Tuesday, January 4, 2011

House Painting and Happy colours

2010 was the year of exterior house painting, for us anyway.
Between the 8 resident households in our terrace house community, it took a long time , and much agonized deliberation and voting ,to settle on a colour that everyone could live with. In such cases, the tendency is to go toward a selection that will be safe, polite, not cause a stir in the neighbourhood.....
in other words, often a little dull.
Anyway, not so for this house, in our immediate neighbourhood.
It was painted around the same time as ours. Initially, I thought the colour yellow to be too bright, too....yellow, jarring, not in keeping with the facade of the house......I hated it.
But after a little adjustment, I very quickly came to love it.
It is happy and unapologetic, conforms to no polite sensibility, and stands out like a sore thumb on Leavenworth Street. In the nicest possible way. The contrast it provides on a bleak, grey or foggy day, is simply delightful.
I see it on morning doggie walks on the way to the coffee shop. And it makes me smile. Especially so, when serendipitously, this local yellow car is parked in the same line of vision. Perfect. It's almost as if the car owner, and the house owner ( who are most likely not the same person.....or could they be?) have conspired to splash the street with this burst of happy yellow, in perfect co-ordination.


Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Gentle Charms of a Bungalow @ Chateau Marmont

The Chateau Marmont is enjoying renewed attention after being featured in Sofia Coppola's "Somewhere"(2010)
We were fortunate enough to spend four days there, over Christmas, in Bungalow # 82, and it was bliss.
It is preserved in perfect period detail, unflashy but beautiful and elegant, and provided all the right creature comforts.
A peaceful dose of gorgeous old school Hollywood.