Neighborhood Inspiration

[jesse_the_k]

Two streets away from us is this mid-1940s detached two-story house with bay window and one-car garage. Wooden siding is painted flat green, decorative shutters are lighter green-gray, yellow-gray limestone veneer on first floor.

Good news: the brutal cold has passed.
Bad news: it’s warm enough for the snow to get dirty.
Who knows: did my blog layout inspire these folks to repaint their house, or did their house inspire my blog layout?

How’s by you? What inspires your DW layout? Is your snow getting dirty or all melted?

Comments

[sovay]

Who knows: did my blog layout inspire these folks to repaint their house, or did their house inspire my blog layout?

Hee. They match great.

(My DW layout is as close as possible to my old LJ layout and I plan never to change it unless it becomes unreadable.)

[jesse_the_k]

Known quantities are reassuring in these turbulent times.

[seascribble]

I want wooden siding so bad. Allegedly what's under the warped blue vinyl is clapboard, but I'm too scared to find out.

[jesse_the_k]

When was your place built?

My family lived near Plymouth Bay in Massachusetts. Boy howdy do the sea breezes deteriorate wood siding. Untreated cedar shakes on the walls and shingles on the roof last around 25 years.

[seascribble]

1908, I think. It used to be a post office. I dunno about the condition of the wood under there now; I know the giant logs holding up the floor are on their way out. D:

[jesse_the_k]

Oh no!

(Is the wild real estate bubble reaching all the way to your shore?)

[seascribble]

Oh yes. No so much in Cape Breton, in terms of things going wildly over asking, but things sell quick and for more than they usually would. I was lucky to get this place squared away in June, I suppose.

[anais_pf]

And are those stingrays?

[bibliofile]

Crossed with horseshoe crabs, maybe?

(Now I'm going to have a hard time not seeing cutouts as sea creatures)

[jesse_the_k]

A good question! The marine theme hardly fits in with Midwestern middle class aspirations.

Will report back results of a reverse image search.

[mdlbear]

Pretty close match!

My layout was simply the first one I ran across that

• was a single column (I should probably change the margins, which are a bit wide),
• had colors (including contrast) that were easy on the eyes, and easy to read,
• did not override my browser's choice of default fonts.

[jesse_the_k]

Three excellent principles to follow! (But I hope your house has more than a single column, or a single hall :p)

[julian]

We're in the "solid lumps of dirty snow detritus" stage, with most of it melted otherwise, though with occasional bits of ice hanging about. No flowers yet, though. (On the other hand, I did see cormorants down at the Reservoir, couple days ago. They're not fans of cold.)

[jesse_the_k]

Yee ha! Cormorants!

Yesterday I was thrilled to hear the rusty-hinge cry from a pair of sandhill cranes heading back into their summer stomping grounds. It might be the pair that patrol a city golf course.

I've seen Vs of geese, although they're mainly headed east. MyGuy has reported the turkey vultures are massing nearby.

[julian]

I've never seen a turkey vulture. (As far as I know. It does, however, look as if I might be able to now that I'm paying attention.)

Nor a sandhill crane, which is less likely but not impossible. (Which I totally did not know, so I'm glad to have checked.)

And, in More Spring news, we're getting red-winged blackbirds back! Which is good, as I love them immoderately.

[yourlibrarian]

Our snow is all melted.

Funny you should mention layouts because I was thinking the other day that I haven't changed mine since the early days of my arriving on DW! Whereas while I was on LJ I changed, if not the layout then the header a few times a year. I should probably redo it this year. I think the big difference is that back then there were a number of people who made and offered banners. Now one hardly sees them. I ended up making several for myself.

[jesse_the_k]

I love playing around with new layouts, but I lack the CSS knowledge to actually understand what the differences are. All my modifications are thanks to the

1. inspect element
2. copy adjacent code
3. quack its meaning
4. modify
5. repeat

I finally wised up and created a secondary journal. I cross post all my entries there and I can experiment all I want before migrating any "improvements" here.

[agoodwinsmith]

And of course, whether practical or not, I want the chimbley to be the same stone as the stone on the front of the house.

We live in this secret pocket where we get the first snow, and the last snow, and extra snow, right now all heaped in crusty melting heaps, but not actually showing any bare ground yet. I was feeling pretty bummed until I went for a drive with my Mom to Kamloops the past Monday, and the ground all the way was mostly bare of snow, with lots of brown and dust - much more springy.

I picked a look when I got here and haven't looked back (nyuk nyuk nyuk).

[jesse_the_k]

I admire your sharp eye re: masonry matching. Especially since you've just crossed the baby-old threshold. (Waves hello from that finish line 180 days ago.)

What a magic pocket! Does it also harbor nifty flora/fauna/creepy crawlies?

You have a very soothing layout!

[j00j]

I picked my layout on the basis of liking the color green and readability for me (it would need some tweaks for maximum wcag compliance).
Snow status: Full melt in the sunniest spots, still melting in the big driveway piles and shade. Some of the dirtiest road snow has melted and many icy hazards are gone, but it's patchy. The creek is high! This is the most snow we've had in years here in PA.

[jesse_the_k]

Your style captures lots of greens (which makes your default icon pop even more).

Ugh, that soup to nuts moment of all the snow disconcerts me because more snow or more melt are equally probable.

I remember some epic flooding when I lived in Princeton. Hope your toes stay dry.

[peachpai]

The snow is nearly all gone here and I am very happy about that since it means I'll be able to get into the garden soon!

[jesse_the_k]

Do you start seeds indoor or is the growing season long enough you can begin in the dirt?

[peachpai]

A mix of both - some stuff works well direct seeding and other stuff I start indoors. Last week I started tomatoes, peppers, and onions indoors. This week or next, weather permitting, I'm hoping to get some early spring greens going outdoors.

[pauraque]

I made my DW layout to be roughly similar to my LJ layout, back when I moved over here, and I never had any reason to change it. It's all shades of brown, which I find soothing. I grew up in a place where the landscape was mostly brown all summer, so it feels homey.

Snow is a little dirty but nowhere close to melting.

[jesse_the_k]

Ohhhh, your DW style is so soothing!

I'd be chuffed but the muted browns and tans have lowering my blood pressure below chuffable.

Good news is you're sure to get several more storms before Spring seriously starts happening.

[vintagewitch]

Snow mostly melted for now, but I live in MN so I'm fully anticipating that the weather will swing back to winter. I don't make my own DW layout! I have ideas for what I'd like to see, but for now I'm comfy using a premade one

[jesse_the_k]

Oh I didn't make mine either -- I just selected one of the ~200 available and then tweaked the colors a little bit. And changed the indent and color for <blockquote>. And the highlight for links. And the size of the .... if I knew how to actually make one, I'd never post content at all.

You have a very lovely lively style -- the spinning icons at the top are as gratifying to click as bubblewrap.

[starshipfox]

Just popping in to say I LOVE the sky in that picture: the contrast of branches and bright sky is so striking and the light is gorgeous. We don't have any snow here and I really appreciate the way snow on the ground (however dirty) changes the light.

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks -- skies here are always just right.

[esteefee]

that's kinda eerie. nice paint job, tho.

my blog layout is inspired by Atlantis and readability (for me lol).

we have no snow here. if it snows in San Francisco you know the apocalypse is nigh.

Waves hello!

[jesse_the_k]

I’m gonna be That Girl who contradicts the native expert with random snow facts sourced from decade-old websites.

Re: Waves hello!

[esteefee]

okay then. 1976 will be the last one considering the trend. Lava bombs in our future!