More Kristipix

Kristi has been busy working for the cause. She's been sending pictures to illustrate her ideas. The concept for this one was wrapping the balcony around, and continuing it further down the house.

Nice railing. Very French. Unfortunately, we feel like the most benefit from an arrangement like this would come if all the side windows were instead doors out onto the balcony. Otherwise, it's a long walk along the house, and then a return journey. So taking that into consideration, Kristi also provided us with this helpful drawing:

Wooden balustrade. Very nice. And I know we suggested this motif ourselves. But somehow, I just don't like it. It's very rough-hewn, and I'm more into the polished-rustic thang. But it's nice to see how this looks. And then, shrinking the balcony more and more, there's this extreme:

Color. Wow. And we like the shutter color. Sadly, our shutters sit outside awaiting further sanding, puttying, insecticidification, and paint. It got suddenly cold outside, and the work as suddenly stopped. But the loss of the wraparound altogether, I'm not sure about. We really like our sunset views, and side access to the kitchen seems like a nice feature. Besides, it's an extra quirk.

So then, in response to our over-veluxification plans for our future roof, Kristi (a rabid anti-veluxite) sent us this:

Dormers instead of skylights. Which would be great. Unfortunately, this gets a little tricky, since everything we have proposed doesn't require any government permission to do. For interior works, the French pretty much leave you alone. But as soon as we want to change the external shape of the building, a heap of paperwork drops out of the sky and lands on our backs. Otherwise, this would be a great idea.

But what I really like most about this last image from Sti is the balustrade railing. It's funny and prescient of her, because after trawling through the net looking at everything iron I could find, the one piece of ironwork that really resonated with both Sarah and I was this:

It's Gaudi. Scribbulously organic. I love it. But of course we'd need to make something more railing-shaped, and then get it made. Ch-ching! And here Kristi goes and just scrawls it on perfectly in photoshop. Sti, you don't happen to know how to weld, do you?

Also, Kristi pointed out that we would want a bathroom closer to the bedrooms upstairs, so now we're considering losing one of those bedrooms in favor of some plumbing.

See? We're listening.

Anyway, we are hoping that Sarah's sister's boyfriend (who is an engineer/surveyor guy) is right, and that we can repair, rather than replace the balcony. That'll save lotsa cash, and free us up to focus on amelioration, which is preferable to replacement.

But for the moment, we are in a comfortable lull. We're awaiting the blueprints from our visit with the architect, the holidays are upon us, it's gorgeous outside, and everything is very contenting.

2006 is just around the corner. Resolutions? Don't even start. We have a pile of work ahead of us, a whole heap of accomplishment to accomplish. The house, the garden, and then other projects as well.

I remember one day way out in the middle of the Tenere dessert with Sarah. We had gotten out of the LandCruiser for the tenth time that day to help dig the wheels out of the sand. We'd dig with our hands, place the tolles under them to give them a little traction for a few meters, and then watch the car sink itself in once more. Over and over until we could get onto some firmer sand. The sky was deep blue. The vista was nothing but dunes. And amid all this, Sarah turned to me and said, "It's certainly not dull and boring."

Neither is our life here. It's all very much fun.