Wood Privacy Screens

Earlier this month I shared a post about exterior ideas that we were considering for our house and in the post I briefly discussed the idea of adding a wood privacy screen that would give us some more privacy, extra shade during the summer months as well as add a decorative element to the front of our home.

Midcentury Madam was kind enough to take the time to comment on my post and she mentioned that she was also interested in the the idea of possibly adding a wood privacy screen to her own home as well. I thought I'd take the time to share some pages from some magazines and books that feature decorative wood screens added to mid-century homes in case other folks find them as inspiring as I do. There's a lot you can do with some wood and paint!

The first images are from the Better Homes & Gardens Landscape Planning book originally published in 1963 and the last article is from an old issue of Popular Mechanics (just click on the images to see larger versions of them).

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)