Facades in Southern Italy

Facades are the outside walls of a house. The main facade is the face of a house. It is its surface - but not superficial. Facades can be a cultural heritage, they can tell us about the period of a house's origin. Its colors and decor are often matching regional habits. A facade can create an identity for a house. And "the ability of the facade to create an identity for the patron lies in the architect's use of certain signs, symbols and materials..." (Burroughs)

I start bold with a photo of Roman palazzi facades and a short thought about the importance of a house's exterior.

Here some more facades:

White columns from the ground to the roof... ah, and a pinkish color I would have liked (sigh), seen at Piazza Navona in Rome.

Another version of coloring a facade: Keep the natural stone of the first (ground) floor or paint it white. Then use only color for the floors above. This is at the Piazza di Trevi in Rome.

Now back to Pizzo: a yellow tone with lots of white columns and lines - but still well balanced.

A house with a colour choice similar to ours. Yellow basic tone, white columns and frames, brown window frames. Again white end-to-end columns.

I think it is obvious what I want to sell... white end-to-end columns. Although we decided about the colours (eggshell white and "731", a kind of peach) for our outside walls, we now need to decide about HOW to color the main facade.

We have been discussing it with the architect briefly before our departure. He thought that it might be too much white for the ground floor. I do not think so if we paint the frames of the two side entrances in "731".

To visualize the subject I painted the facades again (only on paper) with my Chinese brushes and water colors.

This is the architects vision (if I understood right). He rather would use white only to frame the two side entrances and then use white again for the colums and frames on the level above.

In both versions the lowest grey band means that we will stick a stone plate on the wall. Apparently there has been one before. I found that out today... when I asked my husband on the phone what he thinks about my proposals that I emailed to him, the architect and Angelo. I asked if we would leave it grey or colour it in "731", and he told me about a marble stone. Actually it is THE marble (or graphite?) that I was complaining about, the one that looks like a grave stone... He said that it will be treated to have a rough surface. BTW all the window sills and door sills that look to sleek get the same workover to make it look rougher. Then, in maybe 50 years, it will look like the stone that frames the main entrance.

The facade of the seaside seems clear. Same pattern as before.

So I am here to get comments about my proposal, especially from the Italians mentioned above.

Facade Coloring

Our color has no name (I would have choosen something like "Light Bellini"). It has just a number: "731". It is not that much yellow like the colors above it, that my husband prefered and it is a bit more yellowish than the pinkish ones below and on the right, I would have prefered. It is the color that the architetto recommended. A pretty compromise. I think we couldn't go wrong with any of these eight cremy colors. And you know what? On the seaside we painted six out of the eights (decision making process) and they look different! This is because the surface on that side of the house is smoother and the light is never the same.


Click on the picture to enlarge and see the green check marks: this is our color!

And I did some facade coloring today. But just on paper. And as the scanned result did not turn out good enough I used the computer as well. It still has a bit of a dirty look, but it would take me hours to make it nicer. I hope Angelo and the architetto (who might be able to provide a better design? aiuto per favore!) understand my suggestion of how to paint the different areas of the main facade. The sea side facade is easy - same pattern like it is today.


Click on the photo to enlarge.

About Colours

I am back from Italy. And I do not know where to start. To not forget anything I wrote a little journal. It is about 33 pages long. - I could start from the beginnging with the rainy and pretty cold days in the beginning or I could do a summary about all our decisions. But for tonight it is too late, I have to recover from an Air China flight from Rome to Beijing ...


Therefore, for today, I will leave you with two pictures about colours as I have been talking a lot about how to paint the facade and I got a lot of comments from many readers. Above is our Architetto Pino Pitt looking at our house while more colour samples are going to be painted on the facade.

