A Grand Entrance 3 - Paint's on, Gates on, Anybody Home?

The gates have finally been hung. They were a long time in the making but we are pleased with the finished product. The leaves have been gilded after the wrought iron was powder coated, so everything should be well weather proofed.

Probably the last photos we shared of the entrance were almost a year ago, when it looked something like this...

It had only just been rendered, and not painted (as we had not chosen a colour at that stage)...

Below: The finished paint colour, compared to the exterior render for the manor house (plaster tile) and the stone dentils..

But now the walls are almost finished (we just need to have the brass plaques mounted, the carriage lights hung, the lions fixed atop the gate pillars, and the security cameras installed).

Above: One of the two stone lions for atop the gate pillars.

Below: The original design for the gates, showing lights and lions.

Above: The left hand side of the entrance.

Below: Looking back down the drive towards the entrance from the inside.

Below: The right hand half of the entrance before the gates were hung or the pedestrian gate gilded.

Below: The team from Iron Design, Tauranga, who manufactured the gates and hung them.

Some of the interim photos as they were being forged...

 Above and Below: The main scroll for the top, with and without leaves.

 Above and Below: The individually made leaves.

The gate before the leaves were gilded:

The closed gates from the inside...

Views from the outside...  

You may notice in the last shot we are missing 10 buxus plants from the sides of the entrance. Some thief with OCD decided to steal the plants symmetrically from either end during the night! Please leave our hedge alone, so that everyone who drives by can enjoy it. 

Beauty is Skin Deep...

We finally chose a colour for the house, and now the the masonry is starting to be plastered over. Below is a picture of the rough primer layer of plaster on the outside of the masonry, ready for the coloured render to go on top. 

Above: West Elevation

Below: The covered Loggia on North Terrace.

The primer is a standard gritty plaster made from a gray cement, whilst the coloured render is made from a white lime based cement. It was important to choose the paint colour for the front walls first, as the plaster render is being tinted to match the paint as closely as possible.

The pros of having the render coloured itself instead of being painted are that it gives the house a more authentic period finish. We will get the benefit of the strong durable reinforced masonry underneath whilst achieving the aesthetic of solid sandstone, albeit skin deep. It will never require painting, and will be flecked with real silica and crush limestone particles to ensure it resembles sandstone as closely as possible. The cons are that if it gets defaced with graffiti One can't just paint over it (hence choosing paint on plaster for the front entrance, but coloured render for the house, which is down a long secluded driveway with security).

There are many different textures and colours achievable with coloured render...

After some good feedback from the previous blog survey, as well as several emails and phone calls from friends, we decided to choose a colour that was very similar to C for the main wall colour, with the window architraves, sofit dentils, wall caps and columns being rendered in a lighter colour, similar to B. The exact colour will not be a perfect match, due to the process of turning the colour into plaster render, but will be very close. 

We wanted those architectural details (the architraves, columns, dentils etc) to standout subtly from the walls, but not have a huge contrast. The top picture of this post shows the effects One can achieve with two tone coloured render. 

Here are some further examples showing the versatility and beauty of coloured render...