The Portico and Loggia...

The more observant readers will have noticed that last weekend the artist's impression in the left side bar changed to an actual photo of the manor. It is so nice to have a photo of the whole project sans construction equipment and scaffolding!

Today we are going to look at the entrance and the loggia. As one pulls up at the foot of the steps they are greeted by this sight...

I think another pair of urns, planted up with a well manicured selection of flowers and ivy would look good between the door frame and the inner columns under the lights.

By night guests are greeted with this sight...

We are very happy with how the doors turned out. The execution of our design, the final colour of the stain, and the placement of the knockers we brought back from London all came together nicely. The wood is yellow cedar, which is a lot harder than the more common red cedar. They had to stain it repeatedly to get it to darken up (compared to the carriage house doors, which are red cedar, and only required the standard 3 coats of stain before they turned a warm dark brown).

The view of all the column capitals and the hanging lantern from the front doors...

By night the lantern shines leaving a wonderful pattern of light across the plaster...

whilst the carriage lights on either side of the door provide additional illumination...

The columns at night...

Around on the northern side of the manor, we have used the same components in the loggia...

We will have to take some more photos at night to show you how wonderful this looks from the cocktail lawn. I will do that next month when I am home again. Please stop by again tomorrow when we share photos of the lakeside folly which Peter and our friend Dirk built.