Chaux sample, Day 4, and next 3 samples

I have learned a new trick.

I thought I'd just put a link to a Picassa album in here, and I discovered that I can embed an entire slideshow! Here's the link, just in case you can't slow this slideshow down, for the very interested.

You know who you are.

I just had to retreat to the petit salon to click-click-click on the keyboard. Sam is watching "Chuck" and the TV is as distracting to me as my clicking is to him. He should be doing schoolwork before TV...

The morning began chilly today. José started taking down the windows to begin applying the new glazing mastic at 9:15 AM, and the house was cold by 11:30 AM. I retreated then, too, to the petit salon, rather than have my typing fingers turn solidly blue. At 1 PM, I heard a voice call my name. José had been there alone.

"Jacqueline! Pourrais-tu descendre?" Joachim shouted loud enough to wake the polar bears that haven't yet drowned in Palin's rising seas.

"Oui, je pourrais, si je n'étais pas déjà en bas," I called back. [trans: "Yes, I could, if I weren't already downstairs."] I didn't get to hear more Cyranno this afternoon.

The sun had come around, the living room I had to cross had warmed up, and as I followed Joachim out the door, I looked where his finger was pointing. A new chaux sample. My eyes nearly popped out of my head. It was very yellow in the brilliant sunshine. I nearly fell over, from shock and surprise; I hadn't even realized he had arrived, much less mixed more chaux and applied a sample. Georges had arrived, too, and had joined José applying mastic.

Joachim cautioned me that the color would fade, just like the first one did, as the water is absorbed by the back-up material of the wall, the stone, brick and mortar, and the pigment is burned by the lime in the chaux. I asked for a slightly more sober version, and, beaming with pride -- he knew he was about to please me -- he turned to point to the French door.

There was the paint color. A very, very deep eggplant-tinged dark chocolate brown.

He had gotten the mix on the first try. You try that. I had shown him a flower bud I love and talked about dark chocolate, and he came back with the color.

I don't know if he would fly to the US, but it might be worth your while, if you have renovations coming up!

By the end of the afternoon, there were two more color samples on the wall, we had moved the French door with the paint sample to sit in proximity to each, discussed the pros and cons more than the US congress could, and realized that, anyway, we have to wait until the colors fix and consider the red that will make the bands that make a half-timber construction motif.

George and José were with the carpenter yesterday, reviewing the work and the dimensions upon which we had agreed the day before, and the balcony should be here any day now! I have never seen this house with the balcony in place, and I drew up what I want based on the traces of what was left of what once was there. It will be even darker than the windows and doors.

....

The Cornus florida 'Rubra'
or pink-flowering Dogwood

If ever you want a small tree that can be grown as a shrub that is beautiful in the spring when its bracts form dusty-pink flowers and stunning when the light passes through it's deep red leaves in the fall, this is a plant to consider.

The show will soon be over, since it is dropping its leaves, but it is so beautiful. I could spend far too long standing in front of it, watching the light and color shift.

And, the various weeds growing in the reeds of the fish basin are turning a claret-red, setting off the brilliant yellows and golds of the reeds, against the emerald green of the grasses and bamboo.

On a sour note -- I am re-invaded by Poa annua, and Audouin is already fighting my bringing a rototiller and a load of topsoil in to redo the front terrace in the spring. I'll talk to Joachim about that.

Got to run to the store, and I wanted to get to Florosny before they close at 6:30, to pick up the rest of their Coreopsis and Echinea purpurea stock.
....