White strip around all new doors & windows

Deborah noticed the white trim strip–about 1/2″ perpendicular to the plane of the wall running vertically between the stucco and the new doors/windows. For those doors (in the interior courtyard) that owners have chosen to leave white, this isn’t a problem. However, if you chose blue (and for back patio and Juliet, which must be blue), this strip is rather jarring. See photo. The email thread pasted below unfolded on the Community list.

On 9/17/2013 7:07 PM, Deborah Kuchnir Fygenson wrote:
Hello Neighbors, I commented on Harold’s blog regarding the doorstops, but I just realized that many may not follow the blog and its comments, so I wanted to voice my concern here, where more may read and respond: I was shocked to see so much white on the presumably finished doors and windows in Harold’s doorstop images. It seems to be generally the case that wall edges next to some new doors (see doorstoputility.jpg in Harold’s latest post) are being left as white rather than being painted to match the abutting stucco. To me, this looks very bad, especially when the doors and windows are painted to match the original blue color. Not at all what I think was conceived of in the collective decision to match existing as much as possible by painting the doors and windows… Also, in Harold’s doorstop gooseneck images it seems that the gaskets of the new operable windows (which are visible from the outside) are white, making the window seem strangely unfinished! Shouldn’t they be a closer match to the final window trim color (e.g. grey)? I mean, it looks kind of silly to paint the window frames and leave the gaskets a high contrast color? I’ve looked through the forum and e-mails and I don’t believe this particular lack of attention to detail has been discussed on the forum. Would any care to further educate me, or otherwise comment? Respectfully, Deborah
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On Sep 18, 2013, at 9:07 AM, Aranye Fradenburg <lfraden@english.ucsb.edu> wrote:

I believe there has been a little talk about paint inconsistency, but I think the inconsistencies were confined mostly to the tops of doors. Some homeowners had gone ahead and painted them, others wanted clarity with respect to the terms of the contract and how they were being fulfilled. Can’t remember how that ended up–most of us who are still in the thick of things merely pray for painting, period–but this does sound worse than what’s been discussed before. I hope we can do better.
Aranye
962
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Yes, this was also a concern that we expressed, as the 1/4 inch white lines around doors and windows is aesthetically unappealing, and is also inconsistent with the “match existing” emphasis that was heralded. Furthermore, because the painters have to lay on clean lines on either side of the white lines… this results in double the amount of areas that appear very sloppy due to the line being blurred or not in a straight line, and also paint being on the white… if there as simply one line from the stucco color to the door trim, I believe it would look better AND given that the chance for errors decreases by half, it would hopefully result in much great success of having properly painted (e.g. straight) lines.
Shane & Kary
928
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–On 9/18/2013 4:00 PM -0700 Rudolph & Woolley wrote:
I believe that at least some of these white strips (the vertical ones
around the doors) are vinyl that is put in to define the end of the stucco
installation. You can find uninstalled examples of the product currently
in the 950s. It is manufactured by the Vinyl Corp which has a big web site
and makes dozens of products.

their technical specs sheet for these kinds of products (I think) is here:
http://www.vinylcorp.com/catalog/pdfs/12/1-1.pdf

That sheet says that paint adhesion is excellent and no priming is required.

So it seems to me that in principle there is no technical reason not to
paint these strips.

Cheers,
John
942
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–On 9/19/2013 4:34 PM -0700 gail humphreys wrote:
Hi folks:

Some clarifications:

To allow free discussion to flow re the Project without exposing the WCPHOA to possible defamation lawsuits, we decided to make the website accessible to WCP homeowners only.

The board has a significant list of concerns re the work of the architect.

The white stripe around the doors was an oversight by the architect.  (He might argue that it was an intentional attempt to save costs.  We did not request it; he did not ask us.)  The strip is actually metal, and comes from the factory pre-painted.  Painting it  was not written into the Spann contract.    We believe that the architect focussed on the leak-remediation portion of the project—for which we believe he has done an excellent job—and treated casually the aesthetic elements of the Project.  We had a
meeting with him recently.  It was not particularly successful.  While the Board has taken no formal action, I think our feeling is that we have so many challenges before us, that to go forward with litigation to get the architect to pay for the aesthetic oddities just doesn’t make sense.  Our other choice is to pay for the changes ourselves.  Our budget is very tight right now and our future expenditures are not certain.   So, we are fixing small things, like the door stops, and passing on larger things, like the white borders around the doors.  When you paint the inside of your unit, you could do the strips yourself.  We will have the correct paint colors available.  Personal observation:  I no longer see the thin white strip. It just disappears in the whole of the  finished Project.

Hope this helps.
Gail
[note: Gail later sent a correction that the strip is indeed plastic]

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