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15_the_circle ([personal profile] 15_the_circle) wrote2005-09-09 08:30 pm
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chameleon cottage

when the first phase of the work concludes, which is to say the point at which I declare victory and give the dedicatory porch party, the cottage will receive its name.  it won't be called chameleon cottage but the name is rather tempting for being so wonderfully evocative of the transformations through which the place has been going. 

earlier in this process, when shingles and layers were coming off, I found that despite having lived in the place for 15 years I didn't really know what colour the cottage was (nor where the walls really were: go ahead and colour me ignorant).  now there's a different kind of uncertainty:  I head out for the office not knowing what colour it will be when I return. 

yesterday was like that, and so was today.  masters at the art of multitasking, the painters seemed to have been somewhere else most of the day but based on cat cam sightings turned up in the afternoon.  things were busy and I didn't have the opportunity to take more than a couple of quick glances, from which it was clear only that workmen were on the property.  with prep and priming still underway that's what I figured they were doing. 

not so!  on coming home, once again at the tail end of daylight, the W and N walls turned out to be sporting the first finish coat.  the place is starting to look even more like the cottage upon which it has been converging for so long. 

yellow front wall
the front wall became yellow

that yellow seems a bit more intense than I had anticipated: with the white trim it puts one in mind of a lollipop or of a lemon chiffon pie (neither confection do I find even remotely appealing).  but I think I'll get used to it.  the white primer on the cat door, cat cam window and shared pediment subdues those features quite nicely. 

stepping back a bit the application of colour does seem to have changed the appearance of the façade. 

coloured façade
façade with the new colours


as the dusk deepened, using a tripod borrowed from The Janus Museum next door I tried to find out what happens to the new colours under such lighting. 

façade dusk
façade at dusk

mostly it makes it clear that the front room will have to recover from the construction before Cottage Living magazine can come for a photo shoot.