The Wonderful World of Color

For the last two weeks I have been struggling first with the exterior color and then since it started raining I have to scramble to decide on the interior color ASAP.

Choosing color is one of the most deceiving exercise I have to undertake for this project. What you see on a swatch has little bearing on how it's going to look in a room; or worse, how it's going to look on a house. Size does matter. It's all about relation with the surrounding, the effect of the color next to each other, lighting in the house, size of the wall, ceiling, siding, beams.

I have many paintings and since I'm already convinced that there is way too much "wood" in the kitchen, the only natural color selection is white. So great, let's look at white, how about over 200 selections just from one brand. Well, at least I have decided to go with Benjamin Moore. Seems like all architects and designers favor this brand. I'm just glad at least one element is fixed. So what to do with the overwhelming selection of white? Pure white, white with a gray tint, blue tint, yellow tint, warm white, cold white... All I can say is my brain gone white. So I started looking at color names. Cotton balls, snow angels, deep in thought, baby's breadth. I'm so tempted to go with a color with a good name that I like, but seriously, that shouldn't be a criteria. So after days of contemplation, consulting with architect and Mr. Color, and including frequent hang out in the paint store and Orchard Supply Hardware, I have decided to go with 2 whites. One clean white for the ceiling to make it brighter and one warm white for the wall. I finally narrowed it down to Simply White, Super White, White and White Zinfandel for the ceiling. And Cotton Balls, Dune White and Cloud White for the wall. And after yet a couple of days of going back and forth, here are the winners: Super White and Dune White. Cotton Balls was a close second but the contrast is just too minimal to justify using 2 whites.

Whites (just for reference, not a good rendition of the real color....)

To make things slightly more complicated, I want to have a light blue bedroom. I mentioned wanting to find a light blue tiles in some back postings and came out empty handed and had to settle for rustic grey limestones. This is another chance for me to get some blue into my room, an obsession I have for decades. Surprisingly finding this blue is easier than finding the white. From early on I settled for Intuition, Constellation, Heaven on Earth and Blue Stream They are light blue have a grayish tone of different shades. I was going to paint all the walls blue, but then I already ordered blue bedside lights which shouldn't be mounted on another blue wall. So I just ended up having 1 accent blue wall. Here are all the samples, and I did buy 2 of them to paint on the wall and ended up choosing the in between color. The winner is Heaven on Earth.

Blues (depending on your screen and lighting in your room, this probably doesn't even look blue ;-)

The study is full of gray colored shelves and cabinets and I always found it too clinical and cold. So what's better than to add some sunshine into the room ? Yes, yellow, amarillo!! Well, of course like all other colors the amount of yellow is overwhelming, but just like blue, it's easier than white as I only want a warm yellow, and not too bright. This limits the selection to a more manageable size and the candidates are Solieil, Safari, Straw and Country Comfort. Again after sampling the lightest and the darkest, I went with the darkest this time. Country Comfort is the final choice.

Yellows

So here are the selections:

The painters, Enrique, Julio and Juan did a very good job prepping the house that were full of holes, cracks, water damage, and all other issues. It took 2 of them more than 4 days to complete the prep. And another 2 days with all 3 of them to paint. The end result is superb. I have not seen my house in such nice condition.

Above the ledge is ceiling super white, below is the dune white.

¡Muchas gracias a los pintores!

Drainage

Aside from pouring concrete along the badly saturated area, the drainage system along the other side of the house is done. Now the long tubes that were siting in the trench are connected to the down spouts. Looking tucked and cleaned.

There are some more drainage work to be done on the other side in addition to the concrete slab. The kitchen exhaust is also installed all in preparation for the upcoming rain next week.

Actually this whole week I've been struggling with colors for the exterior, but I now have to concentrate on the interior color choice first as no painting outside until the rainy days are over.

Primed, tiled and grouted!

PRIMED

Just a couple of days ago I was still contemplating what to do with the front entry, and what do I get today? It's primed. So from contemplation on Friday:

to installing siding by Sunday:

to primed by Monday:

It basically only took 3 working days! Now the pressure is on to finalize on the color.

TILED

Master bedroom is tiled and shower pan is made. What's missing is the grout. Tiles are limestone, off white and rustic grey.

