August 2013
The Ecostruction team have finished for a month now. It is obvious someone has trained them well - the site is tidied and everything inside has been swept clean. Today was the first time I could walk around the rooms and get a feel of the place. Even though the internal partition walls aren't up - I feel really pleased with the volumes, views and room arrangement.
Although this photo was taken standing in what will be the guest bedroom and a partition wall will divide the space - it looks OK. It will be OK!
I love this view/photo. Again - I'm happy with the volumes and proportions. The big lower window (from the living room) really makes you feel like you are outside.
This photo was taken standing in the entrance of my future bedroom looking across the living and dining rooms. All this space will remain open. Although the house is meant to be small (down-sized) - I wanted the feeling of open space.
So - now that the builders are off site for a month I can get on with a few projects of my own! Originally I had planned to have this bank between the lawn and the drive as a wider gentle slope to be able to run the lawn mower along. And only building a retainer wall lower down the drive where the height difference is about 1.8m. However - it would be much easier if the stone wall continues around the full corner up to this point here where is 'vanishes'. This would make the lawn easier to mow (wall top being level with the lawn) and the drive easier to keep clear of weeds/grass encroaching from the lawn.
Over the first 2 days of August I worked on digging the foundations for the wall. Ruddy hard work with the temperatures well into the 30s! Also the drive had been really well compacted by the lorries. At least this means I don't need to dig deep to find good hard ground!
Over the next week I will have to take the trailer to get around 100 blocks for the first stage (3 trips), then some ballast for the foundations and then a load of sharp sand for the block work. We will see where I am next Saturday!
Friday 8th August evening after quite a hard week. My plans all went by the board with the car playing up from the beginning of the week and finally breaking down on Wednesday. So - I had to have the blocks and sand delivered by lorry and cycled the 20km to Ansouis and back every day!
In spite of this I managed to lay some 130 blocks.
The
digging out by the bulldozer exposed the old wall that had been buried
for probably more than 200 years. I managed to dig out the stones to
use for facing the new wall. Looking at this photo you wouldn't think I
had finally extracted quite an impressive pile of stone. Unfortunately
you can't see how large they are!
Just got a call from Karine looking for a quiet couple days in the countryside (she lives with her husband Bruno in Marseille). I've known Karine since she was about 18 when she came to work in the lab in Luminy. She since became 'Mum' - and now 'Grand-mother'! But she still doesn't look a day over 25! I'm not sure she knew what she was in for when I suggested she come and help me with 'a wall' ! What ever she put a brave face on it and worked amazingly well!!!
Here are the results of our 2 or 3 days work!!! Hard, heavy work (all concrete and cement mixed by hand) but so satisfying! For some reason the top doesn't look flat in the photo - but it is!
Still having to cycle to the house and back (42km) or one way if I get a lift. Sadly the car seems to have given up totally now. Time to try and find a replacement.
31st August 116 days to Christmas!
It
has been a couple weeks since I last up-dated the 'blog' - but believe
me I have been working on the project. Since the above photo I have now
finished the wall around the 'corner' to where it stops and will only
be a rendered beyond up to the future workshop and car-port. To end the
stones tidily I decided to put in a buttress of blocks. Looks fine.
Then I finished the top of the wall cementing in the stones to give a
solid structure and neat appearance.
I'll have to wait to see what render the house will be done in and therefore the workshop before I render the wall. It might have been nicer to finish the entire length in stonework - but far too much work, too few stones and it would have made the drive a bit tight passing the tree on the right for the lorries.
So to the next project. By the pond an old path leads up to the old house. The boundary of my land is this wall on the right. So I decided this would make the ideal position for a little shed for garden tools and the lawn-mower.
The path is sloping up so I needed to dig out the crazy-paving Bernhard and I had put down 9 years ago. Sadly - like most of our work - it was made to be there for the next hundred years! The concrete underneath was about 2 inches (5cm) thick! Very very hard work even with serious crow-bars! Finally managed to break-up and lift out a 2.5m stretch.
All this only to find an absolute mat of bamboo roots! Digging out these alone took a full day. The only good thing was that I could work in the cool shade. Eventually I managed to dig back level from the front and 1.2m wide. Then I went wrong!!! I had thought that it would be a good idea to use the remaining 15cm concrete blocks for the structure. But after shuttering up and pouring in the foundations (re-inforced) and raising it 2 runs I decided that I was going to have too small a shed for all the effort (and cost). So I bravely knocked out my day's work and went back to the drawing board!
I've decided to widen the shed by about 40 cm, with concrete blocks for the front and back short wall sections (to give a solid support for the roof and a tidy finish) and then only put in corrugated metal sheets on the bamboo side. That side is inaccessible and the sheeting would not be more than adequate as a weather barrier. Also - I have enough blocks for this design - and already have the metal sheeting!
Another little project. I dug out the old metal bed I had found on the site 10 years ago. I am either going to re-model it to be a settee or - more likely cut it into 2 (cutting either side of the central crest thing) and make 2 wide- seats with the bed ends as seat backs!
No comments:
Post a Comment