Oh No!!

Well it looks like the brown stuff has hit the fan, there were a couple of reports in the local papers this week about the situation between the education department and social security, and following this everything is stopped, there will be no “convocatoria” until the situation resolved, which could take years. We are now at rock bottom, we cannot at present see any way to move forward, the private teaching will give us a little bit of money to help out but not enough to cover everything.

A little bit more

It may not seem like much, but the surround for the back door is now finished. It’s had two coats of paint and looks fantastic. Also the wall has had it’s second coat and is finished as well. With these walls painted, we are hoping that the dampness will not get into the walls as much as in previous years.

A lick of paint

A last we are finally getting to what the whole objective of the work we have been doing is getting some paint on the outside of the house.

There that looks so much better, I must admit seeing the house now with just a single coat of paint on the western wall makes such a difference. But if you look closely you can see that at the far end there is a bit which isn’t done. We haven’t done this bit cause it drops down there and until we get the lower patio and steps done we can’t reach that bit.

And on the other side the wall on the bathroom is done.

Down the drain.

With the lower patio up to a certain level the drains to carry the water from the roof away, hopefully keeping the lower rooms dry so we can use them to store things with out getting damaged. 

First things first, dig a ditch, luckily due to the fact that this is largely infill material this is fairly easy.

Next a little sand to bed the pipe down and enable us to get the correct level. Also running a couple of conduits just in case we ever want to put power or something in the corner of the terrace.

Then re infill and tramp down to cover.  No just the tricky bit at the other end which involves redirecting the exiting drain from the bottom of the ramp so that it flows down and joins this drain. The also involved a bit of hard work chiselling away the rock to get the out flow in the right place and level.

Then just a little infill and a few rocks to make up the wall and job done.

Odds and Ends

One of the problems we have is that we have a large number of different jobs on the go at once so sometimes we end up doing half a dozen different jobs in one day, and today was one of those days.

First to tackle was some more blocks on the lower steps area.

On the back of the steps is going to be a little cupboard which will house the grey water valves and other stuff.

Next  just a little trim of the concrete under the window in the dining room so that we can put on some tiles to make a nice window sill. This is something we overlooked when we built the window in the first place.

Then just a few more bits of rendering on the vent hut

And there all jobs done for today.

Renderware

To finish off the vent hut we just need to put a small coat of render on to provide a good surface to paint and blend into the existing surface.

And with the left over render we can finish off one small area at the front of the house which just needed a little to smooth everything off.

 

with this little but of filling the front is now ready for painting.

Back of the house starting to look good.

Oh FFS

It now seems that there has been a delay in the “convocatoria” and we not will not be going back until October at the earliest. We have had no news until this, both me and Helen are going spare with worry over this if we don’t get back to work we have calculated we can just about survive until Christmas. This is causing big problems, as now both me and Helen are paralysed with worry about what is going to happen to us. Neither of us want to go back to the UK, we would have to leave everything we have here, and end up with nothing.

Foam Party

The normal way round here to stick the top layer of tiles on is to use expanding foam. So after yesterdays abortive attempt due to a failed can of  foam we had a drive out to get another one.

Once the foam had dried we can cut back the excess and render the outside.

On the tiles

with the cement fully dry after a few days, it’s time to tackle the tiles. Laying a bed of cement on which you lay the bottom layer of tiles. It’s a bit of an art to get right as you have to remember that the lowest row of tiles actually goes on the opposite way round to the rest of the tiles.

At present the top row of tiles are just laid on and not stuck down as the can of foam we had was completely solid  and wouldn’t work.

And it was getting dark with possible rain so time to call it a day.

Uncovered

After the few days to dry comes the crucial step of removing the frame work, and exposing the concrete. If the concrete is stuck to firmly to the wood then it could pull away and ruin the finish of the wall.

Thankfully this didn’t happen and we are left with a nice clean pour.

The tiles are just stacked on top for now, unfortunately we haven’t got enough of the reclaimed tiles so we are going to have to use new ones on this hut.

Frame Up

Time to put the top on the vent hut. This entails first building a wooden frame round the out side and inside of the top of the vent hut, this is sloped of the inside to take the racilliones which will provide the base for the roof.

Embedded in the back of the wall will be two pipes which will provide an exhaust, and also an inlet for the air.

Once the frame work is complete it’s time to pour the concrete, once the concrete is up to a level the racilliones need to go on.

And that’s that, just time for a long shot to give some idea of how it would look.

4 years of work

Over the last few days we have slowly been putting on the concrete render of the wall by the entrance.  It has taken a while to get this far. First the roof to the water tank was added.  then we built the wall round the edge. and now all it needs is a lick of paint. The photo below shows how it looked 4 years ago and how it is now.