Plastering the Pantry

30 December 2018

In the last few days of the old year, we start the final plastering in the house.  Two small walls in the pantry.  We hope to finish before the end of the year - a nice way to mark a very busy year bringing the house close to completion.

At the start of 2018 we aimed to have all building done and all floors down by the end of December.  We haven't achieved that.  But we have come a very long way towards that target.  Rooms finished include the bedroom and studio, rooms finished except for floors include the music room, bathroom, entry and main living area.  The ceiling is fully insulated.  We are very pleased with progress this year.

Ready to start (gloves and trowel and water spray were tricky to find with all the pantry contents stashed around the living room)

 More than half done by 5.30 on Sunday night.

The hot house heats up

29 December 2108

The glass workshop rang to find out if we were home, and then came to fit all the glass for the solarium.  It was a lovely day, and the temperature rapidly ramped up to over 30 degrees.  We flung open the doors to the house and basked in the warm air.  Now to find out how well it works as a regular heat source.

Holiday Treats

23 - 26 December 2018

The weather is uninterrupted sunshine for a few days, so finally, I was able to have a hot steaming bubble bath in the newly tiled bathroom (up till now, we've been conserving our hot water as the weather has been overcast).

23 December: now it feels like the holidays have started!

 24 December, walking along Nidri beach in sultry weather 

(the promise of fine weather didn't hold)

 25 December - persuading the dog to pose for a Christmassy photo - she doesn't look impressed!

26 December - for the record, the garden is still producing kale, rocket, a little Moringa, parsley and roses - a fabulous salad, with eggs from the chickens.

Fiddly woodwork

23 - 27 December 2018

We have an extractor fan fitted over the cooker, but the air duct to the outside is not yet installed.  When we were building the house, we forgot to include an air duct access, and you can't retrofit big holes in strawbale walls.  So the only place we can vent to the outdoors is through the pantry window.  This is not a big loss, as the window is very small and north-facing, so it doesn't do much to light the room.  We can replace the glass with plywood, make a duct hole, and still have a little space for ventilation with a metal mesh to keep out insects.

However, before we can run the duct, we have to board the top of the walls and the ceiling, then fill and paint, as it won't be accessible once the duct is installed.

 This is the jigsaw of plywood pieces to fit around the installed shelving batons and replace the window glass.

 Window pieces installed.

 Quite neat from outside

 Installed jigsaw pieces, with hole drilled from over the cooker.

 Ceiling boards (again.  Sigh!)

 Poking the duct through

 Dave does the fitting into the cooker hood.

But then it all squished and bent and then ripped, so we'll have to get some angle pieces and more tube and try again.

Dog changes

21 December 2018

The dog is now about 9 months and old enough to have the operation to stop more unwanted puppies coming into the world.  She took it well, groggy for a day, and then up and bouncing just as before.

 Groggy doggy with shaved belly

 We also relocated the kennel, as the other location is too close to the poo pen, doesn't get any sun in the morning and gets really muddy in the rain.  We trimmed the lower twigs off the tree, and tied the dog chain round the trunk.  So far, Angel has chewed through two ropes, one collar, one harness and a lead.  She's now on a light chain overnight.

The poo pen, moved to clear ground.  Not that Angel uses it, she just poos in the doorway - which is a reasonable attempt, I suppose.

The entry floor saga

c. 10 - 21 December 2018

Neil came to lay the floor in the entry behind the front door.  I asked him to lay an area for a door mat slightly lower than the rest, which he was happy to do, but we had to find something thin enough.  After trying some random floor tiles I'd collected when thinking about mosaicing, but which wouldn't cut straight, and then considering using some of the terracotta tiles from the store for the kitchen, but we may not have enough, we gave up in frustration, and ran out of time.

Neil came back to try again, and reviewed the stones for the floor - called 'plaka' in Greek - and couldn't find enough thin pieces to fit.  When we laid the limecrete slab, I remember I sort of guessed how thick the plaka pieces were - and got it wrong.  Almost every piece thickened to around 5 cm, and I'd only allowed 4 cm.  So Neil suggested we look for something thinner, and went away.

We found that you can get plaka pieces split to 2.5 cm, so we ordered 7 square metres and Neil came back some days later and finally this job was a go; and the plaka slabs were thin enough for the doormat area too.

 New pieces on pallet, rejected bits strewn around behind

 Trying the terracotta tiles in the doorway - they are quite a different colour from the ones already laid in the kitchen - we were warned, but we bought up the remaining stock anyway.  We decided not to use them here

 Neil gets stuck in, Dave making mixes of lime mortar.

 The slightly lowered section at the front door, so we can have a door mat .

The finished job.  We'll leave it to dry for a couple of weeks and then grout it.

