Over the past year, Tache has repeatedly told me he doesn’t care what color we paint the house, but his actions would suggest he very much does care when he says ‘no’ to every color I show him. While I was in Michigan last summer, I made my family slow down the car countless times so I could snap a picture of a “Third Coast” beach house I liked. I texted a wide array of options to Tache to see if he liked any of them. NOPE. Too dark. Too bright. Too moody. Too ugly. And a couple months ago — almost an entire year later — Meg and I flew to NC to see our parents. Much to their dismay, Tache and I still had not painted our house, which meant another vacation of house color deliberation. There wasn’t much slowing down this time around, so the pictures I sent Tache were a little blurry. Not a problem! He could still tell he didn’t like any of them.

Our house has been dried-in for over a year now. The scaffolding has been set up that entire time, just waiting for us to decide on a paint color and finish the outside. My family, friends, and coworkers alike have heard our struggle of deciding on a color. Tache wants the house to match the surroundings of the PNW. I want something bold that screams look at our amazing house! The best we could agree to was blue or green. I kept this in mind when I went to the paint store last month to order 15 gallons of exterior house paint. I called Tache before I placed the order to ask if he wanted to see what I had selected. “Honestly, I don’t care.” he told me. Mm-hmm. I’ve heard that before.

Tache usually doesn’t have a solid idea what his day will look like when he wakes up, which makes it hard for him to tell me his plans. He likes to be footloose and fancy-free until he makes up his mind, which generally happens after he’s had coffee and sussed out his options. Either way, it wasn’t until I saw him pulling the paint buckets out of the garage last week that I knew he had decided it was time to paint the house.

Before I get to the painting though, I should mention Tache has been busy with other tasks this past month. He hung the soffits, which is the material that covers the underside of the roof. I had never heard of soffits before, but they look great! He put up all the battens with locally-milled cedar, giving the house nice depth and texture. He also went out to the coast and bought cedar shingles from the Quileute Tribe that are absolutely gorgeous as an accent under our eaves.