Colour Impact

It's quiet in garden blogging land; many a blog has a blog break at the mo and I quite understand that as I'm very busy too. So busy in fact that I hardly have time to blog, let alone visit other blogs. And commenting? Well, not so much!

What I've been doing lately? Well, there is the making of the new border of course but I've also been busy with something else. Remember that old shed of mine that I revamped last year with a lick of paint and turned it from a
humble shed
into a lovely garden cottage.

It's amazing what a lick of paint will do, isn't it?

This year I've been trying something similar with my house. I live in a rather unprepossessing bungalow and I'm trying my best to make it look better, both inside and out.
This is how the bungalow looked when I bought it. Not the stuff that dreams are made of, is it? But it had, to coin a phrase, potential. ;-)

Slowly but surely over the years the house and garden were transformed. The ugly concrete patio was demolished, the windows replaced by either new double glazed windows or french doors. The woodwork was painted white, ochre yellow and dark blue and a new wooden deck was made.
The new decking and the new windows of the living room.

But oh that brown, everything was brown both inside and out. I've nothing against brown but this was simply too much, way too much of a muchness, something had to be done and it was.
White garden furniture and accessories were added and things were looking much more cheerful. In my neck of the woods we have dull grey weather for most of the year so one has to do something to brighten the place up a bit.

This is why I haven't been blogging much lately:
Before
After

Let there be colour! And there was and it was good. Then, for fun, a bit of jazzing up and hey presto, finished!
I'm very happy with the way my house is looking now, gone is all that dull brick and brown-y browness.
Before
After

Yellow is such a sunny colour and we need it here with the non-summer we've been having this year (rain, rain, rain). I had to buy the paint in Denmark as they do not sell it in my country. So to Denmark I went (last year) where they have tons of the stuff as they like it so very much. If you want to know why they like yellow so much in Denmark, take a good look at the next pick, it will explain everything.
Here, in the Netherlands, most houses are brick coloured or, if the house owners are real dare devils, then the house could be a trail blazing and very in your face (not!) magnolia. :-)
So my house in ochre yellow comes as rather a shock to many a Dutch person. It's the only house in my village that has this colour. Yay me!

And if you are thinking that I've gone yellow mad you are probably right cause lookee here;
even Tweety, the canary, is a lovely ochre yellow, a perfect match with its birdcage. What can I say? I just love colour coordination, and I love yellow, .... and painting. Now where are the kittycats? Here, kitty, kitty............... ;-)


NB No animals were harmed in the making of this post. Tweety is not a real bird and of course I would never dream of painting my cats yellow, ochre or otherwise, as that would be soooooooo wrong!

copyright 2008: Y.E.W. Heuzen

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.
James Dent, Gardens Illustrated, August 2006