Walls fly up

It's pretty exciting to see how fast this part of the process is going - it feels like we've almost got a ground floor finished! In this pic, Horacio the architect is checking a few things over with the Maestro Hector.

Daisy and I have been spent the last couple of Saturdays working on the gently sloping paths that lead up behind the house, and it has already made the space feel much more accessible and useable. The idea that the paths with a 10% gradient will be used for walking, and the horizontal parts will be used for planting trees and other useful plants. Daisy has done most of the digging while Steve has been struggling to dig and axe out a monster of a tree trunk and its roots.

We have walls

It's all go at the mo, and doesn't it show, yo!

The builders are keeping to their word about the fact that the walls would fly up once they started on them. This week has seen pretty big changes!

We spent Tuesday morning measuring, marking and digging for the path at the back of the house; it has a 10% gradient all the way up to the top of the plot. Plenty of work before it's finished (and probably a few more blisters on the way), but it should all be work we can accomplish ourselves.

We're now getting a feeling for how tall the house will look from the front. Hopefully it won't look too imposing once our trees have grown.

Filters in the drizzle

Things look pretty good to us at the moment - all the underfloor goings-on are finished and some of the walls have come up a bit, although we halted their progress when there was some confusion on the size of one of the windows.

Also, there still is a bit of work to do on other parts of the land before the house can be fully focussed on, so the builders have been working hard on what will serve both as a little retention wall and the compartments of the filter for grey water.

We watched 10 mins progress and noticed how quickly skilled hands can create a good, smooth but solid cement base, as shown in the before and after photos here. It's good to know that when cement is drying it's actually good for there to be dampness and even drizzle in the air, as Xalapa's winter has finally decided to set in, at least for a few days. Bit of a shame that it coincided with some lethal shootings though!

On firm ground

While Steve was busy building sandcastles, Hector and the lads were working on bigger and better things...

15 x 4 metres of polythene were cut up to fit the respective rooms of the ground floor, and laid on their sand beds, before being covered in what will be the base of our floors. Then, with waterproof concrete used in the first two layers of bricks, the next step of our damproofing (essential in Xalapa) has almost been completed.

Things at the lower end of the plot now look slightly more natural, although we were recently alarmed to notice how many frogs had committed suicide in our drain next to the garage. (Photos not yet available).

Our house in the Caribbean

Frustrated at his lack of being able to help with the actual building, Steve dabbled in detailed sand "castle" making, instead! Where better to do it than a deserted beach in the Mexican Caribbean.

Here are the results. Giant tree reserve at back and tsunamis - optional.

Looking forward to moving in!