Virginia springtime in May: bluebirds and peonies
While laboring to make the indoors prettier, the outdoors burst into spring beauty.
I love spring here, especially in May.
Although April is pretty, the beautiful floral trees are still set against the winter landscape, whereas May flowering trees are set against a gorgeous backdrop of verdant green.
One day in May while chatting with our neighbor, he invited us to see the baby bluebirds in his bluebird box.
Meanwhile mama bluebird watched from the playscape in our backyard.
I’ve never seen a real bluebird before!
As we walked back to the house, I noticed that one of my peonies had opened! Pink! My favorite color! (see header photo)
Neighborhood like Colonial Williamsburg
My favorite thing about this house is the view from the windows, like the ha-ha wall across the street.
From the first day I saw this neighborhood I exclaimed it was like being in Colonial Williamsburg, from ha-ha walls, to the fencing, to chinoiserie, to architectural elements of the colonial houses.
It was my favorite neighborhood of any we toured, so I was elated when we got the house.
Colorful spring birds play outside our window
From the dining room where I sew, I enjoy watching the colorful array of birds: robins, cardinals, bluejays…and the helicopter birds that hover in the field seeking dinner hidden in the grass.
I watch the squirrels bound through the trees from branch to branch, landing with a bountiful sway each time.
It causes me to lose my breath because they are in the tops of the tallest tree….50 feet high I would guess!
Our squirrels in Texas would be shaking in their cowboy boots if they saw that!
From our back windows we feel like we’re in a tree house.
Touring the outside of our Virginia house in June
We got a colonial, which of course is popular in Virginia, but this neighborhood is one of the few with the nice versions.
Although I love the colonial style, I’m not keen on the siding.
For one, it’s aluminum siding, which means it will be gone with the wind.
For that we paid 4x the price of our two-story Texas house with hardie plank siding, guaranteed for 50 years against wind and insects, because it’s made from cement.
However, it has an appearance of wood, a trickery of the eye due to its faux technique, like Mount Vernon’s siding.
Apparently, no one uses hardie plank on homes in Virginia, only aluminum.
I’m not a fan of the color either, but believe me, I’ve seen worse on our house tours.
My favorite aspects of the architecture
I love the moulding above the windows, and the bump out to the right side, as well as the transom over the door, always allowing in light while we maintain privacy.
These are three of the elements I’ve loved from touring homes in the area, so I’m so glad we landed those lovely features.
However, I have to laugh about a few of the windows, which are more fake than real.
The one above the garage doors is in a dead space.
The one to the side of the garage is to allow daylight into the garage…except I’m used to not having that at all from our Texas house.
The window over the door is in the master closet. So I need a window treatment there all the time so the clothes don’t fade from the sun, and so that we have privacy.
So that’s three windows that don’t make sense from the inside, but do look pretty on the outside.
Surely there’s a way to do colonial style with more practicality than that, because for all those windows, it’s rather dark on that side of the house.
Redesign plans
The door paint has faded so terribly, the previous homeowner got dinged for it on his exit inspection, which we ended up inheriting on the day we signed the papers.
Immediately in the next few days I went to Lowes to find comparable paint chips to bring home to try to match, before painting.
I’d love to paint the door an entirely different color, like blue, but that would have to be passed by the HOA. I’ll ask them about it.
A few hopeful upgrades here, along with the door color, is new lamps and more trees and flowers.
The flowers around our house
These lilies are planted next to the entry.
Well, the kids have outgrown the playscape, so we can sell that.
The bushes under the white bump out window are peonies. These pictures of the house were taken today, but the peonies bloomed in mid-May.
I love the rolling hills here, which I didn’t take the best picture of.
Peonies are my new favorite flower.
I love the space and privacy, all that long row of trees, and the rolling hill effect.
A creek is all the way down at the bottom of the hill.
These lilies are planted under the elm tree.
Pretty bare and nondescript. I’d love to see more trees and floral bushes here.
Patio plans
Although I love that deck above, I’m not keen on the rock garden below.
Hopefully we can get pavers or flagstone to create a nicer patio under the deck. This side of the house gets the morning sun.
It’s wonderful grilling on the deck in the evening, because the sun is setting on the other side.
A finished patio would provide shady sitting in the middle of the day.
I really love these fences that remind me of Colonial Williamsburg.
These lilies and pentas grow under the deck.
That’s an icky ornamental pear tree in the yard. They stink, have nasty thorns, and are actually invaders. Wish it were a better tree.
It’s a really nice big backyard for playing, but we need more trees back here. It’s so plain.
Stay tuned for more updates.
