Colour Dilemma - External Colour Selection

Just when we thought that we had reached the end of the "design and selection" tunnel, we have reached one more stumbling point - we have failed developer approval because we chose one colour for our front façade:

“A minimum of two materials or colours must be used in the primary street elevation (excludes windows and garage doors). “

To be honest, I do not see why the garage cannot be taken into account. Garage doors offer a significant contribution to a given house’s street appeal. This is especially so in those cases where it is painted in a feature colour or is constructed using a feature (expensive) material.



Our current external colour selection.

I can understand the developer not wanting the estate to appear boring, but I think they need to be careful, too many colours and materials can easily look tacky and become out dated.

Do you think our front facade is boring? I would have termed it conservative, perhaps a little ‘traditional' compared to some of the modern houses with lots of small square windows and architectural pillars. However you describe it, I just hope it does not become old fashioned.


If you were us, and were forced to add an additional colour to the front rendering of our house, what would you paint and what colour would you use? I have included a picture of our front elevation which has the different renderable areas marked, so that we are on the same page regarding terminology.


The various sections of our front elevation



So far, we have received the following suggestions (thankyou) from the lovely people at the homeone forum and Decorating Forum. What do you think?



Big shout out to mimi23, Anna and kdgirl. Thankyou for your suggestions!

Design Dilemma - Ensuite Shower Screen

When we designed our ensuite, we forgot to ask one important question. What is the maximum width for a shower screen? According to our builder, the widest shower screen they will install is 1500mm. We wanted one that was 1910mm wide.

Our original bathroom design

What do you do when you are short 410mm of glass? Our builder suggested building a small wall/pillar. This pillar could go in one of three places: on the open end of the recess, in the middle, or on the right. My preference was to either hide it away in a corner or make a feature out of it.

I have been modelling our house using SweetHome3D. This is one of those times when having a 3D model really helps. Below are the three options for the placement of the pillar. Which do you prefer?

As suggested by our builder, having the pillar on the left
will provide additional support for the screen.

We could try to hide the pillar, by placing it on the right hand side.
This does mean that the shower screen will need some form of
roof/wall support on the open end.

Placing the pillar in the middle of the shower screen,
would provide a place to mount the bath filler.

Ventura has given us the option to install our own shower screen after handover. I have spoken to a few companies who install shower screens and opinions appear to be split as to whether a shower screen this big could/should be installed.

Who would have thought that 40cm of glass would be so troublesome? I must say thank you to everyone on the Homeone forum who has already offered an opinion and tried to help.


Update (20/07/2011): We have decided to accept a credit for the framed shower screen provided by Ventura. We will be installing our own frameless/semi-frameless shower screen after handover. Fingers crossed everything goes according to plan!