Happy accident

The house exterior really needed to be painted. The last time I had the entire place painted was probably 19 years ago. When I originally bought it the trim was a dark loden green. I changed to a light sage green and it's been that way every since. Parts of it have been re-done when the additions were added; it was high time for a re-fresh.
I got 4 bids from four different contractors. One from Tim, the contractor who's done a lot of work on the house. He added the front porch and also did the extension in back, added the new master bath, and refurbished the kitchen. He does very good work. The second was from the father of my new yard guy. His name was Miguel. The third was from a woman who has a business in town. And the fourth was from Ken, a new contractor to the area who lives just a few blocks from me. I didn't go with the woman for a lot of reasons, mainly because I didn't click with her personally. Ken was the high bid, Miguel the lowest, and Tim was right in the middle. I liked Ken a lot and he asked to know the low bid and wanted me to give him a chance to match it. I did and he did, so he got the job. I saved about three thousand dollars so it was a good move.
For the new color, I decided to go with a darker teal color, very 'Martha Stewart Lily Pond Lane' I thought. I went with one of the Benjamin Moore colors from their Historical Collection, "Waterbury Green".



I wanted to change things up with the door as well. I went with a grayish blue, very nautical in feeling, "Van Deusen Blue".



I detailed all this in an email to Ken. Done and done. In addition, they were going to power wash all the cedar shake shingles and the back deck. There was extensive mold on the North side of the house which gets no sun and the deck, especially the shower, was black from weathering. I left for the city and gave them almost a week and a half to finish the job.
During the week I was in the city Ken sent me a progress picture of the front bay window. I thought it looked good, the picture was kinda dark but I was most impressed by how good the clean shingles looked.
On the day after the job was to be done I came back out to the house and as I was walking up the street I thought "wow, the new color looks pretty dark". And then I saw the color on the front door and realized that the two colors HAD BEEN SWITCHED. The trim on the house was the dark blue and the door was the teal!
Now, I didn't immediately panic or freak out because, actually, the house looked kind of handsome. It was NEVER a color choice I would have made but the more I stared at it, the more it grew on me. I was supposed to have dinner that night with my friend Ron. I wanted to hear what he had to say also. I got a call from Ken who knew I was coming out to see the house. I told him, obviously, that it was a big surprise and that it was not my original vision but that I needed to sleep on it. He was very good, he accepted all the blame and said he would re-do the job at no cost as it was his mistake. I called him the next morning and said I couldn't make him re-paint the whole house and that I was willing to go with the new color scheme but there was one problem: the French doors in the back of the house couldn't stay white. They were too jarring and didn't go with this new "Ralph Lauren-ey" look. If he would re-paint the doors, the window screens, and fix a couple of rotted corners at the base of the dining room trim, then we could call it a day. He agreed and we're set to finish the job in a couple of week.
Here's the front of the house, I like the way the blue matches the blue of the American flag:





Here's the back. All the French doors need to be painted, as well as the window screens, that white trim is too "stripey":



Here's the front door in the "Waterbury Green" that was supposed to be the trim color. This picture is a little deceiving, the color is not as electric as it looks here. You can see the blue color on the window trim.



The cedar shingles on the North side of the house, no mold!



And the shower looks like the day it was built, almost brand new!

Beach day: a perfect 10

Yesterday was a glorious day at the beach. Warm but not too hot. Breezy but not too cold. The tide was out so there was a wide expanse of beach. And best of all, there was hardly anyone there. I love having the beach all to my self. Here's a panorama shot of the almost cloudless sky. It was days like this that you tell yourself, "This is why I have a house in the Hamptons."

Gibson Beach

And here's a pic of the dunes I posted on IG:

Grillin'

My friend Dean has a lovely house in East Hampton, a real mid-century beauty with a gorgeous pool too. On Saturday he invited me over for a cookout. One of his work friends, Emily, was visiting and in her honor the fare was sausages on the barbie (she's from Australia). Along with several types of delicious links, there was grilled asparagus and grilled zucchini. Everything was delicious, including the company ;)

Lemon loaf

I really like simple loaf cakes. They're usually easy recipes and the amount of cake they make is just the right size to last a handful of days, enough for you not to get bored with eating it.
So this past week I was really hankering for a lemon version. I found a recipe that called for a container of Greek yogurt to make it moist, plus lots of lemon zest and lemon extract to pump up the lemon volume. I didn't get to eat the whole thing as it was really a hostess gift I was bringing to a dinner at my friend Dean's in East Hampton. It was a hit. How could it not be? You cut a big slice and then drizzle it with even more lemon flavor, a glaze made of nothing but 10X and lemon juice. Amazing. Since I only had one slice that night I plan on making another one as soon as I get back out to the house.

Is a puzzlement

I like jigsaw puzzles. But I don't like super hard ones, you know the kind, a repeated pattern that goes on forever or big areas all the same color, and all you can do is hunt and peck your way through trying every piece in every slot...it's takes eons to finish.
I like the kind of puzzle where all the areas of the picture are very distinctive, where you can pick up a piece, look at the box cover, and know exactly where it goes.
That is not the kind of puzzle I'm undertook this week. It's one of the kind I hate, but it's been sitting on the shelf for years, never even been opened, and I thought "How hard could it be?" Answer: VERY.
It's a nice little Norman Rockwell painting of two musicians playing a love song on their instruments while a young girl listens longingly, lost in the reverie of possible romance...or is it a memory of lost love she's recalling?
In any event, the damn thing has been kicking my ass all week. I can only work on it about an hour a day as my neck starts to hurt from looking down at the table for so long. But I will finish it. Then it will go back in the box and up on the shelf never to be solved again!
Here's where I am today, stay tuned for a pic of the final piece.



UPDATE: so i FINALLY finished this damn thing, it took two weeks and really kicked me around the block, but i was determined to get it finished. now it's FINITO!! oh happy day. and like i said before, i will NEVER do this puzzle again!!