Exterior Ideas

A few months ago we decided on what colors we wanted to paint the exterior of our house. We also started looking for accessories that would flatter the place so I thought I'd share some of our ideas.

I fell in love with two particular houses in the Atomic Ranch book last year and we've been using them for inspiration. We also really wanted to create some kind of perforated wood screen wall for the front of our place as a decorative element and for added privacy. During the Sacramento Mid-Century Home Tour we saw lots of incredible homes with beautiful outdoor screens so we wanted to incorporate that idea into our own exterior plans.

Once again, we used the exterior Eichler color palette as a basis for our own color choices. We picked Benjamin Moore's Black Bean Soup for the ceiling beams/outside trim and we're planning on using Bear Creek for the main exterior walls. We also plan to use Shy Cherry and Super White as accent colors on the front door, between the ceiling beams, etc. I think these colors will work great with the Japanese influenced landscaping we're planning on doing.

Recently we ordered some red house numbers and a red mailbox from Chiasso to add a little more color to the exterior of our house. I don't know when we'll be able to hang them up but I think they'll look great with our red door. Although the mail box was a bit bigger than I had imagined it would be. I probably should have studied the measurements a little more closely but at the moment our mailbox is too small so we need something bigger. As for the numbers, we plan to mount them on some white backing board so they'll really "pop" on the outside of the house and maybe figure out way to light them from behind.

For fun I decided to try out some of our exterior ideas using Photoshop. Obviously the "After" picture isn't perfect and I'm sure we'll make lots of changes before we actually start painting, but I figured I'd share the results anyway.

Our house now

Our house in the future (just one possible future)

The Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour

Over the weekend my husband and I attended the fabulous Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour & Car Show. We had a great time and saw some amazing homes and lovely old cars. We were eager to see how other people had renovated their mid-century houses and the tour provided us both with a lot of inspiration and fresh ideas. The crowd was great and we were surrounded by an incredibly diverse bunch of people of all strips who were obviously interested in Mid-Century design. Unfortunately we weren't able to take photographs of the interiors and we didn't get as many photos as we would have liked to due to camera troubles but here's a few highlights.


The Stecher Residence designed by Carter Sparks.

Jung Residence designed by Joseph Eichler

The Koutchis Residence designed by Joseph Eichler

The Sheridan Residence designed by Joseph Eichler

Landscape detail

If you'd like more photos from The Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour & Car Show you can find them in my Flickr Gallery.

Here are some other lovely photos of homes featured on the tour taken by other Flickr users (the small preview images link to larger versions of the photos hosted at Flickr):

1. Sac MCM Home Tour, 2. Sac MCM Home Tour, 3. Sac MCM Home Tour, 4. Sac MCM Home Tour, 5. Sac MCM Home Tour, 6. mcmhometour.2010.00142, 7. mcmhometour.2010.00124, 8. mcmhometour.2010.00107, 9. mcmhometour.2010.00144, 10. mcmhometour.2010.00132, 11. 1964 Robert N. Hill, 12. 1958 Carter Sparks, 13. Custom Carter Sparks, So. Land Park Hills, 14. Eichler Home, So. Land Park Hills, 15. Eichler Home, So. Land Park Hills, 16. mcmhometour.2010.00143

Created with fd's Flickr Toys

Yard Cleanup

Napa's Mid City Nursery in the early '60s

Now that spring seems to have arrived in Napa, we're starting to plan out some of our landscaping. At the moment we're focused on stripping and cleaning the front and back yards, removing all debris as well as unwanted plants and stones. It's a slow and tedious process that will take a long time to complete but I enjoy being able to go outside and spend time in my yard. The exercise is good too!

Over the weekend we made a visit to our local Home Depot and Orchard Supply Hardware stores as well as the wonderful Mid City Nursery. Mid City Nursery is located on the outskirts of Napa and it's a huge place that sells lots of lovely garden plants, fruit and shade trees, shrubbery, ground cover, seeds, paving stones, garden decor and many other supplies. It originally opened in 1954 (the same year that our house was built!) and its one of largest nurseries in the area. The sellers were all very friendly and helpful, which is great when you're novices like us and need lots of help. We were especially happy to discover that they carried a large variety of Japanese trees and plants that grow well in our Northern California climate. We have a beautiful Japanese maple tree in our backyard so we're planning to use it as the inspiration for our landscape design. My husband and I both love Japanese gardens and mid-century modern designers were often influenced by Japanese design so hopefully we can incorporate a lot of those aspects into our own yard.

Here's a few pictures I took over the weekend while we were doing yard work.


Our back porch and patio needs an overhaul.


The Japanese maple tree in our backyard surrounded by weeds.


Removing stones and debris from the front yard.


The red wheelbarrow was the first tool we bought.


The stones we removed are piling up! We plan to use some in our own landscape design and get rid of the rest.


We discovered Mr. Toad in our yard along with some crawfish. We assume they must have crawled out of the Napa river and found a new home in our yard.