Plumbing

23 - 25 June 2014

Far to busy to remember to take photos until the sink was fitted - which was Wednesday.  Before that we plasterboarded and put in worktop supports around the fridge and cooker areas.  But Weds was the moment of truth - the plumbing!

 Here's the ready-at-last sink worktop, with three coats of heavy duty two-pack varnish.  The sink has been fitted and laboriously sealed and fixed in position.

 10 am - the plumbing paraphernalia  - luckily it's Dave's problem, not mine!

1.30 pm - hours of doing and undoing and redoing and swearing at poor quality plumbing equipment and a trip out for more pipe bends - but here it is, the water is running out the tap and draining down the drain - so wonderful!  Ran out of paint on the window and bought some more for the cupboard underneath, but went for an aqua blue this time, it all looks very sorbet coloured in these photos. 

 5pm and the first batch of washing up has been done - wonder how long the honeymoon will last?

That sinking feeling

16 - 20 June 2014

Looking at the place where we want to put the sink we had a sudden realisation (a real 'sinking feeling'!) that there was far more prep to do than we thought.

Once the sink is in it will be really difficult to reach into the window so trims, sanding and painting need doing, as well as the plasterboarding.

 Monday - plasterboard cut, batons fitted behind and holes made in the right places (surprise!) for the water inlets and outlets (one drain will be for the washing machine).

 Tuesday - cutting mitred corners in window trim, then gluing and screwing to fix.  Then doing it again around the inner edge to fit plasterboard to.

 Wednesday - enough plywood offcuts to fettle up a little wall cupboard, with plasterboard behind - remembering to feed the tasklight wiring through.  The horrible brackets that hold up the extra beam (the one that wouldn't have been necessary if they'd stuck to the plans and not tried to raise the mezzanine) had to be taken out and reinserted through the cupboard, which means it is now structural.

 Thursday - filling and sanding in the window embrasure ...

 ... hacksawing off the sticking out bolt ends ...

 ... and getting a first coat of paint on. 

 Friday - second coat (we used the pale pink paint I got to try to match the lime plaster - it's quite fierce in the window!) another supporting board to go under the sink and more plasterboard.

Saturday - trying to get the big pieces of plasterboard off the floor and on the walls before we damage them.  Insulation fitted to the interior pantry wall, hopefully to help keep the pantry cool.

Kitchen construction

Friday 13 June 2014

As well as being my Mum's birthday, Friday was also the anniversary of our first night in the house, when we'd just completed the mezzanine floor.  The wood had arrived on Thursday afternoon, so it was an auspicious day for the start of the next phase.

First we dragged an enormous piece of 20mm plywood on to the worktop and jigsawed out a worktop for the sink, complete with cutout, and another piece to support it on the left.

Hurrah, it's level!  Now we disassemble and fit plasterboard for tiles on the wall behind.

Waiting for wood

9 - 12 June 2014

Saw Rowan on Monday and agreed the wood we would need to make progress with the doors and windows in the finished bale walls, and then made the trek to the woodyard.  They agreed to deliver, as we needed big sheets of plasterboard and plywood too, so we went home to wait.  Waited all Tuesday, then all Wednesday.  Definitely Thursday they said on the phone.

Meanwhile, Dave has started summer gigs at the Tree Bar at the wonderful hours of 7.30 to 9.30 - so very civilised. The original three: Dave, Vinnie and Mark have been joined by Hosny the Egyptian drummer, Geoff another acoustic guitar/singer and occasionally Ciara with the wonderful voice.

 A good turnout at the Tree Bar

 

One Sunday after work the weather turned suddenly stormy and we rushed down to the boat which had dragged its anchor.  In raincoats and shorts Dave leapt aboard and stood at the wheel for half an hour in a downpour.  I huddled on Mad Robbie's boat under cover of the wheelhouse shouting encouragements!

The boys were due to play a beach bar and barbeque that evening, for Neilson staff, but the storm kept them busy and then everything was cold and wet, so the gig was rather empty.  Dave and I were soaked.

Then on Thursday there was a local charity talent show up in the village: full of people we know, and lots of fun.  

 A few sinister characters from the male voice shanty choir

 Local kids who take dance lessons

And an extremely sinister group who have to be seen to be believed - http://youtu.be/aWmfjGq62Rs

Sailing interlude

Week 2 - 7 June 2014

As planned, we spent the first few days working on the boat, fixing whatever we could on a shoestring, up to the point where we needed two new batteries and pretty well ran out of money for the month!

