to visit her mother. It was a well deserved break since it was my first in the time we had been together.

Anyway, I had a wonderful break and when I got back Hubby had surprised me by having the inside of the house professionally cleaned and the outside professionally painted. I know eh? What a sweetie!

The only thing was…well, my house, though it was very very clean, was also very very green.

You see, before I left for my little holiday, Hubby and I had gone to the hardware store and picked out the paint and had it tinted the appropriate colours. A soft creamy white as the main colour and forest green for the trim. A project, I thought, we were going to do together.

Now, if it were just that the colours were reversed, I could live with that. That’s kind of cottagy and with the right constrasts in the landscape with flowers and plants, I think it might look rather charming.

But somehow the “professionals” (no doubt with Hubby’s help) confused the lime green tinted primer for the trim colour. It was actually supposed to go under the dark green to reinforce its depth.

If you can’t quite picture it…

Sigh…he tried so hard.

So, as in any good marriage, I have remained grateful for the effort and try not to wince everytime I pull in the drive, or water my plants or walk up to the door or get the mail.

And I try very very hard not to remind him about it when I express my concerns about him “doing-it-himself”. (Though, I don’t always succeed.)

Still, I’ve gotten used to it and for four years I’ve lived with it. Makes giving people directions really easy, just stop when you see the green house. “No, not a greenhouse, but THE GREEN HOUSE.”

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But now that we’re selling the house? Well, something has to be done…for the sake of the bottom line.

We can’t afford to have the house painted again…that’s a good $1200…we need windows more, which will cost twice that. We may be able to do it ourselves but, with so much else to do, it just seems like such an overwhelming job.

I’ve decided to at least see if the whole cottage look thing works as well in reality as it does in my head and I’m going to paint over the light green trim with white. If it’s the improvement I’m hoping for, we’ll leave it at that, add some nice constrasting plants and flowers in the Spring and hope for a buyer who likes it.