It snowed a few days ago while I lay up to my gills in antibiotics and paracetamol, so I was also crazy to see how the house looked under its blanket of snow, especially as today's been one of those crystal clear winter days where yer can see for a million miles. Both Claudia and Rafael (our eldest, 3 years) are now in the midst of their own private fevers, so a roll-call of able bodied hands turned up, erm, myself and Luis (our youngest, 1 year and a bit). So I shoved him into my car, pulled down the various child sun-blinds that the previous owner had had the gumption to have fitted, and orf we jolly well went.
Glorious, glorious day. The Alps were looking sharp enough to cut yer finger on, and the already beautiful landscape was looking fresh and clean under its icing.
Ok, that's enough waxing in the lyrical sense.
Our little cul-de-sac was clear of snow, do I drove down as normal. Parked up, made sure Luis was as soundly asleep as I suspected (he was) and jumped out for a butchers plus a few photos for you lot to pore over...
Well, to be honest the first impression I got wasn't of the house under its cheerful blanket of snow. As I drove up, I couldn't help noticing a bloody big JCB digger, plus the absence of about half of our dirt-pile that had been left over from the excavations. Great great great! And as such a metal beast costs marginally more to rent that a fully-fuelled small twin aircraft, one can only imagine that the rest'll be hoicked out on Monday.
The non-existent progress on the landscaping had been depressing me since the end of November, which was about when the last sod of soddin' earth had been turned over. Also, one should keep in mind that the majority of that dirt pile had been, erm, piled on top of some farmer's meadow. General agreement all round that the farmer had been a damn good egg about the whole thing, so one really would like to see this resolved.
Oh, and another chunk of our view was now unobscured: quite a lot. However, it must be said that the newly revealed 'greater' view was somewhat blotted by the bloody big yellow digger sat bang in the middle of it.
And then inside for a look around at interior progress for week 4:
The entire ground floor ceiling's been plastered and painted to perfection. The photo below gives an idea, but only an idea. Flawless, the lot of it. As the Keller ceiling's been tongue and grooved with whitewashed wood, and we ticked the option to have the tongue and grooving of the first floor ceilings left au natural, i.e. whitewashed but unplastered, then that basically means our ceilings have already reached their final form. A sort of milestone, one supposes.
The plaster-board gaps in the Keller and here and there elsewhere have been nicely skimmed in with plaster in preparation for the coming week's painting fest.
Both the downstairs loo/shower room and the upstairs main bathroom have been plastered and painted to perfection. Again, a sort of milestone, as they're now prepared for the the floor and wall tiling that (one believes) happens this coming week.
Oh, and the fancy metal bars along the gallery chasm have been bolted in. Might come in handy, a few years hence, 'cos I'm sure the kids'll need something strong to attached their bungee cord to.
That Dastardly Bob Salmon's project's also making super progress. Really super pickies up on his Blog, so go and have a look right after you've done here.
We both clearly have very similar build schedules, as he's also got the painters and plasterers in at the mo'. Bob's also stuck his neck out and set a moving in date of 15th March... erm, Claudia and I have just agreed to move on or about the 22nd March. Drat, drat and double drat! It looks like Bob's gonna beat us to the finishing line by a week or so! Although he'll be without mains electricity 'cos his friendly local electric company's buggering him about something rotten. He has my sympathies, he really does, although one cannot help smirking when one imagines Bob's TR6 up on bricks and revving like a demon, while he uses its dynamo to power up his electric drill.
Heh heh heh.
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