just when things were going smoothly....

 (thought you all might like to see the entry to the house up close!)

my husband called me at 4pm yesterday...
to let me know that the exterior painters wanted to start painting the house TODAY.
*doh!
 to....day.
no big deal, right?
just 3 weeks ahead of schedule!

"uh.....i haven't even painted the sample colors ON the siding yet!" i protested.
(the siding was finished late in the afternoon on saturday for pete's sake!)
"well, we have a couple hours before it gets dark. lets get it done." my husband/contractor stated matter-of-factly.
(in case you missed the posts on narrowing down the paint colors for the outside of the house, click here and here.)

ack! stress!
we ran and bought some samples and put on the two colors that i had narrowed it down to:
ballet white and baby fawn.
(all colors are benjamin moore)
here is what they looked like on the siding:

the problem??
when i selected these colors, the aluminium soffit, crown molding and fascia were not installed yet. i guess i wasn't listening when my husband told me that these features were NOT going to be painted.
yikes! (not listening to my husband/contractor has become a specialty of mine lately...)

of course i whined a bit and asked if we could pleeeeeeeeease paint them, but the answer was a FIRM NO.
blast it! my visions for the house is to have the body and trim the same color...very classic and simple.both baby fawn and ballet white looked way too warm and creamy to blend in with the moldings and soffit.
ugh! back to square one...or is that square zero?

i picked out two more colors, and off we went to get more samples.
this time, i tried:
seapearl and swiss coffee 
(swiss coffee is my go-to white, and also the color of my kitchen cabinets and interior trim)

by the time we got done painting those samples, it was close to 9:30 and we could barely see them in the dark. the second set of colors was definitely more white than the first set, but maybe not white enough??
we painted them, and i drove by on the way to drop my kids off at school to take a look:




i gave my husband two more colors to test out later this morning:
white dove and vanilla milkshake...

here they all are:



i picked.....(drum roll, please...)
benjamin moore's white dove oc-17.
they are already done with the entire back of the house!
crazy.

oh, and i broke a LOT of my "how to pick an exterior color" rules:

1. paint large swatches. at least 18" x 18" (broke that one)
2. be sure to get 2-3 coats on the surface, so you can really "see" the color. (broke that one too)
2. paint the samples on at LEAST two sides of the house (oops.)
3. be sure and leave the colors up for at least 24 hours so you can see all of the colors at different time of day. (yep. broke.)


oh. i guess i broke all of them...
good thing i have done this a LOT before.
one more decision MADE.
still a few to go....but i am in the home stretch.
thanks for following along!