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The Doors. Yes!

This week the joiner, who must be the most in-demand individual on the island, turn up and fit the doors. He arrived on Tuesday and finished on Friday Morning - so over three days to complete. But what an excellent job. They open, they close, they slide with a nice feel. And I got solid wood all around. Super quality.

The bathroom pocket door slides easy and takes up no space. The wardrobe doors are similarly well constructed sliding types - and they are very large giving great access to the walk-in wardrobe (well, I designed it a bit 'large' shall we say!).

The bedroom door, as all the doors, is solid wood (not panel) with a wooden frame. The wood matches that of the main vaulted ceiling and beams. Very attractive.

The door to the bedroom, at the bottom of the stairs, can open fully, so that the open plan feel (and air through the house with the bedroom patio doors open) can still be enjoyed.

The original plan called for louvered doors to the under-stairs storage space, but when they arrived they where solid. At this point I was not going to kick up a fuss. Plus they look really cool. Ditto with the Wardrobe doors, as these where supposed to be mirror or louvre, depending on availability; solid arrived. Now having been in the house for a while and experienced the conditions (dust from the Sahara and high humidity in the cooler months); yes, solid doors are the traditional and best choice.

The stairs to the storage area: Louvered specified, but solid arrived and fitted. However, on reflection this is the best option both for dust free storage and for keeping clean.

Finally, upstairs, the small guest loo has a sliding hung door, again to save space. There is also storage in this area under the eaves, so solid doors are fitted here too.

Inside the house the patchy paintwork has been remedied where required, the floors near the fireplace have been cleaned with solvent (although there are still a few areas to do around the house) and a couple of hairline cracks in the plaster have been skimmed and painted - these caused by settling and drying. So it all is looking virtually finished. At some point I need to check and update the snagging list. But I'm generally very happy.


Outside saw the arrival of my old friend the JCB Digger...

Azevedo, the building contractor, delivered the digger on site on Friday, where it is parked awaiting orders on Monday Morning. Jobs it is here for: Backfilling the retaining wall with rocks, gravel and soil. Moving soil over the waste tanks, leaving just the inspection covers showing, And generally just sculpting the terrain a little around the under-house area. Also it may be used to move material in preparation for the drive laying...

50 stone blocks for the drive arrived in error: It is supposed to be 50 square meters! Something got lost in translation. So here we see 13 square meters. In total the drive and turning point requires 125 square meters... about 2,500 Euros worth of blocks. Gulp.

Also outside, the pavement was laid - it is very high at the moment as you can see from the photo, but once the drive and off road parking is laid it will not look like Mount Everest. Of course, now my post box and house number are positioned way too low!

Here's the outside pavement, that has to be laid, by law, along with an off-road parking area, where the builder's hut is. Note the black line drawn on the concrete - this shows the finished height of the drive blocks. Note also the now hilarious height of the postbox!


Team two, the landscapers / gardeners / all round good egg team have been at work moving rocks, cleaning rocks (yes) and laying foundations and building walls. Not only that, but I got a delivery of wood from Rob, so that it can season before winter.

The log store with its first batch of wood, all cut nicely to length and stacked for me. Most of the wood is heavy and dense (a sign of quality) and is already well dried. Smaller lighter pieces are included that are suitable to get the fire going. Note on the store: the bottom will be skimmed and an attractive pan tile roof will be fitted to the top. The facia will be painted.

The drive will only be block finished up to the front porch. The remainder of the drive down to the land / under house area will be 'agricultural'; i.e. stone and hardcore. The cost of a block drive, both in materials, preparation and fitting would have been prohibitive. So, here we can see the foundations for a wall to separate the land from the drive. A 3m wide gate will be fitted in the wall for access to tractors or a quad / bike (if I get one!)

Meanwhile on the other side of the house, the stones excavated last week have been pressure washed, making ready for construction. You can't use muddy rocks. Otherwise the concrete used to bind them will not stick. Makes sense.

The lower part of the neighbouring wall (also known as 'Colditz') is being made good - actually being made better, because the rustic (washed!) stone is being used to make a wall that will also act as a rockery and a base on which to plant interesting vegetation. The corner and base of this wall will also likely form part of a moving water feature, house the raised beds for vegetables and herbs, and be a nice sheltered grotto to hang out in and grab some rays.


Earlier in the week Rob took me to look at some of the aforementioned 'vegetation' - just outside Horta is a huge plot of land... I stay short of calling it a garden center - it is more like a tropical jungle, where you can buy the plants, trees, ferns and cacti. Amazing. Here are a couple of images:

Finally for this weeks blog, the final coat of blue went on the house, and although there is some more white to paint, it is mostly done. It looks a treat.

It seems like everyone who sees it is a fan of the blue. It really jumps out and grabs you by the throat :)

Next Up: - Exterior Works Continue.


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