Lesson of the Painted House

The following post is a departure from my usual blog content.  It might be slightly cheesy or sappy and is written for me as a reminder to why we chose our and house and our neighborhood (and why I wouldn't have it any other way).   I'm often a little too quick to look at the negative and over look the positive.  It's something I'm working on...

About a month ago, our view from the Brick Cottage started to change.  The day we were greeted with this change started like any other.  While Bryan was at work, I piddled around the house, played with Bindi, fretted about our front porch, I might have blogged but honestly I can't remember.  Then around three o'clock that afternoon, I opened the front door to let Bindi outside and stopped dead in my tracks.

Ohno!Ohno!Ohno!, I thought.  Oh please NO!

It appeared that the unassuming grayish, bluish house across the street from ours was undergoing a face lift. 

This house, this grayish, bluish house, is our main view from our house.  When we take pictures of Bindi playing in our yard with our nieces and nephews, this house is always in the picture.  I felt this house and the color of this house was very important to me.  The gray and blue color scheme that adorned it when we bought our house is a color scheme I can get on board with.  A red color scheme, I'm not so sure about.  I was stressing out, folks.  I paced my living room floor waiting for Bryan to get home from work.  I kept trying to wrap my brain around this impossible to me idea of painting the house red.  Maybe, just maybe, I thought, this is a new primer that I haven't heard of!  If I had a bottle of wine in my house, I probably would have poured myself a glass.  But I didn't, so instead I waited and I paced.

When Bryan got home, we both peeked out our windows to look at the house.  I went on and on about how our view was changing and I didn't like it.  I told Bryan how if that house had been painted red when we bought our house, I might not have even considered buying our house.  RED!  Bryan, they're painting their house red.  Don't they know that red is not a color I like?  I mean, I don't even like our red brick house and want to paint it and here they are painting their wood siding red.  ARGHHH!

Over-dramatic, much?! 

It should have hit me then, but it didn't.  It took a few more weeks as I watched the transformation of this house.  And I thought about the fact that if I wanted to, I could paint my red brick house.  No one could stop me and I doubt our neighbors would be throwing the hissy fit I was.  When we were house hunting, we had several options that we could choose from.  If we wanted to, we could have purchased a new house in a new subdivision with HOA's.  And we'd have to comply with the HOA's guidelines and, of course, so would our neighbors.  And the view from our house wouldn't change.  But we didn't choose a new house in a new subdivision with HOA's because they weren't a right fit for us.  We chose an older house in an older neighborhood because of the warmth the houses and neighborhood provided.  Some of our neighbors have lived in their houses for thirty plus years.  Some were newlyweds when they purchased their home, raised their families in it and now the grand kids visit them in their one and only home. That's comforting to me.  There are stories that can be told in this neighborhood and Bryan and I are hearing these stories and are becoming a part of them.

One such story is the story of this red house.  I learned that the house was previously red, years ago and it was the current home owners who painted it blue and gray.  It stayed like that for years but they wanted to go back to the red.  Maybe they were feeling nostalgic, wanting to remember what it was like years ago when they bought their big red house. I can imagine how that color scheme might give them a sense of comfort. 

And I gain comfort out of having the story to tell of how this house was painted red. I get to share how it was painted by one man and it took him weeks to finish because of the care he took in painting it.

I saw the extremes he had to climb to scrape every nook and cranny of this house.  Then I watched as every part of this house received two coats of paint.  And I get to pass on stories of watching this painting progress and how the red started to grow on me.  I learned the painter had a sense of humor (and the home owners, too).  When getting close to completion, he left the house like this over the weekend:

I might have hollered "Looks good" and give him a big thumbs up when he stepped back to admire his smiley face with evil eyebrows.  I watched as the visiting grandkids ran outside more than once to look at the smiley face on their grandparents house.  I bet they told some stories about it.  

This red house kept growing on me.  I watched as the homeowners had friends and family over when the work was completed and we overheard the compliments they received.  Now, when I look out my window and see this red house, I fell the warm and cozy inside.  I'm so happy that we picked our house and this neighborhood.  I'm reminded of the freedom we have in this country that gives us the right to choose where we want to live.  We get to decide what's best for ourselves and our families.

Our neighborhood is distinctive.  Its architecture is varied: we have craftsmen houses, a Sears catalog house, a farm house, a few mid century modern houses, a couple of duplexes and an apartment complex.  We have houses painted various colors and some are even brick.  And even more so, its residents are varied; we have a lot of dog lovers and a few cat lovers.  We have retired couples and newlyweds.  We have neighbors that have just started a family and we have neighbors whose last child has just moved away.  I wanted to live in a neighborhood that was full of life and individuality.  That's exactly what I got and I'm so happy to call it home.  Who would have thought that this red house would give me the perspective to see what's so easy for me to take for granted.  Today, instead of complaining about all the things wrong with our house, I'm going to appreciate the fact that I have one to call home.  And if I want to, I can paint it any color of the rainbow.