Home regrets I’m trying to undo and personal progress!

How’s your summer going? It’s coming to an end for most of the country in terms of temperatures but in Phoenix we have two more months of it…yay…

I did remove the plastic shade cloth off the front of our rose bushes and well, they survived. We had some bushes die due to a clogged water drip, story of our life. But I also heard from a neighbor her dad told her the plastic can make the roses hotter and they can’t breathe! Which makes a lot of sense, so we really just need that shade cloth to block the sun, not cover them. Noted for next year.

This summer has been awful, three rains and that’s it, monsoon is late but I hope it sticks around now that it rained the other night. Anyway, we still have some adventures on the calendar and home projects, and for me, self awareness moments I want to share on the blog today!

I found this $2 art I painted white to look like paper mache!

I’m exercising self control

I went to an estate sale and had two items in my hand and left with nothing! I know it sounds silly but I didn’t really need those items even though I could’ve spent $5.

Sometimes I find myself looking to buy things because I made the trip and that’s just ridiculous! After purging I have realized my needs my wasteful spending and also where I’m at today. Everything feels done in terms of decorating.

We are getting a new front landscaping design

If you’ve been here for a while you’re probably thinking wait, you just did your front yard a few years ago! Yes, we love it, but a large tree by our home has died meaning we may need to plant another tree sooner than later, where the current patio is, and Benjamin wants the front to look even better.

So Kami, owner of Collective Design Build came over, she’s the best she has designed our front yard, kitchen garden and backyard. I highly recommend her and front yard curb appeal is EVERYTHING and also I heard on a podcast one of the best return investments on your property. Even if you aren’t planning on selling (we are staying), it sure is nice to be proud of your curb appeal right?

I’m tired of the black and white homes

Unpopular opinion, I am getting tired of the black and white, but mainly on the non traditional homes, like stucco. In Phoenix it has gotten very out of hand.

I still think of black and white homes as timeless but it has gotten away from that and become a trend and a very bad one as I see homes painted stark white with black pop outs just stick out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood.

I am aware my house is red brick with black and white, and I’ve wanted my house to be those colors before 2020, we just waited a long time because Benjamin didn’t think it was good idea to paint until we expanded the house so I had to live with our ugly blue shade for YEARS.

Anyway, I was driving through a neighborhood and saw a brick house painted white with a black garage door and the next door was the exact same. They looked like sisters. How unoriginal.

So here I am, also looking at my house and I have to tell you something which is really hard to admit when I’ve made an expensive mistake. I regret painting it Alabaster white. I read it’s currently trending white for home colors and I am not thrilled about it, and it was very trendy in 2018 when we expanded our garden room, infant the inside of our home walls is Alabaster, except the garden room is Origami White (I love this color). I don’t regret painting the inside white (yet), but it’s killing me that I think I picked the wrong shade of white and painted my facia black. Ugh. Looks cute from the front but I don’t love it from the back. 

Ugly costs the same as pretty, as color expert Maria Killam said. 

But I do like parts of my home painted white outside, which is quite confusing – so do I or don’t I repaint? 

This fall I do plan to repaint a certain part of the facia board that is black, back to white –

 

OK see the facia there? I want to paint that entire corner and around to the kitchen garden white. The reason I had it painted black was because I thought it had to match all the way around the house. Then it occurred to me that it would look nice all white, kind of stand out on its own and looking more coastal (even though I live in the desert).

I am dreading the idea of even repainting anything though. The cost, the time, even though I have my ow handy Amazon paint sprayer I have yet to take out of the box. Anyway, I’ll probably be fine with it for a while.

 

On a personal note, I just have been feeling so heavy lately. Maui and personal losses and tragedies right now within my circle of friends have just made me feel kinda down internally. It all caught up with me just feeling like I want to stay in pajamas and lay on the couch. 

Sometimes I wonder at 41 (almost 42) if it just gets more sad here on out, the losses we will experience and if we get numb to it. You know I’m not one to get negative on here, but I guess I look to the future and think, how do I get used to this kind of loss and sadness? It’s not something I want to get used to but I know it is life. So thank you for spending a bit of your day with me, and let’s just make the best of what we have until God calls us home!

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Diana Elizabeth Steffen setting the table for her annual garden party

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Diana Elizabeth is an author, photographer, and obsessive thrift shopper. You can typically find her in the garden wrist deep in dirt, at a local estate sale or planning her next creative themed party. She continues to blog weekly.

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