Getting Ready to Spruce Things Up

Ben and I bought our house around Thanksgiving of 2002. At the time it was in need of some repairs and updates, etc. We've taken care of some of the more pressing issues, but more or less have ignored the sad state of its exterior. This year, in the very near future, we're finally going to paint the house. I'd gladly take on the task myself, but being a huge chicken, I'm hardly prepared to stand atop a fully extended thirty foot ladder to repair water damaged eaves, let alone paint the things. Ben's not too keen on it, either, so we're going to get a couple of estimates and let the professionals handle this one.

This afternoon I got bored and took a photo of the house, planning to doctor it up to get an idea of a color scheme.

Here's our lovely abode as it appears in it's current aesthetically-challenged state:

(You can't really tell from the front how high it really is in the back. The yard slopes to the rear of the property and there's a full basement at ground level in the back.)

And here's my sad, lame, cartoonishly bad attempt to modify things:

It's not the exact shade I want, but as you can plainly see, I'm somewhat deficient in the photo-shopping department.

I emailed my handiwork to Ben for a little feedback, and he immediately asked me to send him the original photo. In a moment he sent me this, plainly indicating that he didn't like my sloppy paint job:

Then I guess he second-guessed his work and sent me a new photo of how he really wants the house to look:

I suppose we would need the guns to protect the pile of money, which we'd really need to afford the liability insurance for the waterslide. Then again, I'm fairly certain there's a town ordinance forbidding that kind of thing.