Up, up and away

Now we're out of the garage, it's time to find a way out of the hole and up into the world above. Not an easy task considering how steep the slope is, but Horacio has managed, with the help of his 'A-level' (nothing to do with secondary school qualifications), to mark out a path which as well as getting us out of the hole, looks nice!

Ok, it might just look like layers of mud at the moment, but one day (and hopefully not too far off), we should have a nice winding path up to where the house will be.

(You can see our latest purchase of 4,000 bricks peeping out from the garage, as well).

And we´re out of the garage!

Early March 2010

Phew! After five months we seem to have finally reached the stage where work can be done outside the garage, even though the garage is by no means finished; (the idea, if there´s any money left, is to use the space above the garage as a gorgeous sun-trapping patio).

The garage walls are now more or less done, space is left for a window, and you might just make out the first signs of the place being owned in part by a mountain biker - six hooks to hang up the bikes in what will be a secure part of the garage, (back right wall).

The garage feels pretty huge - even Steve´s new non-too-subtle truck only seems to take up about a third of the space. Should be nice for gatherings!

The architect (Horacio Albalat) joined us today to make sure the tyre steps idea came together nicely, and to start plotting the route that the winding path will take up to the house. Between five of us a good bit got done: digging, string placement, tyre cutting, positioning and filling!

We´re still very interested to find out how Horacio is planning to maintain a shallow (sub 10%) incline up the whole winding path... I guess that will be one of the next installments.

Clever walls

Mid February 2010

The garage walls as you can see are

almost there now. The drilled tubes

under the gravel ´filters´are already

doing their job nicely too.

The weather has been so

miserable recently hence the plastic sheet helping the wall to dry out and protect Hector and José a bit.

Not far off being a useable garage!