A Seasonal Porch...and Happy Halloween!!!!

I love my front porch. I know it is not a big, fancy wrap-around one that has been rocked on for generations; but it is mine, and I have wanted one for as long as I can remember. When we first moved to our town, we built a home we were very happy with, but its one drawback was that we didn't have a porch. We realized that first summer that we are porch sitters. We spent every fine evening sitting on our front step, sipping tea, and watching the boys ride their bikes and scooters. We'd chat with whoever peeked their head out their door, and often they'd join us on our step, and we'd remark that if only we had a proper porch to host them in comfort! When Sophie came along, we'd put her in her exersaucer on the step and she'd shout out baby squeals as her brothers played road hockey and jumped faster when she saw a cat or dog in the distance. That step served us very well, considering...

When I finally got my first front porch (see photo above), the house wasn't even finished before I had hubby hanging a porch swing from the rafters. I remember sitting on it, covered in paint, chatting about how tired we were of the building process. People going by would do a bit of a double-take at us swinging there, as we didn't even have the siding finished! From that point on, I have been a grateful porch owner. I decorate my porch for the seasons, sweep it regularily, and enjoy sipping our tea while swinging on our swing. It is not quite finished... as the porch floor is not yet painted, I still want hubby to build some low planters resembling window boxes (with pretty moulding trim), and we want a trellis on the side to allow for privacy from the neighbouring home. I have big plans for the planters this Christmas, and I look forward to decking my porch all out for the holiday season. Speaking of holidays and sticking to the present, here is my front porch in its Halloween finery...and this my friends, is the end of my Halloween decorating posts!!

***Oh, I forgot to mention that the best thing about a front porch is the opportunity it provides for taking great annual photos of your kids! The picture below is the yearly photo my sister and I take of our kids on her summer trip down to my house. We have been taking this photo since my eldest son was two, and I love looking back on how they have all changed over the years. We have seen new girly additions by the name of Sophie and Ella, and the photo below is the first time Wendy's eldest son, Ben, was not in the picture (he decided to stay at home and relax with his Dad).

This photo is from last year's Christmas card photo shoot. It didn't make the cut for the actual card, but it did get framed and placed in my living room. Speaking of which, I had better get going on this year's shoot...but that's a whole other post! Let's just say, it's never a stress-free scene...!!!

Cheers!

...four little, five little, six yellow houses...

I live in a yellow house. It is not the first yellow house I have lived in. In fact, it is the sixth one!! Do you think that's strange? It probably is, but I'm not going to change. I am a yellow house girl. Although my favorite colour is pink, I can't go and live in a pink house, can I? So, yellow is the colour for me...

My very first yellow house was actually my parent's. It was one of my girlhood homes. It was situated in the "sticks", not the country. The country is pretty, the "sticks" was not. My father moved us there after telling us that the area would develop very quickly and soon be as hopping as the nearby suburban center. Well, it didn't and it still hasn't. In fact, our yellow house was situated directly across from a gravel pit of sorts, and the people were scary country, not apple pie country. It took someone writing the f-bomb on a telephone pole near our house to break the proverbial camel's back and get Dad to admit it was never going to be suburbia...and so we moved. Phew!!

That yellow house was the typical seventies classic: banana yellow siding with dark brown everything else. Yuck...although we didn't know it was yuck back then! It had a big bay window and a big spruce tree in the front yard. I don't have fond memories of living there.

My next yellow house was a Dutch Colonial that my hubby and I bought ten years ago. It was a pretty enough home, but we were young and money was tight, so we couldn't really elevate it to where it could be. I loved the colour though; it was Benjamin Moore's Belgian Waffle. From there on in, I vowed that I would always have a yellow house.

We have built four homes since that time, and each of them have been a slightly different shade of yellow. We've had antique ivory, maize, heritage gold (see photo below), and our present home (see top photo): vintage ivory (or maybe it's vintage cream...I can't remember...). I have always said that there is something happy about a yellow house, but I think you either like them or you don't. A yellow house is quite easy to decorate for the seasons and you can go with a good range of accent colours for your doors and windows. Our house has wicker (a taupe shade) for the crown moulding above the windows, the soffit, eavestrough, door, and corners. My garage door is a shade of cream as I didn't want it to be too matchy-matchy. It is a subdued shade of yellow, and I think it's also my favourite one.

Selecting a house colour is one of the biggest exterior decorating decisions you will make. Heritage colours are always in style and in vinyl or clapboard siding, red and olive green homes are popping up everywhere. Choose what you love, but take into account how your home looks next to the other homes on the street. Try not to choose the exact shade of your next door neighbour because your gossipy neighbours (if you have them) will twitter and it is nice to be a bit original and it's always wise not to irritate the neighbours... That said, if you are set on a colour and it will break your heart not to use it, then go for it. Take the heat if it comes your way...and enjoy living with the colour that makes you happy to pull in your driveway!!