The Week in Lockdown Easing

[tiggymalvern]

Washington state reopened most of their hiking trails this week. The really popular ones like Rattlesnake Ledge and Wallace Falls are still closed, which is sensible. The weather is gorgeous this weekend!

As I predicted, my local hiking loop was not remotely problematic - even at the lakeshore, there was only one family, unlike Juanita Beach Park which never closed and is a zoo on any sunny day.



Apparently I am way out of shape for hiking up steep hills. Blergh.



The other change to the lockdown restrictions over the last two weeks was that low risk construction work was allowed to resume. Painting the outside of houses may be borderline on the construction side, but it's definitely low risk, so our painters was allowed to resume. (Having said for the last three years, 'We need to get the house repainted' and 'We need to do something about the patio round the back' and then not done it, when we finally pulled our fingers out and got estimates and scheduled both of those things, the plague came and brought everything to a halt. First world problems... We still have no idea when the landscaping part might actually happen, we haven't got a new start date yet.)

Anyway, just over a week ago, people came and pressure washed the house and then sanded and scraped it all, and this week they came and painted. So the house that has been brown since we bought it 15 years ago (photographed in February when we were choosing paint and the weather was grey and the trees bare):



Is now a sort of mossy green (photographed when everything looks much more delightful!)



We wanted a colour that would still blend in with the trees, but we thought brown and brown was a bit too much brown, and brown and green might break it up a bit more.

The other aspect of the house, the one that has all the windows:



Part one of the house plan for the year is a success!

Comments

[tei]

Ooh, your house is such a cool... shape? Idk if that’s the right word haha. But yes, what a difference before and after the pressure wash!

[tiggymalvern]

The house was definitely designed for the location. The side facing the neighbours is all walls and not much windows, while the side facing the trees is all windows and balconies. It's a bit odd-looking, but it works!

[anirrationalseason]

Glad you could get out in that nice weather without it being too crazy!

[tiggymalvern]

I stayed at home over the weekend when I suspect everywhere was busy, I'll head out again today :-)

[jo_lasalle]

Yay for the spruce! I don't think I've seen an outside picture of your house before (or if I did, I don't remember) - it looks so high, no wonder your inside pictures always look so spacious!

[tiggymalvern]

I posted photos of it back when we bought it, but I don't think much since. It looks higher than it is too, because the hillside drops away at the back.

It's as weirdly designed inside as it outside. None of the rooms are individually that big, apart from the master bedroom, which is a decent size. It's a bit of a strange place, but we like it!

[tameiki]

Your front doors and the windows above it look like a face. It's sad when it was brown but now it looks like it's smiling. I want a picture of all sides so I can get a good idea of what the outside of your house looks like. After having seen little bits and pieces I'm all confused. :)

[tiggymalvern]

It's actually really difficult to photograph the back of the house because the hillside drops away behind it and then there are the trees. You can sort of get shots from half way down the path, but as you can start to see in that side picture, there are balconies too, so when you start shooting from a lower angle, they're in the way.

[tiggymalvern]

Okay, so I did the best I can, but mainly what you get to see is the underside of the balcony that wraps all around the back! And trees, they're always in there somewhere.

[tameiki]

I love how the deck wraps around the back! Thank you for taking and sharing these pictures. So much green all over, too.

[bymyverytoes]

That is a much nicer colour :)

[tiggymalvern]

The first evening I went out to look after they'd painted, I went, 'Hmmmm,' because it was so different, but it's grown on me!