Orange Porch

I now have an orange porch.

My house is a bungalow built in 1900 with two bedrooms on the first floor and a non-conforming bedroom in the basement. When I bought this house in 1987 it was one of the few homes in my price range that didn't have a dirt floor in the basement and had a shower. As a matter of fact, I didn't have to do a darn thing to this house except clean it and move in. The basement was fully usable including a laundry room and had plenty of storage space. On top of that, the gorgeous oak trim, oak doors, and French doors hadn't been painted.

Well, there was one thing I had to do. The house was painted mustard yellow with brown trim. A few years after I bought the house I qualified for a neighborhood grant program that reimbursed the homeowner for the cost of paint and supplies. So I chose a pretty blue color with white trim. Not the usual color one associates with an Arts & Crafts style home, but I like it.

Last month Jim L. and Kathi S., friends from Las Vegas, came through on their annual visit to Nebraska to see friends and family. What with their tight schedule and my work schedule we could get together only one Sunday evening for dinner at Tico's. But we had a nice visit. We didn't have to do a lot of catching up due to email and cell phones with national coverage, but it was nice to talk face-to-face. A couple of days later they ran by the house again with a gift for Cassie. They'd found a 3-D artwork package with stencils, paint, sidewalk chalk, and 3-D glasses to view the resulting artwork.

Cassie loves it (and looks adorable in those green glasses) and put it to use right away the next day, and the next day, and the next, and the next. We have the prettiest sidewalk in the neighborhood. She soon ran out of paint so I hit Target and bought her a selection of small bottles of washable paint in 10 bright colors.

I came home from work the following Saturday to find a giant orange design painted on the porch floor.

It never occurred to me to remind Cassie to paint only the sidewalk because she's been so good all these years about doing her artwork only on the cement. But I figure the paint is washable and will, EVENTUALLY, wash off. Plus, this is part and parcel of having kids and will be a great story to add to family lore. As one relative replied when a neighbor couldn't believe they allowed the kids on the lawn, "I'm raising kids, not grass." In that vein I'm not going to blow a gasket over something that can easily be repainted. Though I did email Kathi S. "blaming" her for my orange porch but she felt no remorse at all and indicated she'd do all she could to encourage Cassie's artistic endeavors.

After a month of rain the orange design is still there, though it is beginning to fade. But I haven't the heart to remove it myself.