The 2nd Floor is up!

Finally the 2nd floor is up. The builders had to get two more men to help hauling the beams up in the heat. It's extremely hard and hot, not to mention dangerous, work. I climbed up before the blocks went up and had a minor height-freight freeze. Now if only we can make up our minds what windows we want upstairs...

week 8: half way?

Its week 8 now and we have only one floor to go, which means we are pretty much on schedule. Although I am told that once the 'wetwork' is done, the finishing takes quite some time.



They were plastering the ceiling, and Shafiq's cool glasses got all sement splattered.





To make a long and sad story short, the bathroom is 23 cm smaller than it should be, which is quite a disaster in an already small space. But what a nice view from my bath!

Building Blues

Yip, I’ve definitely had the building blues this week. It started so well, with the deck taking only one day to stack. But then the engineer didn’t approve the builders' beam construction, the wall went up skew, the bathroom is 23 cm smaller than on the plans and I’m still unhappy about the light the stoep lintels is cutting off from the dining room. Boo-hoo.


On the good news front I have found and ordered the sliding folding door, and the doorframe with fanlight I wanted all along.
And on Friday evening we sat on our new stoep and after a Southern Comfort and Ginger ale it all seemed OK again. Till Monday anyway...

View to a kill

Here is our new view from our new stoep...



...and the rib and block system that has made it possible.



It was a rough day at the building site juggling job responsibilities and some minor and major problems with plumbing logistics and engineering. Not much progress today, hope tomorrow will be better.