Our new house's front exterior wall has a brick (thin brick)
facade and was pinkish. It really stood out, and I didn't like it so we
had our contractor paint it. We studied color choices for a while; though some
people suggested white (the house is white), we wanted to go for a stone look so
we chose gray. Okaaay. So many shades of gray: I really liked Stone Fireplace,
but the consensus was that it was too dark, so we looked at a number of lighter
shades of gray and decided on Harp Strings. It looks good--certainly an improvement--though it's possible that we could have gone a little darker. However, it was so
close to the line that it might have been too dark, so we're satisfied
with this. (Often you can't tell until it's done, and we could have spent a lot
of time experimenting...) Oh, he prepped it with tsp 'cause it was a little chalky.
The tree trimmers (two men) took down a small tree and pruned back another one in the back yard the other day, and the next day they tackled the big oak out
front; since it was such a big project there were four guys and at least three
chain saws. The guy who went up the ladder put on a harness
for safety; then he began cutting off big branches--some of them trunk size--and dropping them. Some of
them really went THUNK when they hit the ground; then the other guys sawed them
up and piled everything on a long flatbed trailer. You wouldn't think that all
of that would fit, but they trampled it down periodically; the big pieces
helped weigh it down too. I watched from a front window--very impressive; and
most of the men were older and they carried lots of big pieces of trunk to the
trailer. They did a good job of cleaning up too--branches of all sizes--and they
also raked.
I got grass seed (Bahia) yesterday and started planting it 'cause
we have mostly weeds out front and in some places out back. I hope it rains on
it.