I have been waiting impatiently to begin posting our trials of choosing the finer details that will eventually go into The Little Barn. Last week I began with this post on the overall look of what we will be striving for. I suppose that I could say it’s a mixture between reclaimed, vintage, modern, and rustic. I received such positive feedback from all of you. Even though I don’t always respond to comments, I do receive and reread them over and over again. Really, you guys are the best. Thank you so much.

You may be thinking, “What’s with the title, Emory?” Well I always try to come up with witty titles for my posts. You know, to draw you in but to make it lighthearted as well. I didn’t just want to call it “The Little Barn: Windows” or “Dust in the Window” or anything else along those lines (although that latter one is kind of clever). When I used to do the baby talk program at the library, we had one rhyme that went,

Wind, oh wind, oh wind, I say,

What are you blowing away today?

Scarves, oh scarves, oh scarves, I say,

I’m blowing my scarves away today.

For some reason it just stuck with me, and it’s all I could think about when I was trying to come up with a line that had “window” in it. So I changed “wind, oh” to “window.” Hey, that’s what a four-year bachelor degree with Honours will get you.

Ok, now to discuss these windows. This has been one of the more taxing decisions in building our house so far, and one that I have been thinking about for nearly two months now. Before Little Green was even on the market, I constantly thought about the possible colour coordinations of our roof and windows. Because we chose a white metal roof for LG, I wanted to go with a different colour. The plan all along was to go with metal clad wood windows for The Little Barn, and so any roof colour was an option. When we found out that we would be saving thousands of dollars by choosing vinyl windows, we began to consider going down that route instead. However, what stood in our way was that:

1. I really, really did not want white windows.

2. Going with coloured vinyl windows was not really an option since any scratches would reveal the white underneath.

3. The only other base colour besides white was more of a beige/sandstone tone and our contractor told us that it probably wouldn’t look attractive.

I went back to considering metal clad wood, but was completely lost, once again, as to the colour of the roof. A few days ago, our contractor came over and told me that we had only one day to decide what colour of windows, roof, soffit, facia, and eaves we wanted since he wanted to order it all the next day. I nearly lost it. With Geoffrey’s help, I got him to draw up some sketches of colour options. I went back our consideration of vinyl windows since they did offer us more flexibility with cost and the fact that we could match our roof to our windows.

Here were our best options:

1. White vinyl windows. White metal roof.

2. Red vinyl windows. Red metal roof.

3. White vinyl windows. Grey metal roof.

4. Beige vinyl windows. Brown metal roof.

While we did choose a colour combination in the end, I would love to hear your thoughts on which one you would have chosen. I will reveal what we picked next week!

<3

Emory