And below you see my husband and the architect discussing about the new eight colour samples. It is a story for itself how we came up with these eight colors. When the painter came with his colour booklet my husband was busy talking with the plumber (il hydraulico) and asked me to choose two more light pinkish tones. As I could not decide myself in three minutes, the architect helped me to go for one more pinkish tones and then choose himself five more tones. Mainly yellow based. I like yellow too, it is warm and sunny. It was funny to see, how my chances for a pink was diminishing.



So can you guess, which colors were my favorites, my husband's and the architect's? The final decision will be posted tomorrow. And it cannot be reconsidered as the architect ordered the colour the same day we made the decision (probably he knows women and their decision making process).

Bella Italia

Bella Italia, we are coming. Tomorrow I am packing, after tomorrow we are flying. It will be a long long trip for a short visit. We are going from Beijing via Frankfurt to Rome and from Rome to Lamezia. Can you believe that there is no Alitalia direct flight from the capital of China to the capital of Bella Italia? (Alitalia flies to Shanghai).

Anyway, in the following days we are getting closer to a decision for the color of the house. In the picture above (I have never seen the house from that perspective, nice! Thank you Angelo!), the two color probes on the right seems almost the same. I think we are going to decide on a lighter yellow (not a lighter pink), maybe...

Until I am posting something from Italy, you can enjoy the following pictures of beautiful houses in Bella Italia and follow the links to find more palazzi and ville. These gorgeous properties are for rent! Imagine you and your friends and family during summer time on the terrace of one of these dream homes. Salute!, Cheers!

Villa in Capri via www.CedricReversade.com (above)

Villa Bocella in Lucca, Toscany via www.Landmark-GmbH.de (above)

A villa in Toscany via www.Topvillas.de (above)

Villa Volpe in Sardinia via www.IndigoLodges.de

When the Plumber ...

The plumber, the milkman and the postman... can bring a housewife into trouble.

In my case it was a plumber.
I was told on a Saturday that the plumber will start on Monday. And I should think about where to position radiators in the living area under the roof (we start at the top floor). That was easy. I had time enough to communicate my storage concept that limits the choice…

So how can a plumber in Italy bring me into trouble in China? Meanwhile Tuesday, it was about a radiator that my husband, Angelo, the architect and the plumber wanted to install in the small bathroom under the roof. - Hey, under the roof, in Southern-Europe? It will never be cold enough to switch on a heater in the loo. And if so, you will be done before the heater is warm! - When I realized that it could be a chic chromed radiator like the one by Villeroy & Boch (left picture) with a second function to hold and warm bath towels, I was persuaded. I made a quick layout of the bathroom and indicated the position of the radiator (of course next to the shower). Only little later, I got a confused reply from Italy, if I have not seen their drawing? Yes sure, and here is my suggestion – as requested.

This was when I found out that the plumber already had done the complete bathroom plumbing on Monday. - ?! – I only had to indicate my preferred place for the radiator.

People always ask me: How can you renovate a house in Italy while living in China? That is so amazing! – Yes, it is, indeed! Now we see how it works.

Luckily the plumbing work somehow corresponded to what I had in mind (there were not that many possibilities to squeeze in a shower, a WC, a bidet and a sink into a room with a large window and two doors).

Both sides, me in China and the palazzo team in Italy, were irritated about the miscommunication. What had happened? Apparently one email attachment was incomplete and I replied late and the palazzo team was fast ... And for them a loo is a loo and not an interior design project. (mmh, I am curious about the comments I am getting now from Italy)

Sigh, yes, we should be on site. I know. And we are going to be there! Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday in China. All Chinese start to escape back to their hometowns starting this weekend. And some will take three weeks off or even longer. A lot of shops and companies close. There is no domestic help in town, no drivers… so we are urged to flee from Beijing as well. Italy in winter is not the first option for a holiday when you live in Asia. But it is for us because we are awaited to indicate positions of electrical plugs and switches to start with – to decide on the color of the facades (yes it is on hold for us) - to get a feeling for the restructured space – and to decide on more plumbing work (this is on hold since the housewife got into trouble).