A few things have happened since the January posting. I guess they should since it is now July already. In regular life I've been on a trip down the Colorado river through the bottom half of the Grand Canyon in April & May, and had some (paid) work waiting here in Ontario when I got back, which I have just finished, so this delayed update can happen.
I should mention that there are many more pictures at:
http://s411.photobucket.com/albums/pp194/djlandwehr/Casa%20Den%20Summer%202010/
and while you are there you can navigate to other eras of this project, or for that matter, pictures of the Grand canyon raft trip.
At the Casa, the crews have been working, too. There have been three major efforts since March, when Derek & family got back from their winter trip to California....and a 4th major effort is begun though there's no visual evidence yet.
The first task was the construction of the lower palapa roof, which covers the 2nd floor deck, mostly along the West and north, though it wraps around to the east as well. We wound up using a different palapero for the lower part as the original guy's price rose a lot between floors; Lencho knew this man. The large west overhang is supported with two posts on the west deck, so we made the best of that by giving them concrete bases and a tabletop to set a cool beverage upon at sunset or in the shaded heat of the afternoon.
There are pictures below of the palapa framing and the finished roofs. The rainy season has started and the palapa passed the test so far. No hurricane force storms yet. By the way, there was a 6+ earthquake this week and the place seems to have taken that in stride.
After the palaperos finished, the floor tiling could begin on the second and first floors. The thousands of thick terra cotta tiles we watched being stacked in the first floor living room last January were finally put to good use. Lencho's crew was on that job for weeks. It would have been a big job just to get half of that load up the stairs. The results look great, with tiles on all the inside floors, the stair landings, the deck on the 2nd floor, and the whole terrace on the first.
These tiles are softer than the porcelain or ceramic types, but thicker, and have a lot of variability in color and texture from being hand-made, but we can call that character. The system used is also to set them in much thicker concrete than one would use up north so the tiling adds pretty substantial depth to the floor. They have had one coat of an epoxy-based sealant called 'seco rapido' (fast-dry).
The third major endeavor was to finish the stairs. We had considered tiling them as well, but the quote from Lencho seemed high. Probably because it's a hassle making all the cuts and the tile losses to breakage would be considerable. We had noticed a stair treatment we liked a lot at our favorite breakfast / internet place, Dan's, along Zicatela. I managed to get Derek and one of the masons to go over and talk to Dan and his mason to figure out how it was done.
The results are in the picture at the top (I can never get blogger to put them in the order I want!). It's hard to see in that view down the east stairs but each tread has a rounded edge and an overhang above the vertical riser below it. They are concrete, of course, with a half-pipe used for the edge form and colorant added to give them a reddish hue. The idea was to match the tile color, which didn't quite happen, but close enough. There are 50 or so steps, with the main east stairs from the 1st to 2nd and 3rd levels, plus two stairways from the bodega / parking level to the 1st floor, and they were done one at a time.
The picture above shows the finished lower palapa while the one below shows the framing in place. The stairs are not yet finished in these shots.
So what's the 4th big effort? Doors and windows, finally. The price of those went up a lot from the time of the first quote 18 months ago till the new quote last winter, so we put money down then to hold the price. Since, we've paid some more to get them going, and there will be a few more tens of thousands of pesos to go, but they are being built now. We upgraded to french doors instead of sliders to the terrace on the first floor and deck on the second, both on the north. The other doors will be windowed panels. The windows will be sliders, all of this in aluminum for corrosion resistance. It's the last big expense (for now -- a good thing!) and we are really getting close to 'ready'. All we have left is, oh, some appliances, furniture, painting, plumbing fixtures, kitchenware, linens, art, landscaping and more landscaping, maybe a couple walls or improved fences, gates and doors in those, the solar water heating system, improved internet, and more and more I'm sure. Far off in the future is a relaxing cold Victoria on the terrace. Looking down on the two lower lots we haven't started on yet.
