Wednesday 22 April 2015

Thinking about the outside

OK, my house is here, it is unpacked, a broken door is being replaced and a missing hinge sent  for.  Today I have to make myself come to some firm decisions as to how I want the finished house to look.

I find this really, really difficult.  Every one of the three projects I have done so far I have had moments of thinking I should have done this or that but it is too late now.  Once constructed it is very hard to cut out an extra door or window - I know, I did it!

So this last-a-lifetime project has to have a good dose of thinking about.

The outside has had three different finishes in my imagination so far but I am pretty sure I am back with plan A.  I will share the thinking with you in case you are at the start of your Georgian house or maybe considering doing one.

remove one floor and this is my house


The construction and details on this real life house are pretty much a match to my house and hopefully this is how mine will look when finished.

It is a pretty standard Georgian town-house built any time around 1800 which works very well for my story.  By 1820 it is slightly old-fashioned which again is fine as my house is in Lyme Regis and the three sisters who live there are not venturing beyond local society.  Indeed it is easy to imagine that, as in this photo, their neighbour may very well have had their house modernised with stucco over the brickwork but they have not.

The real life reason to choose this finish rather than the more obvious Regency white stucco with incised mock stones on the lower floor is, very simply, I wasn't sure I would make a great job of that and I could see a lot of potential difficulties with it.  Any added surface adds to the weight of the doors which is never a good thing.  How and when to add trims onto that sort of surface is a concern.  Would I be able to manage the technique well enough for me?  I have used Richard Stacey bricks a couple of times and really like using them and the effect they give so I am going with the tried and trusted.  The roof too will be done in his slates; again I have used them before and like the end result.

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