Ramping Up To Home Improvement

We're finally back to working on the house! Not that I left it completely untouched over the summer months, mind you. Our main focus has been on vacation/camping and the garden for the last couple of months. Now, as my hubbie puts it so nicely, comes the time of year when being house-bound and bored out of our skulls leads to actual restoration progress. We've been getting busy on the exterior to try and finish before winter really hits. Also, the fireplace is starting to shape up, and plans for hearth tiling are in the works. Curtains are going up, albeit slowly, and the guest room looks less and less dreary. I'll be making quite a few posts in the next few days to make up for the long summer hiatus, so stay tuned in!

More Pictures #2

Stuck at home with a fluish child today, so I'm posting more of the house pics.
Exterior of rear dormer. Lots of painting and flashing to do here, neat shingle pattern though.
Exterior of sun porch off kitchen. That covered entry bothers me for some weird reason. I'll have to see if it looks better with paint, or else just replace it outright.
Close-up of the lovely paint job on the sun porch. Obviously the door to the walk-out basement will have to be replaced.
Rear yard view from the house. Nice size for us, with a little grooming. The dead tree will be first to go.
Close-up of the garage, showing why the tree is a problem. Waaay too close to the garage, and definitely causing some damage. We'll need to do some mortarwork and probably replace the roof.

THIS, or THIS?

We've been scrambling to come up with an exterior paint scheme, just in case VA requires the house to be painted. I don't want to have it painted & then get there and have to strip it all off again before I paint. So a general direction sort of thing would be nice, in case they need to put up 1 or 2 colors. We do plan on eventually going with a 5-color scheme, but are still working that out. So for now, here are the candidates:

my favorites, from Olympic(Lowes)


R's favorites, also from Olympic, and Laura Ashley Home(Lowes) oop, sorry about the rotation!

And remember, this is all in addition to the gray asphalt roof and red brick. Please tell us which one you like better!