If It Haint Blue, Don't Paint It

"I want the body & trim white, the shutters
that very dark green that's almost black,
the front door mumble-mumble-mumble,
and the porch ceiling painted in
Benjamin Moore's Morning Sky Blue."

(Now why does this remind me of that famous scene

with Myrna Loy choosing colors in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House?)

And so began the painting of That Old House, 8 days ago. 

Update as of Friday --

Sanding and scraping: done!

Priming: pretty much done.

Painting: first coat of white on about 80% of the house.

Which is all pretty exciting, but what tickled me pink today was something very blue. 

Yesterday, the porch ceiling was primed, and looked like this:

 

Today, it looks like this:

It's blue!

Why blue? 

My mother thought all porch ceilings should be blue because of the legend that blue ceilings

fool bugs into thinking that there is just sky -- air -- above the porch, and they don't nest there.

In the South, there's an old custom of painting porch ceilings haint blue to keep away

haints,

or evil spirits -- haints can't cross water, and apparently aren't the brightest bulbs

in the porch lights if they mistake a blue ceiling for a body of water.  Duh.

Third reason?  That's just my personal one.  Blue is pretty, and calm,

looks like the sky (even if you are not a bug) and helps to make a front porch

the perfect spot to relax and have a morning cup of coffee or an evening apertif.

 It's just one coat so far.  But I love it.

It wasn't until after I'd chosen Morning Sky Blue for the porch ceiling that I realized

we'd used that same color out at the beach house for one of the bedrooms upstairs.

Former sewing room at beach house, now a guest room.  In Morning Sky Blue.

 A good color's a good color, you know?

 As for the color of the front door, I'm going to make you wait for that, for a full reveal.

I hope you like it; I've managed to convert my artist daughter Anne to my side.  Kind of.  Almost.

As for using haint blue paint to keep spirits away from

That Old House, we don't need to do that.

As long as they stop stealing our silverware.

More on that in another post. . . .

Have a wonderful weekend!

You won't believe what our calendar looks like for the next week, as we approach

The Wedding Day on June 25th.  That Old House is going to be crawling with workmen,

and Howard and I have our own projects in the works; check back to see if we get it all done!

   It's a good thing we work best under pressure!  -- Cass