The Portico and Loggia...

The more observant readers will have noticed that last weekend the artist's impression in the left side bar changed to an actual photo of the manor. It is so nice to have a photo of the whole project sans construction equipment and scaffolding!

Today we are going to look at the entrance and the loggia. As one pulls up at the foot of the steps they are greeted by this sight...

I think another pair of urns, planted up with a well manicured selection of flowers and ivy would look good between the door frame and the inner columns under the lights.

By night guests are greeted with this sight...

We are very happy with how the doors turned out. The execution of our design, the final colour of the stain, and the placement of the knockers we brought back from London all came together nicely. The wood is yellow cedar, which is a lot harder than the more common red cedar. They had to stain it repeatedly to get it to darken up (compared to the carriage house doors, which are red cedar, and only required the standard 3 coats of stain before they turned a warm dark brown).

The view of all the column capitals and the hanging lantern from the front doors...

By night the lantern shines leaving a wonderful pattern of light across the plaster...

whilst the carriage lights on either side of the door provide additional illumination...

The columns at night...

Around on the northern side of the manor, we have used the same components in the loggia...

We will have to take some more photos at night to show you how wonderful this looks from the cocktail lawn. I will do that next month when I am home again. Please stop by again tomorrow when we share photos of the lakeside folly which Peter and our friend Dirk built.

Beauty is Skin Deep...

We finally chose a colour for the house, and now the the masonry is starting to be plastered over. Below is a picture of the rough primer layer of plaster on the outside of the masonry, ready for the coloured render to go on top. 

Above: West Elevation

Below: The covered Loggia on North Terrace.

The primer is a standard gritty plaster made from a gray cement, whilst the coloured render is made from a white lime based cement. It was important to choose the paint colour for the front walls first, as the plaster render is being tinted to match the paint as closely as possible.

The pros of having the render coloured itself instead of being painted are that it gives the house a more authentic period finish. We will get the benefit of the strong durable reinforced masonry underneath whilst achieving the aesthetic of solid sandstone, albeit skin deep. It will never require painting, and will be flecked with real silica and crush limestone particles to ensure it resembles sandstone as closely as possible. The cons are that if it gets defaced with graffiti One can't just paint over it (hence choosing paint on plaster for the front entrance, but coloured render for the house, which is down a long secluded driveway with security).

There are many different textures and colours achievable with coloured render...

After some good feedback from the previous blog survey, as well as several emails and phone calls from friends, we decided to choose a colour that was very similar to C for the main wall colour, with the window architraves, sofit dentils, wall caps and columns being rendered in a lighter colour, similar to B. The exact colour will not be a perfect match, due to the process of turning the colour into plaster render, but will be very close. 

We wanted those architectural details (the architraves, columns, dentils etc) to standout subtly from the walls, but not have a huge contrast. The top picture of this post shows the effects One can achieve with two tone coloured render. 

Here are some further examples showing the versatility and beauty of coloured render...

Progress Update and Colour Survey...

Things are still on track for a December opening. The piling for the foundations of the Carriage House got under way  last week (at least the drought has had some benefit - that the ground work has not been delayed by rain)...

Above: View of  Carriage House site from roof of green barn.

Below: View of the site from roof of The Manor. 

Peter and I ventured up onto the roof for the first time through the trap door to the large central area where the outside units of the air conditioning systems will be hidden from view.

Above: Peter atop the front gable with Mt Pirongia in the background.

Below: Closer view of Mt Pirongia (west of WBP).

Below: View of me atop the roof from the Bell Lawn.

The flat roof area is quite large entirely suitable for sunbathing a la Brideshead Revisited style...

 Below: The inside units for the air conditioning, which resemble turbo thrusters...

Below: The pad for the Chapel site and the West Colonnade...  

Above: View from the East.

Below: View of the North West corner.

Below: View of the West elevation.

 Above and Below: View from atop the roof of the Bell Lawn and Urn with site for future parterre (mown circle). 

Below: The paint colour choices for the walls. The plaster for the manor, carriage house and chapel is going to be coloured to the same colour as the paint we choose, and will then have sandstone particles mixed with it so that the finished walls resemble sandstone. 

Please vote on the colour you like the most (A-E).