Metcalfe Manor - Outdoor Pictures

The Painted Lady of Pepperell
76 Groton Street, Pepperell, Masachusetts

NOTE:The pictures have been placed behind links for individual viewing and faster loading of this web page.

Before the painting in May of 1998, the house was gray, white, and "Pepto pink". Here is what it looked like from a Real Estate Agency photograph when the leaves were off the trees.

Real Estate Photo 1997

The following pictures may give you the same feeling poor black-and-white Dorothy Gale felt when she stepped into the Land of Oz and experienced color for the first time in her life.

The house now sports 5 colors: pecos (a dusty plum color for the main body), light (coral) pink for the trim, a dark green and a light green for accents, and black (for the shutters and window sashes).

This picture is taken from the front corner of the property and shows the main house, middle house, and barn facade. Part of the driveway is in the foreground. A brick walkway leads you to the farmer's porch, or the front porch. Welcome to Metcalfe Manor!

The front facade picture shows the living room bay window and front entrance.

Ken Edwards (my uncle) of Iowa Park, Texas, made the Metcalfe Manor sign for the house. We painted in the house colors and gold lettering. The sign post was there from the previous owner, who hung a law practice shingle. Here I am with the sign.

The main entrance is not used as often as the entrance to the kitchen. In fact, we recently removed some storm doors (which had a broken handle anyway) to show off the double wooden doors behind. The picture below shows the scrollwork detail on the front porch.

The following picture highlights the detail of the front doors. The little white knob on the right door is an antique door bell. You pull the knob and a striker hits a metal bell on the other side.

The front of the house is illuminated at night whenever I remember to put on the spot lights.

The picture to the right shows the stencil we chose to place in the boxes below the walk-out bay windows and in boxes on the front doors. The rose is done using the colors of the house, maintaining the continuity and projecting the theme of flora on the property.

The farmer's porch enters into the kitchen and is used the most. The porch is shaded most of the day.

The picture behind the next link shows some of the detail work done to the scrollwork accents. The edges were done in the plum and the faces were done in the lighter green. Note also the pinstrip down the corner of each of the posts.

As you enter the driveway, directly in front of you is a trellis archway (one of two on the property) and a picket fence where most of our roses are displayed. Visitors can choose to approach the house through this and over mulch-covered ground with Johnny Jumpups sprouting everywhere. Or, they can come up the red brick walkway.

As the sun sets, it splashes its light directly on the face of the barn. (The front of the house gets dappled sunlight through the leaves of an enormous maple tree.) The picture in the link shows the back view of the barn on a foggy morning.

This picture shows the side of the barn in yet a different light. A perspective view from the back corner of the property shows the garden in the foreground and the house taking up the frame in the background. The property slopes from front to back.

This is the approach to the kitchen entrance.

This is another look at the front bay window and the side bay windows.

The next picture shows early-Spring view of the fruit and vegetable garden. Raised beds for vegetables were constructed of landscape timbers (and 2x8s, although it is hard to see those boxes in the picture). In between the raised beds, we laid down weed block and covered the pathways with crushed stone. You can see that the small building in the foreground hasn't been painted in the colors of the house yet. We have converted what was once a chicken coop into a bath house. The bath house opens into the pool area where a large in-ground swimming pool is surrounded by flower and rock gardens. We have a Leaf Man overlooking the pool garden for us.

The pool garden is an enclave of flowers, tucked away behind the house at the low point of the yard. It provides privacy from street noise, and although not completely private from neighbors, it is a delightful retreat. I have pieced two pictures together to give you an overview. The bush in the foreground has since been moved to another spot in the yard. This is a late summer photograph because the lily garden on the left is brown. The following picture will show you what some of our lilies look like. (The yellow flower in the background is dill.)

This angel watches over one of our gardens.

Here are a bunch of flowers called Candy Tuft. A chicken hutch is converted into floral service for Impatiens.

A picture of the sign from the front yard.

Updated: April 13, 2009