Work On The Cave House Begins

It feels like and eternity since we got the keys for the cave house, and at one point we thought that work was never going to start. We had planned everything to the enth degree but with hindsight, nothing ever goes entirely to plan so many of the plans we had to start with had to be modified or scrapped completely.

The first work that needed to be done was upgrading the electrics, they were in a very sorry state and certainly would not be adequate for normal family use. An electrician was employed and he fitted a fuse box and meter. If he ever comes back we would like to pay him !!!! The next very important job was to replace the ageing gas boiler which had been situated in the entrance hall and without any ventilation. Not only illegal, but also very dangerous. We fitted a large electric boiler and whilst a little pricey to run, there would always be a guarantee of hot water.

We spent a week sorting out the internal electrics, fitting new sockets and light switches, and then digging out various little alcoves that had remained hidden. This was quite a task as in some of the rooms our large wheelbarrow would not go through the door, so a great deal of it had to be loaded into the large black builder’s buckets and carried to the wheelbarrow. I have to confess that week I was entirely convinced that I was going to die of backache and I spent the following week shuffling around like a hobbit.

One fun job, oh boy was it fun, was applying Yeso to one of the cupboards/alcoves we had exposed. Now a very good friend and avid reader of this blog, provided details on his own blog about yeso and how to mix it. This has more or less become a bible, as without it I would have had many bucket shaped doorstops. The only thing that was omitted from these wonderful instructions, was an idiots guide as to how to apply it. Now whilst this might seem obvious to a casual reader, those who have done any cave renovation will know that there is a technique involved, and clearly I had not found it.

I was told, but by whom, god knows, that the flicking technique was the best for the type of work that I was going to be doing, one would have thought that ‘flicking’ could only mean one thing. How wrong can you be!

I did manage to get the yeso onto the very rough walls but found that this had to be done very, very quickly or the yeso would start to stiffen, which more than once caused me to panic and dive in with my hands to try and cram as much of this yeso into the nooks as I could before it became unworkable.

I can offer some handy tips on the application of yeso but as yet, not the technique, I await expert instruction this week.

My top tips for applying yeso are as follows:

Body armour has to be the ultimate in protection, but failing that extreme then a good boiler suit or some nasty clothes that you would not even want to be buried in would suffice.

Goggles, and absolute must, I can tell you from experience when you flick the yeso it tends to flick back and is not too fussy about which orifice it lands in. Eyes seem to be a favourite target and let me tell you that is about as nasty as being poked in the eye with a sharp stick. Mouth seems another desired target and whist this does not actually hurt, this yeso is never going to be edible. Nose, another target which does actually cause pain, not at the time but later, like when it has set. I found myself in the bath that evening, and having submerged myself under the water to try and remove the yeso from my hair (more on that in a minute). I held my nose as I was coming back out of the water only to find that I had in fact yeso’d the inside of my nose. Stunning trick but not wholly recommended unless you are very weird and like to see what the inside of your nose looks like……..yew !

Face mask for all of the above reasons.

Head covering. If you are a bloke I would suggest a head shave, this had to be a lot easier than trying to cover it. Women if you can hack it do the same, if not make sure there is not a strand of hair showing, if there is the yeso will find it. No brush on this planet with remove it, just patience and a strong pair of nails, or in extreme case a hairdresser.

Footwear, whilst not actually critical to the application of yeso, if you do happen to stand in the wet stuff like I did, it is very important that you can remove it quickly and that the treads in the footwear are not too deep. Ignoring all of the above will result in the purchase of new footwear.

I know it sounds as though I am a little obsessed with yeso , but one has to try and work with it to understand that it is rather like some alien being which has a mind of it’s own and there is no predictable outcome. Let me just finish with the yeso thing by saying I now have a very healthy respect for it, however it continues to abuse me and treat me like a bitch. I have started therapy and refuse to let the yeso demonise me.

The next big task involved bringing in the big boys, the demolition of the animal pens and the garden. My only one regret was that I was not able to save the almond and the olive tree, but the digger driver said that at this time of the year it would have been impossible. Digger driver turned up early on the Monday morning and after a short conversation began work. In five hours both the garden and the animal sheds were gone and the front of the unreformed caves had been made straight, in readiness for the building work. Now the digger driver was to return the next day with his bobcat to start digging a tunnel from our soon to be pantry and off this tunnel he was going to dig another two rooms.

Now remember when I said that we had planned all of this to the enth degree, but sometimes things had to be changed or modified or tossed onto the scrap heap of ideas? Well this was one such situation. The digger driver did not appear the next day so we plodded on with the re wiring of the cave and other such things. Toward the end of that day we asked our very good friend and Spanish speaker if she would give him a ring and find out what was happening. It turned out that he had broken his bobcat and would not be able to do anything until the following week. This was not good news as we had the builders arriving the following Monday and the footings still had to be dug or they could not even start work. Bearing in mind that I had a team of 3 workers who had been spirited away from the Murcia region and were being paid by the day irrespective of whether they worked or not. Head scratchy time. In the end the digger driver did turn up Monday afternoon and dug the footings, he also dug up a waste pipe from the existing kitchen, despite being shown where it was. I guess this has to be one of the hazards.

So we were ready to start the building work….whoo hoo!

The above picture has nothing at all to do with any of the building work this was just me posing for the camera and trying to make it look like I was doing something constructive. The big giveaway is the plug for this wonderous power tool being in my pocket

Next up, what the builders did.