Housework
Monday, April 18th, 2011Both buildings on the quinta are being worked on at the moment. A while ago we fitted locally-made chestnut doors and windows to the smaller building, and today it got a new roof.
Archive for the ‘Building renovation’ Category
Balcony and trellis
Monday, April 11th, 2011We’ve started work on the larger building again. Or, to be more precise, a local team of joiners has started work. We’d planned on doing this with help from local friends, but reassessed when their own building project took off and we got to scratching our heads over where we were going to source sufficient sweet chestnut poles for the job. I’ve been buying some from the Presidente of the local junta (and the previous owner of this quinta) who has a pile of old, well-seasoned chestnut vigas that have been lying about for the best part of the last decade, but he doesn’t have enough, or enough of the right size, for what I had in mind. In the end, it was going to be quicker and far more economical to call in the team, since the team come complete with the wood.
Lowering poles
Monday, April 4th, 2011With all this raising, there had to be some lowering. Balance … Specifically, the old electricity pole right by the larger of the two buildings on the quinta. It, and another 2 poles on terraces further down the quinta, used to carry the power supply to the village above us. The power supply now follows a different route and the poles are obsolete. Obsolete and in the way.
Floorless
Friday, November 5th, 2010Building work on the quinta has been progressing really well lately, despite us beginning to have to watch the weather forecast to plan what we do from day to day. Rain is forecast for next week, so today we removed one of the floors to clean and preserve the chestnut beams so we’ll have something we can get on with under cover next week.
No floor!
Today’s progress
Saturday, October 23rd, 2010
Log store floor
Friday, October 22nd, 2010Yesterday the delivery of sand and cement we’d been waiting for arrived, so this morning we got started at 8:30am laying the lower slab for the log store.
While I fetched and carried buckets of water, Ema took charge of the cement mixer.
Log store progress
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010I was hoping to have shots of the progress on the second log shed that would show us much further on by now, but as usual we’re waiting on deliveries of more materials. Promised Monday and as of today (Wednesday), still not here. Sigh!
Log store number 2
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010Having put the finishing touches to log store number 1 yesterday, today we got started on another one!
With all our heating and cooking to be fueled by timber from our woods, one thing we can’t have enough of is space to store firewood and keep it well aired and dry, so part of the renovations to the two buildings on the quinta include provision for a decent amount of log storage adjacent to each.
Still more roof
Thursday, August 26th, 2010This week the roof is really starting to look like a roof from the outside as well as the inside. Monday we laid the insulation (50mm cork) on top of the boards of maritime pine, followed by the waterproof breathable membrane. No sooner had that gone down than the weather decided to test it out. We haven’t had a drop of rain since we took the roof off back at the beginning of July (well, apart from a 15-minute shower of dirt) and it waited until the very moment we got the waterproofing on. Considerate weather! Damn! When you’ve lived in Scotland for more than half your life, that’s a real novelty.
Bread oven/rocket stove/masonry stove construction workshop?
Sunday, August 22nd, 2010This post is a preliminary enquiry to see if there is likely to be enough local interest to make it worthwhile planning and running this construction as a series of workshops. The construction will be going ahead anyway. (If you’re interested, please leave a comment below rather than responding on eg. Facebook. Comments on this page won’t get lost or superceded by more recent news.)
