For better or worse we’ve picked out a color scheme for the cabin, shown on the bottom board of the picture. It will be
- Antique copper (the light brown) for most of the walls and columns,
- Barbados sand (the off white) for the tongue-and-groove on the underside of the roof,
- Bittersweet chocolate (the dark brown) for the chimney and for a two-foot-wide band around the bottom of the walls, and
- Terra cotta, the color of the window and door trim.
We spent some time exploring colors and have no idea how they will look. For one thing paint colors are notoriously inconsistent. Just because you like the color in one can doesn’t mean you can get it again. Also it’s had to tell how a big expanse of color will look even though you like a smaller sample. But we decided long ago we would give it our best shot and either we will like the results or we will tune it out. It’s a variation of the old saying, “Play your part well and let go of the results.” If only all cases were as easy as this one.
What do you think?
VERRRRY GOOD choice.
I reserve my comment till I see the finished product! My imagination does not allow me to do so just yet.
Bikehikebabe,
They do look nice on that little board. We’ll just have to see what they look like on the house. We will also have to see how different the colors will be. They say you’re supposed buy all the paint you need for a project and mix it all in a big container so all the paint is the same. No claim of consistent colors, so we have been warned!
Rummuser,
We’ll just have to see. Just another part of the adventure.
Could you paint a large piece of paper and then put it up to see how it looks?
My first wife and I found we just had to paint a decent area of wall to see how it would look when we were painting a room.
I simply adore your choices. Can’t wait to see. This will be one beautiful home!
Tip: take your ‘color board’ with you when you pick out flowers, ornamental grasses, lawn furniture, or other exterior goodies. Notice that colors opposite the ones you’ve chosen will compliment, and enhance the natural environment first. 🙂
Hi Dixie, There won’t be any flowers, ornamental grasses or lawn furniture. They won’t even be living there. This is just Andy’s “project”. (I’m pretending I’m Jean answering this.)
Hi bikehikebabe: thanks and wow! It’s certainly a very nice project. Well the tip still works for other things! dix
Little samples don’t tell the whole story. Our cabin in the wilderness was a greyest green that matched the very tall fir & spruce trees. We decided to liven it a little & match the grass. Now it’s a very bright kelly green. Not what we wanted. Put a red bow on it & you have CHRISTMAS.
Evan.
That’s a great idea. bikehikebabe and her husband could have avoided their Christmas cabin if they had tried it.
We’ll just go with the colors we picked out. We had tried two other browns from the limited selection of chips our local store had. When we painted them on a board they both had too much red to contrast with the terra cotta. So I went on the Benjamin Moore website and looked for a slightly more brown variation of the one we liked the best. That’s where we found the antique brown. The site said it went well with the bittersweet chocolate, which Andy loves and we had already chosen, and the barbados sand. That plus the fact we like the samples of the paint itself cinched it for us. We figure even if the colors vary there’s a good chance they will still look well together. Anyway, at this point we’re mainly curious.
Dixie,
Yes, the land is Andy’s playground, where he plows the road in the winter, digs out culverts in the rainy season, plants and nurtures fruit trees, takes long walks, etc. After the fire I said he could spend the insurance money anyway he wanted. The only conditions were (1) that he took plenty of pictures for Kaitlin and my blog posts, and (2) that he be happy.
I figured I would merrily continue on my projects down here. Instead he asked me to work with the architect to come up with a cabin that I might use too. It took lot of time last fall and winter, but now I’m mostly figuring out how to make my projects portable enough to go up there some. My iPad was the first step. I’m still thinking about the rest of it.
If this works here’s the approximate floor plan. The windows and doors aren’t quite right, but close enough.
bikehikebabe,
Thanks for the story about your cabin. It’s priceless. Even though we won’t have fancy landscaping or lawn furniture we will get a redwood picnic table to replace the one Andy built years ago.
“Evan, That’s a great idea. bikehikebabe and her husband could have avoided their Christmas cabin if they had tried it.”
Wasn’t practical for us to try it. 80 miles (round trip) to go get the paint, on sale that week -5 gal. container. 220 miles (round trip) to drive to the cabin to start painting it. The grey-green was stain, which is nicer on wood but didn’t last long.
Only us chickens & birds see it. Or a lost snowmobiler. The 1st winter we went there, we couldn’t find our cabin. The road had 8 ft. of snow. We found another cabin & slept with the mice.