In the summer of 1999 we decided to repaint the exterior. Tired of the drab gray, black, and white scheme, we wanted to change the color. We wished that the house had not been painted, and that the original bricks were still visible. After doing some research, we found that painting the brick had likely damaged it, and that if we removed the paint, the bricks would likely dissolve. There was a chance that we could seal the brick, but we decided that the cost and effort involved were not worth it. We still wanted the house to be similar to the brick color, however, so we tested several colors, until we found one that seemed the closest to the color of the few exposed bricks we could see. We got all of the paint for the exterior mixed, rented a sprayer, and began painting the house. Since brick is a natural substance, however, and has variations in color, we quickly found that the color we had chosen was VERY ORANGE! Since we'd already bought all of the paint for the house, we decided to just go with it. We rented a sprayer, so we were able to spray the entire exterior in 1 day. Since it was done by hand, the trim took several weeks to complete!
Here's Lara in the photo below, scraping loose paint in preparation:
The south side of the house, partially done:
Curtis' father, Charles came to help us paint, which was very much appreciated, and the kids enjoyed climbing the scaffolding--with an adult close by for supervision :-)
We had seen an old house in Provo that had a similar color of brick, with a dark green trim, so we decided to paint ours similarly. Many homes in the Victorian era had were unique and colorful. Because of this, we chose to add some colorful details to the trim, which also helped draw attention to the beautiful details. We had admired the paint scheme which had been used on the historic building which was updated for a Pier 49 Pizza restaurant down the street, so we decided to borrow the red, blue, and gold as the accent colors on the exterior trim. That was a lot of precise detail to add with small brushes!
A few years later, in 2002, we decided that it was time for a new roof. We liked the look and durability of the metal roofs we saw around town, and determined that the dark green would look best with the house and trim colors. We learned a lot of things during that project, like the fact that a metal roof is fast and easy on a basic straight roof, but on a roof with lots of gables and valleys, it's a nightmare! What would have taken a weekend on a normal "ranch"-style house, or in asphalt shingles on any house, took the entire summer of Curtis working nearly every day. In October, he was racing against the expected snow to finish the last few sections. We were again grateful for Charles' help, as he put in many hours assisting, (even if his perfectionist nature hindered progress at times) . He and Curtis nearly fell of the roof a few times, thanks to the slick metal. One day Charles slipped down between the rafters, cracking a rib and coming within a few inches of putting his behind through the ceiling into the living room! Thankfully, he caught himself and eventually recovered from the cracked rib, though it did take a few weeks to heal. While the roof was off, Curtis also braved a severe thunderstorm, darkness, and a very slippery wet roof, to try to cover the open parts where the water was pouring in and beginning to damage the plaster on the ceilings. It was tense, but gratefully, he was successful and was not injured in the process, though he was soaked through!
So, now we had an orange house, with a green roof and trim. Sound like any squash you know? Perhaps a pumpkin?!! We began referring affectionately to our house as "The Pumpkin House" after that, especially when we were trying to explain to someone where we lived. It was something people remembered, and considering that we hosted many Halloween parties, seemed fitting.
Sometime later we hosted a Pi(e) Day party on March 14, 3/14, where several families each brought a pie and we all shared them. We realized that our house number is 314. If you insert a decimal point between the 3 and 1, you have the well-known rounded version of Pi: 3.14! We're a family of geeks, and most of the members of our family LOVE pumpkin pie, so with a simple switch of one word, Pumpkin Pie, becomes Pumpkin Pi, and that's how our house became the Pumpkin Pi House!