GROUTED

Guest bathroom is grouted. All done. Moon stone ceramic tiles and porcelain floor tiles. Just noticed that after grouting, it's hard to see the pattern from this picture.

Out with the old, in with the new

Within 48 hours of identifying the rotten sidings, and even before I have a chance to contemplate whether to go with another material, new wood siding has been installed. The carpenter crew works in lightning speed. Now I have new wood siding in practically 2/3 of the house and with new insulation and water proofing sheets.

The most shocking part when I arrived at the house has to be the new siding in the entry way. I just made a page of how the old entry way looks like and was just talking about it to Peter, the next thing I know, it's done. I really need to be extra careful with my contemplations. I guess this time it's fine, it's what I want...

And there is more. Remember the tree that was taken out to deal with water drainage? Now there is a sloped concrete slab directing water away from the house. This is to avoid further cracking on the floor, further sloping of the wall and chimney.

Entry Way

This is an informational page for Jessica. Apparently she has forgotten the exact look of the entry.

What to do with siding here?

I want to cover the very dated glass blocks with the same siding as the rest of the house and remove the frame around them.

Replace the left side of the frame and glass blocks with siding. 

the lower frame is this awkward looking H shaped frame.

However there's no way to use one continuous piece of siding for 2 reasons: not long enough and too expensive to extend from an existing plank that originates from the upper window.

So the other choice is to have the connecting region "taped."

Look at the horizontal bar across.

And the siding is rotten.

The house was power washed as part of the painting preparation. And of course more problems surfaced. Practically the whole west facing side of the house has downright rotten sidings. Part of it is due to the strong afternoon sun. Part of it is due to the broken downspouts spilling water onto the wood planks. On top of that the soil around the house is also over saturated and needs to be redirected.

The other area where the tree was (see previous post) suffers a similar fate and on top of it contributes to the chimney being crooked.

So painting the exterior turns into a siding removal, re-insulate, re-waterproof, plank replacement nightmare. I can just see extra $$$$. And what about the landscaping? Peter wants to pour concrete on the bad area to remove water from the house, but you can't just pour concrete here and there. Now the yard is a concrete jungle mixing with not too appealing plantation. The right thing to do is a complete re-landscape. But seriously, this is getting out of hand.

A side fact, do you know that a wood siding house needs to be painted every five years for good maintenance?
I surely didn't know that...

Onto the exterior

Now that Fall has descended upon us, there is a hurry to finish painting the house before the rainy season begins. Due to decades have passed after the last paint job, the sidings are chipped, splintery, cracked, aged and if you are nice you can call it rustic. But let's not kid ourselves, sidings are in dire need of repair. The most time consuming and tedious part of painting is the amount of prep work. In this case, I would say a good 80% would be spent on prepping and priming the exterior. So on Saturday I drove by the house and it was shocking. I knew that prep work has started, but I didn't know that sanding down the wood makes the exterior looks so run down.

There is also another big shock which is outside the dining room window. Peter ordered a very nice looking tree there chopped. It was such a nice "moment" from the house. I understand that the growth is too close and is obstructing the down spout, but still seeing it chopped is disconcerting.

The sad looking tree stump ;-(

As I mentioned before, there are too many cracks and crooked wall in the house, apparently the main culprit is the amount of retained ground water under and close to the perimeter of the house. This is part of the process of remedying future problem with the foundation.

No inspector but found a hood!

City inspector didn't show up at all. Another round of plumbing inspection was going to happen today but he didn't show up!!! Now the tiles cannot go in yet, at least on the side where the fixtures are. Instead I noticed that the kitchen hood is installed, well, at least partially. Probably it's being left open to wait for inspection.

Such a short "neck." The ceiling is just so low...

3rd Mensiversary

Three months have passed, the project should be at it's 3/5 point, provided there are no further delays due to any unforeseen circumstances... Another inspection is scheduled for tomorrow. In the mean time here is the current status.

Bathrooms:

In-line drain, shower-pan, cement boarded. All ready for inspection.

Started tiling in the guest bathroom.

Floor, floor boards and door casings:

Replace casings on all doors.

Floor boards and casings are from the same flat wood (to be painted as the wall).

Kitchen cabinets:

Mostly installed. Haha. And I thought it would take 5 days back in early September...

Front door:

New casing and glass blocks covered. More wall!!!! yay.

And this is the situation at the 3rd mensiversary.