To our surprise, some friends of Dave's were out for a week charter on a Nisos yacht, so on Thursday we packed up our tools and took the boat out to join them in Fiscardo.  Set off still fixing and sorting the boat for sea, and remembered to do everything (we thought) until we'd passed the end of the Meganissey channel and were in quite a swell and 20-odd knots of wind - this was when we realised we'd forgotten to put the bimini (suncover) up over the back of the boat.  A bit of an uncomfortable 3 hour crossing - too choppy to try to fix it, so we just had to fry.  We were lucky to escape with only minor crisping, but a great sail nonetheless.

Next morning we fixed up the bimini and had a fabulous sail on one long tack from Fisk to Sivota, perfect 17 knot winds.  Home on Saturday ready for work on Sunday.

Pantry walls

29 - 30 May 2014

Two days of woodwork, putting up the framework for the interior wall between the kitchen and the pantry, and starting on the lathing, which isn't shown here.  The dining table is in the pantry, to be our temporary eating area - this is because it can be insect-netted as a 'no fly zone'.  What luxury, a smooth and level floor, shelves to put things on, and no flies!

Next week we're going to get some work done on the poor neglected boat.  We can't leave it much later or we'll fry while we're doing it.  So the kitchen sink is put back another week.  Sigh!

I've been doing a bit of painting - I came across a photo on the internet of a 106 year old Armenian woman protecting her home and she was so grim and determined that I felt she should have some fresh growing things around her as a counterpoint to what her life must have been like.  It came out like this:

Terra firma

Thursday 29 May 2014

Time to treat the kitchen tiles, they've had about 9 days to dry out.  But decided to wait until the sun moved off the east face of the house, so I wouldn't be working in the heat, so I finished lathing the internal wall with the temporary door.  It's all done on the inside, but I didn't take the time to do all the outer laths, that can wait for another day. 

Then moved on to treating the tiles.  Dave took a moment out from limewashing to take a photo.  From Noon tomorrow we can walk around on the kitchen floor as well!  Sink, cooker, fridge, here you come!

And wrapped up by finishing the shelving (for now).  Enough room for some tins and cookbooks and other civilized accoutrements.  Just the dining table to clear of tools and scrub up and we'll be able to eat in here.

 

Pantry building and external limewash

26 - 28 May 2014

Finally able to walk on the pantry floor, but not the kitchen half, which still needs a few days before being treated.  So I decided to use the time by building in shelves.  I wanted to use as much waste wood as possible, because we are a bit overwhelmed by offcuts.  So my shelves aren't particularly pretty, but they should be strong enough.

 First off, a big platform under the stairs

 Then a lower shelf, with space for these drawers from the camper van

 and an aluminium self-closing, magnet-fixing fly-screen door, so we can get in and out but the chicken can't, and hopefully the cats won't rip their way in.  This is a temporary opening, as there will eventually be a wall here.

 Dave's first limewash mix.  He is using our soil as the earth pigment, but it requires trial and error to work out the proportions.  This is still a bit bright, but it is only the first of four coats.

Look how dark the limewash is when it is wet.  Surprising how much lighter it dries.

Boaty things

23-24 May 2014

By this time the pantry tiles had had about 10 days to set, so I risked tiptoeing onto them and painting on the magic formula - 'Surfapore R'.  It went on easy, and it recommended a second coat within 3 hours on extra porous surfaces, so we gave it two just to be sure. 

Then it needs 24 hours, so we decided to spend Saturday down at the boat, making a list of jobs to be done.  The plan is to get a week away and work on what needs doing while also getting a bit of use of the boat - some swimming and fishing too.  We thought the week beginning 2 June would be good.

As we left the boat we saw Pete and Naomi on the quay, so we parked up on this bench and had a few beers while watching Pete fix his outboard.  They leave for the UK in a couple of days, so this was very serendipitous.

Dungroutin'

19-20 May 2014

Sore knees, bad back, but the grouting finished by Tuesday 20th.  Now we leave the grout to set for a week, and then use the magic formula to protect the tiles.

This is the magic formula.  I did some research into protecting terracotta, and found an article in 'Period Homes' magazine or something like that.  It said that the old way of treating the tiles involved a lot of linseed oil followed by beeswax.  The beeswax has to be reapplied every year, and scraped off and replaced every three years.  Having just spent a month on my knees laying these tiles, this did not fill me with excitement.  However, the article continued, there is an alternative.  Modern nano-technology has created a treatment that in one application waterproofs the tiles while retaining their breathability.  Well!

So, further research and I found 'Tile Doctor Seal n Go' was the stuff to use in the UK.  I emailed, would they post to Greece?  No.  We reckoned we'd need about 5 litres.  On the off-chance I asked in the tile shop whether they could get it, and they said no, but they had this stuff available.  More internet research and it seems to be the same - waterproofing with breathability, specifically for terracotta.  Hallelujah.

Later that day, band practice happened again, and I got this photo of the chicken, for reasons unknown, deciding to tuck its head under its wing and get a sleep while loud music plays.  Not a sensible chicken.