Black on black

Our house is dressed for halloween. Including new black gutters.

We're in a bit of a rush to get the stucco on. Both because of the weather and because we've run out of money and our next draw from the construction loan comes when the stucco grey coat is on.
You don't realize how much everything relies on everything else until you try building a house. Before the stucco guys will get to work, the soffits had to be complete and the gutters had to be on and before the gutters could go on the fascia had to be painted.

After finally choosing the right colour it took me 3 weekends to paint all the fascia. Not because I'm that slow but because I could only paint what I could reach so had to wait for the scaffolding to be built for the stucco-ers. Then I had to wait for the water-proof finish on our bedroom deck to dry so I could get up to the roof from a stepladder on the deck.
I spent last weekend overcoming my fear of heights and climbing around on the roof to paint the highest peak of our roof. Scooting up & down the steep parts on your bum sure is a PAIN. Took me a while to pry my underwear....umm, never mind, too much detail.
I came to the conclusion that it's all right that I missed out on that last session of yoga because with all the stretching and contortions I had to do to reach the fascia I'm sure I did every asana ever invented.


I did manage to recruit a couple of helpers one afternoon.

Although, I'd have to say that one of the hardest parts of building a house is getting your weekend labourers out of bed before noon.

And the winner is....

Once we'd decided on a classic black & white colour scheme it was fairly easy choosing the right white. We knew we wanted something soft & creamy, but not too yellow.
We took a sample of our window frames and a piece of our roof to colour pros at Farrow & Ball and Benjamin Moore for their recommendations. They each suggested 2 or 3 whites that would work and 2 of them were almost exactly the same and just what we had in mind so that was settled. (Lancaster Whitewash)

The black took a little more work.

We narrowed down the suggestions from the two pros and some of our picks to four choices, painted swatches & pinned them to the house beside a swath of our chosen white.Picked our fave from those four, Wrought Iron, & Kim painted most of the front fascia boards. No go. On the colour chip it was black but on the house it changed to Navy. Very strange. One down.

Let's give the runner-up a shot: Soot, not as much blue and a little lighter.
Another gallon, another coat on the trim.

Nice, but now it's too light, almost wishy-washy. We need something stronger, darker.

Back to the stage with three new contestants: Soft Black, Black Beauty, Carbon Copy.
I was rooting for the underdog, Carbon Copy - very dark, with more than a touch of purple, but we have to go with the one that works best with all the other elements & Carbon Copy is just a little too purpley & sharp to play nice with the window frames.

So Black Beauty it is. Once on the house it's perfect. Works well with the roof, nice contrast with the windows. It doesn't have any blue tones, or purple, or brown or green.... it's just Black.

Now we have to get a couple of coats on all the fascia boards before the gutters can go on.
Oh, by the way. Our winner, Black Beauty? It wasn't one suggestioned by of either of the colour pros. Was picked by lil' old non-professional me, using the time-tested scientific method of eeny-meeny-miny-mo.

How to tell you're married to an audiophile

Those of you who know Kim won't be surprised at all to hear that even though we don't have proper walls yet...

we do have music....
This is Kim's idea of a portable stereo.
You didn't think he'd be happy with a regular portable stero or i-pod did you?

He's very impressed with the sound from these big babies; these 30-year-old collector's items were apparently rated the best speakers of the 70's.
And the receiver? I think that's the one that Cole & Shea brought home one day as a present for Dad - they found it in someone's garbage on the way home from school. Born treasure-hunters they are.

And yes, Kim does pack this whole system into his car and lug them from home to the new house every time he's working on site.

Did you notice our first piece of furniture in the house is a stand for the stereo?
Figures - no place to sit or set your cup of tea but we have a 'custom-built' stereo stand.