[ Lost in the Landscape ]

house project update

We’re just about done with the exte­rior paint­ing of the stu­dio. Ear­lier I’d asked peo­ple for their opin­ions for plant-friendly col­ors to use. Town Mouse and Coun­try Mouse each weighed in for lighter, warmer col­ors, partly in reac­tion to my say­ing I was lean­ing towards a dark urban gray. Bar­bara sent this link to a house (here, this first photo–this is not my stu­dio) that had been painted a dark gray that had me kin­duv excited. And Greg offered his idea for a bold color choice: lavender!

I was all set to go with the gray in the end, and then decided that it might be wise to try some big swatches against the gar­den. So I painted a panel with a sam­ple patch of a color called “pen­cil point.” And while I was in the paint aisle I grabbed a cou­ple of lighter col­ors to try for con­trast, a pale faded green called “wasabi pow­der” and a light putty-gray-green called “organic field.” (How’s “organic field” for a color name that exploits today’s eco-consciousness?)

Here’s the final color test of pan­els laid up against the stu­dio behind a bloom­ing camel­lia and some emerg­ing nar­cis­sus. I was hop­ing the plants would pop against the dark gray color, but was dis­ap­pointed that they seemed to recede into the gray dark­ness. The lighter col­ors seemed to show off the plants bet­ter. Even the light­est gray-green didn’t seem to be too harsh in the way plants showed up against it.

I ended up lik­ing them all, and after some con­ver­sa­tions that went on for sev­eral days, John and I decided to use them all. Why choose?

This is the west side, the only side that will have plants against it, a com­bi­na­tion of wasabi pow­der below and organic field above.

This is the south side, pen­cil point below, organic field above.

East side, pen­cil point and organic field. The greens don’t clash so badly in real life as they appear to in this photo taken in the tawny light right after sunrise.

…and finally the north, all organic field. (The door has just been painted gray, not shown here.)

Okay, it’s all almost a bit much. As Tim Gunn has said on Project Run­way, “It’s a whole lotta look.” We’ll live with a while and use one of these col­ors for the fas­cia trim instead of the dark olive we used to tie it together with the main house in front. But there’s still a patio cover to rebuild, which will bring in another oppor­tu­nity to tie things together.

Every time I get over­whelmed with what’s left to do I can pull out one of the early “before” pictures–this one of the south side. I’d call it progress.

And now back to things more botan­i­cal for a piece of trivia. The first photo has a shot of a young bloom­ing Camel­lia sasan­qua ‘Cleopa­tra.’ A lit­tle detail on this species of camel­lia ver­sus the other com­monly grown species, C. japon­ica, has stuck in my brain ever since I read it in Jake Hobson’s Niwaki: Prun­ing, Train­ing and Shap­ing Trees the Japan­ese Way:

The most notice­able dif­fer­ence between the two lies in their flow­ers: C. sasan­qua flow­ers drop petal by petal, while C. Japon­ica flow­ers drop off whole, which–as every Japan­ese per­son will tell you–made them unpop­u­lar among the samu­rai class, who were put off by the sim­i­lar­ity they saw between the flow­ers and their own heads.

December 07 2009 06:30 am | Categories: my garden | Tags: remodeling • studio

6 Responses to “house project update”

1. Town Mouse on 07 Dec 2009 at 8:05 am #

   What fun! I like what you did with the colors.

   As for the samu­rai, did they pre­fer being hacked to death bit by bit?

2. Pomona Belvedere on 08 Dec 2009 at 7:36 pm #

   You were smart to give those col­ors screen tests. I can see why the “urban greys” appealed, but maybe they’re urban for a rea­son, plants don’t seem to like them. I liked your solu­tion of paint­ing the walls dif­fer­ent col­ors! There’s some har­mony among them, it seems to me, and I like it that you’re giv­ing each of the direc­tions a color.

   Thanks for the C. sasan­qua v. C. japon­ica clar­i­fi­ca­tion; I’d just been notic­ing the C. sasan­quas in my quest to know more about camellias.

   (Hm Town Mouse, that is a thought-provoking ques­tion. Maybe they felt it was more genteel.)

3. Barbara E on 09 Dec 2009 at 9:34 pm #

   I love what you are doing. I get excited just see­ing your pic­tures. Keep up the great work and enjoy!

4. ryan on 11 Dec 2009 at 5:31 pm #

   Light gray with a hint of olive is our favorite color to show off plants, pretty close to your wasabi. Wasabi might have been a final­ist for a wall we painted last Jan­u­ary, I think.

5. Greg on 01 Mar 2010 at 7:22 pm #

   Actu­ally, I like all of these color choices, so I’m glad you were able to play them so well in con­cert together! And when you get the laven­dar door as an accent piece, it’ll tie every­thing together! ; )

   Love that tid­bit about the rose heads. I was think­ing I pre­ferred the petal-by-petal con­clu­sion, because I always like the way petals pud­dle on the ground below (cherry trees do it espe­cially delight­fully, I find)but hadn’t con­sid­ered the samu­rai point of view!

6. lostlandscape on 01 Mar 2010 at 8:02 pm #

   Greg, Greg, Greg, still push­ing the laven­der, eh? (I sup­pose it’s bet­ter than push­ing up daisies…)

   I like the story about the petals. Beyond being inter­est­ing I think it talks about a cul­ture really in touch with their plants and their world.

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