Outer beauty

Remember that realtor who told me house was ugly?  Every time I pull into my driveway I wish I could repaint the exterior and pull out those awful rhododendron.  Some day.

I got my newsletter from This Old House recently and they had a bit on painting your house for $500.  It's a TON of work, sanding, caulking, scraping, and powerwashing, but it beats the three to six grand it costs to have a professional do it.  It got me thinking about next summer and how that might be the time to tackle this.

And then? And then! And then I saw this article on Lifehacker about a site called ColorJive.  You can upload a picture of a room and "paint" the walls using Sherman Williams or Benjamin Moore colors.  It's really fun--instant gratification!

Too brown!

Too green!

Too grey!

Hmmm.  That's nice.  I was curious what kind of paint colors were used when my house was built so I checked out Sherman Williams' historical color palettes.  They had the orange color I already picked out!  I tried on the combination for size.

Oh, ick.  No brown for me.  But I liked the green.  So I made a mash-up!

Of course, who knows what I'll pick when I actually get around to doing this.  But I love plotting..  I've been thinking about painting the slab in the backyard.  Why not use ColorJive?  My first instinct was to paint it robin's egg blue, since that is the color you see the least in the garden.  And I've planted a LOT of pink flowers.  But I also tried a bunch of other colors because, hey, you never know what's going to look great.  And I put in some pink and green dots that are supposed to represent plants.  Just go with it.

Purple:

Maybe too bright?

Pretty, but maybe too muted?

And red, a more intense version of what is already there:

This one is called Blue Shoes!

What do you think?  Is there a color I overlooked that I should mock up?  Which blue do you like?  Or should I skip the blue and pull that color in with pots and furniture?

(And go waste some time on ColorJive!  It's fun.)