Clearing out

18 December 2018

Time to strip out the pantry completely, so we can go in and finish it all.  Two of the walls still need plastering, and then limewashing; lots of fiddly woodwork has to be done to insulate the room all round (it is partly under the stairs, which makes this a tricky job); then the woodwork will need filling and painting; and we have to put through an air duct for the cooker extractor fan which involves redesigning the window.  So this is the last room to do, and it's going to be fiddly.

 Having stripped the pantry, we are living in turmoil.  We need access to everything, so jars and bottles are stacked in the windowsill and on (and under) the table.  We are crammed into a corner of the room, threading our way between the heaps.

 Outdoors, a winter coat of compost goes around the Moringa roots, in an attempt to keep them warm

 The stripped out pantry, showing lathed walls ready for plastering.

Adventure to Ioannina

11, 12 & 13 December 2018

As we have had the electric car for a couple of weeks already, we thought we'd try giving it a bit of a  challenge, and arranged for a few days away in Ioannina.  This city was the capital of the Persian occupation of Greece, and has lots of history, castles, monasteries, museums and a lake.  It was a great trip, the car did brilliantly, and we had fabulous weather.  Lots of fun.  And on the way back we spent a day at Ikea, thinking about furniture - how far we've come!

 The charging station at Fillipiada - half an hour for half a 'tank' for eleven euros

 The lake looking tranquil, autumn leaves and wintery mountains

Inside the old castle, the museum of silversmithing

Nature intrudes

8 December 2018

 This incredible cage fungus has shown up in one of our Moringa beds.  The mature specimen is above, and the emerging 'eggs' below.  A weird and wonderful thing.

 And we finally get to meet the kitchen gecko.  It has been living behind the tea shelves for a couple of years, showing itself by accident once in a while.  When we took down the shelves for painting, it was very confused, and hurtled around a lot.  I hope it moves back in when the shelves are re-hung.

Kitchen shelves

3-5 December 2018

 Rowan continues to work on the Solarium, which he is determined to leave ready for us to get the glass fitted.  He and Paris leave for the UK in a couple of days, so there's a frenzy of activity to finish everything we can while we have their help.

 Zed finishes the paintwork on the Solarium

 Rowan fits trim to the edges of the Cathedral window box, so that the paint can be finished, and the glass cleaned up

 We take the little kitchen shelves I knocked together some years ago, and finally gave them the paint job they've been waiting for all that time.

 Rosa is still coming to the house for music on Tuesdays, she's very robust about finding different challenging conditions at each visit.  This time, her boyfriend came too, and as he works in telecoms, he helped us sort out our internet cable, re-routing it from its temporary location on the shed, to a new, stronger fixing on the house.  Hurrah!

 Look at the fabulous cathedral window - trimmed, filled, painted and the glass cleaned till it sparkles.  How nice to have clean windows!

 The kitchen shelf back on the wall, this time with a full complement of screws.  (I only put in a few originally, so it could easily be taken down for painting).  

I've been expecting it to fall off the wall for two years!

 And the spice shelves by the cooker

 Fully loaded with teas and spices, lovely to get things back in order.

Work on the track, part II

3 Dec 2018

Neil, Panos and Dmitri all turned up early to help us get the track ready for the concrete truck coming at midday. 

 This is the pile of rocks and rubble on our proposed driveway from the track

 Luckily, rocks and rubble were just what the lads needed to fill in the ruts in the track, so suddenly, the problem was the solution, and it all started to clear very quickly

 Dave, whose knee is still not up to heavy work, took to strimming, a desperately needed activity

 Panos returning for more rocks.  As the lads took away what they needed, mostly the rubble, I cleared the remaining rocks to one side, ready for terracing when we start landscaping the garden.

 Neil shows off the filled ruts

 Then, the man with the 40 ton concrete lorry arrived, and said there was no way he could get his truck down the track above, or indeed, up the track below.  We were stymied.  We needed a smaller, more robust truck.  We had to cancel the delivery, and send it away to another job.  Devastation.  

After bouncing various ideas around, we thought of contacting Steamboat Mark at work, as he works with a landscaping company.  We already wanted Mark to do our little bit of landscaping, as he used to build golf-courses and is a maestro with a digger.  So contact was made and Mark's boss agreed to come and check out the job.

 With no concrete to shovel, the lads agreed to dig out a channel for the water pipe, which needs to be buried before the car can be brought up to the shed.

 At the end of a busy day - the potential driveway is cleared (an unexpected benefit), and below, Dave got a lot of strimming done - but the car still can't get to the charger!  More delays.

This is taken from the entrance to the land.  The drive will go to the left, and we hope to put in a large-ish pond in the centre, before the stone-edged beds.