Finally, a Street . . . and Is Paint Pure?

The street improvement permit was issued and things are starting to move again. Within a few days a street inspector came for a pre-construction inspection, workers tore it up, and it was re-compacted and tested by the City.This is the street after it's been re-compacted. Even though there was a street there it has to be re-done in order to direct water run-off towards the other side and to city sewers. The drains on the lot are also directed this way.

Is paint "real"? In the original building plans all the eaves, like the three pictured below, were not detailed. I wanted strong horizontal banding to emphasize the Casa's sloping lines. I also wanted materials to be as "pure" and maintenance free as possible. That's why the walls, made of unstained stucco, will never have to be painted ("Just hose it down Fred!"). Going into construction Mateo thought the eaves would be re-surfaced so he used framing wood, as opposed to finished wood. Now that it's finished, it looks, well, unfinished. So last week he suggested painting it to give it a clean, smooth look. I agreed, until I saw a house in the neighborhood that I'd seen a hundred times before.

This house below has stained it's eaves (made out of framing wood) that matches the wood door, exactly as I had thought of doing. It also shows the unevenness and imperfections of the wood, but I'm more attracted by the match-up than the lack of smoothness (it looks worse in person). And I'm put-out by the idea that painting it just for evenness sake would be disrespectful. So I disagreed with myself. And for the record, I'm told painting and stain require equal amounts of maintenance.