Building Starts

Right I know this dog really has not got anything to with my blog, building work or renovating a cave, but he was a constant visitor, whilst we were working. He is a timid little chap but as cute as a box of monkeys and not backwards in coming forwards when it came to begging for food. I am sure he has a wonderful home somewhere with one of our neighbours but I was quite taken with him. I have been warned by 'him indoors' that I may not have another dog and more especially I may not have him. I will not sulk, I will just pout for a while.

I was not on site during the initial building phase as I was needed back at home for various reasons, one being work, but we have a very good pictorial account of how work progressed.

Tiles are a big consideration both inside and outside, and I have spent much of this weekend looking at tiles for the various new rooms and some of the existing rooms. The tile in the photograph, I picked out about a month ago for the outside area/terrace, they are non slip and I felt looked quite rustic but very decorative, and in keeping with the natural colours of the surrounding mountain.

Inside tiles had to be picked for the new kitchen and bedrooms and also for the main bathroom. We decided to keep the colours pretty neutral, but trying to keep a warm feeling as there is a lot of white in the cave and house. The kitchen tiles are a warm orange/terracotta with a black/brown fleck in them. The bedroom tiles are slightly lighter and a little more plain, the colour on the tiles is variegated. We picked some mosaic type tiles for the top half of the main bathroom in a warm beige, and for the lower half some small brick type tiles with 6 different coloured bricks to each tile from a pale blonde to a deep terracotta. The second bathroom is truly cave with very rustic walls so I think I am going to take some advice on tiling this room, from someone who knows better.

Window ledges were not something we actually thought about, not sure why, but one of our friends who has been instrumental with the building work, asked what we were doing and suggested marble. I quickly rejected that suggestion as 1) Marble would be very expensive. 2) It did not think that it was in keeping with the cave house. We have opted for a creamy/yellow tile for both the window ledges and also the door steps. This should blend nicely with the very pale beige/cream roof tiles which I feel will blend perfectly with the mountainside above.

We have now found and bought two very plain doors for the kitchen and also for the doorway that will lead from the other restored caves onto the terrace. They needed to be plain and cheap and we have decided that we will daffy them up and stain them so that they blend with the rest of the existing property. Windows had to be wooden and as both the front door and the bar window have internal shutters, we decided that they looked nice and bought the windows to match, again trying to keep everything as much like the existing property as possible.

Footings dug the lads started to put the steel in place and awaited the cement lorry. Work proceeded at some pace, and on the second day, the first line of blocks, were in place. A lot of investigative work needed to be done and one of the most important was to work out the existing water pipe layout, and sewerage. It is a well known fact that certain waste does not run uphill, and to make the mistake in thinking that it does, can be costly and with very unpleasant consequences. Bearing that in mind the drop for the new bathroom was more than crucial. Him indoors and myself, spent a lot of time trying to work out how we were going to achieve this given the current layout, and the best we could come up was putting the toilet on a pedestal and just climbing up to it. Nope that was never going to work……. We are very lucky that our friend worked all of this out for us and plumbing is clearly one of his fortes.

Considering this was the second day the lads were evidently working very hard, but as the footings were still quite weak, there were only so many blocks that could be laid in that day.

The next consideration was moving the water meter as its current location directly where we are building the new kitchen, neither ideal nor I believe allowed. I understand they have to be on an outside wall. Again this was a job for ‘super plumber mate’, this was a task that he found simple, it had baffled the hell out of us. The meter was re-sited on the outside wall of the kitchen.

The next day more blocks were laid and considerations were made for the windows and doors. By the end of day three the vigas were in place for the doors and the windows, and all the plumbing work was in place as was the electric cabling for the kitchen and the bedrooms. Pretty amazing work considering the time scale.

All the doorways were being built from the new bedrooms into the cave rooms. Due to the location of the cave bathroom, we had to make sure that we could have access from both bedrooms and from the cave lounge. I have not quite got my head round curtains instead of doors, and did not much fancy sitting on the throne with just a curtain wafting between me and my privacy. It was decided that a small corridor would have to be built with doors leading from the main bedroom.

The cave lounge has a very high ceiling and the front part of this had to be supported, so this weekend the block work will be constructed internally in readiness for a viga to make sure the weakest part is supported. Also this week some very good friends, and experts in this field are coming to help us and show us how to actually use the yeso correctly. I am sure I will be completely useless as my last attempt with yeso was hardly a success, I just hope they do not laugh at me too much.

The pictures above show all of the new plumbing work that was done for the new cave bathroom. There is still some considerable work to be done on this room, but we are taking the bath from the original bathroom and putting it in the cave bathroom where we will install the shower above it. We acquired a lovely hand basin with vanity unit from my brother in law free of charge, which is the best ever price, and I managed to source a toilet from our local Rastro for €15 so I was well chuffed with that. The toilet is now sitting out in my courtyard ready for transportation, having been cleaned within an inch of its life.

Many other smaller jobs have also been completed and this next week the rush is on to get the floors in, and roof on both the kitchen and the bedrooms. We think that we will be able to complete the external rooms before the end of the week. Well truth be known, we have to as our builders will be gone by the weekend, as they are required on another job! We think that we will be able to finish this once it has got to this stage. It was the main building work that we really needed the help and expertise with.

Next entry will detail the final building work externally, and probably what chaos we numpteys, manage to cause with the rest of the work once the professionals have left us to it!!!!!!!