YOUR BEAUTIFUL HOME

527 E. Augusta Ave., Spokane

In a neighborhood of large, old homes, Marilyn Barnes’ 1905 house stands out for its color – Arabian plum.

“In a crayon box, it would be equivalent to a red-violet,” she says.

Years ago her sister sent her a picture of a bungalow house in a magazine that was painted that color. So in the late 1980s, she had a paint store mix it up for her.

There wasn’t a name for the shade of purple, until the man who painted her house said it reminded him of time he’d spent in the Middle East. “When he saw it he said, ‘I think they ought to call this Arabian plum,’ because it was the color of some of the wonderful plums he’d had,” Marilyn says.

She and her family moved to the Augusta Avenue home in 1976 and added to the family room, remodeled the attic and converted the cement front patio to a greenhouse Marilyn usually accesses by climbing through her living room window. She enjoys the addition year round.

“What’s kind of fun is, on a winter day, when it’s snowing and it’s cold outside, I have a chair in my greenhouse and I sit out there and read.”