Paint and Landscaping Ideas

Since I am all grumpy about the delays and added costs we are suddenly all presented with, let's talk about paint colors! That's more fun!

We had to paint the trim where the gutters will be installed, so we got to visit the Sherwin Williams store. I picked out quite a few paint chips and am left with only four that I am actually interested in sampling.

SW Alabaster is what I have for the exterior trim, kitchen, dining, living, entry and hallways. Most of these are north facing, so we need a high LRV and Alabaster sure has that :) 

SW Sea Salt is what I have for both bathrooms.

SW Agreeable Gray is what I have for all the bedroom and potentially the school room. I am looking into trying the normal sample and a 50% lightened version of it. Our school room is south facing and gets a good bit of sun, but I am still unsure if I will go with this color or Alabaster for the most amount of light. I may also change my mind to Agreeable Gray in the dining room if it is not too dark.

SW Mild Blue is what I have for the exterior. So far we have decided to hire a painter for the interior and plan to do the exterior in the summer on our own, pending finances. If it is at all in the budget, we would prefer to hire out since the left side of our house is REALLY high.

In case you have not noticed, I LOVE farmhouse style :D Likewise, I am planning a cottage style exterior landscaping. I have been watching a webinar class about professional landscaping design, so I have the steps in mind to plan it all out, but haven't started on the written portion yet. I definitely know I want to incorporate dogwood trees and various shrubs in purple, pink, pastel blue and white colors for maximum bird and butterfly attraction.

Here are some inspiring and brainstorming images for dreaming portion of the plan. Enjoy :)

The assortment below is specifically for birds and butterflies!

This is a little too landscape for my maintenance abilities, BUT I hope to incorporate the two circular areas and walkway from our deck. We would make it the play structure area and to the right the fire pit area.

This is the closest I could find in similarity to our house. I want to incorporate the entry walkway area in a similar pattern to this. I love the circular patterns. The space between the garage door and front door may or may not be concrete. We are still deciding between a bistro seating to watch the kids in the front yard or landscaping it with bird/butterfly attracting plants. We shall see when we actually draw up the plans.