Monday, January 26, 2009

Happy "Home" Owner

Somebody told me that if I water it, it will grow!!!????

Alex has forgotten to mention what he is doing in this picture. The fresh concrete needs to dry slowly to prevent cracking, so it has to be watered several times during the day. This task is the responsibility of the owner--NOT--the construction crew. Does anyone else find this really odd???
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Things are Taking Shape

As the scaffolding is systematically removed, you can start to get an idea of the size and shape of the rooms. The scaffolding for the floors will stay for at least a couple of weeks in order to set properly.



Now there's actually a floor to stand on!









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However Sianna is not as impressed...













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Rebar

It may look like we were trying to recreate Saddam's bunker, but this is supposed to stop things from falling on our head in the event of an earthquake (and we're not talking about "if" we have one... but "when").






You will notice in this photo that there are actually several workers working... a plethora if you will. Off course there is the prerequisite guy hanging around smoking and watching the others. And if you think that he's the foreman you are wrong, that would be the guy in the white shirt, who's actually doing some work!Posted by Picasa

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Something is going on.

Can anyone tell what is going on here? Is there even a plan?
Oh, look, you can see the first layer of concrete on the floor in this shot.
Much has been said, and maybe even more written in the last few years, about Mediterranean style. But what really is it??? It goes much deeper than painting your house white with blue shutters. It's more than adding a Venus De Mylo statue in front of your mural of Santorini. It's in the architectural details my friends! And to help you achieve it we have added some photos above and below. You will notice the stone niche built into the walls. Ahhhh, but did you notice the details that distinguish this niche as Greek, as opposed to some other (dare I say, lesser)Mediterranean niche???!! YES! It's the Styrofoam cup with the frappe (extra sweet and with milk). A drink that exemplifies the "Greek Lover". If you've had one, you know what I'm talking about! ;-)
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You mean, they did more work...

It seems as if it has been-forever- since we have seen any progress on the house. And this is just prep work to the upcoming progress that we hope will take place. Basically, what you see here in the photos is the process of making scaffolding, and a mold that goes around the top of the existing walls. The mold is to hold the cement, which will also have rebar for reinforcement. This should make our walls safer for those pesky earthquakes that we get every so often. Of course, the walls have held up thus far, but they never have had a second floor on top of them.

I guess they know what they are doing, but it sure is confusing to me.
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