The latest news on our house-build project. http://www.malapata.com/project/ 17/02/2005 Thur, 17 Feb 2005 The days are getting longer here now, and we are excited to see progress once more! The windowsills have been fitted, and the rendering will be finished this week. Suddenly the house feels 'bigger'! http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week31 Thur, 17 Feb 2005 Things have been pretty much stopped for the last month. We have had the first real hassle of the project, with some difficulties with prices of tiles. I won't go into details, lets hope we can see some good progress again soon. In the meantime the plaster has been drying out nicely, despite some awful weather. We have also been out choosing flooring and doors, along with the the colour of the external rendering last week... http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week30 Sun, 9 Jan 2005 The plastering was completed during the last three weeks, and the difference is amazing. Having been away from the house for a couple of weeks during the Christmas holiday the change was dramatic. The house now feels incredibly real and almost finished! We have also been busy choosing bathroom tiles so that the decorating of the bathrooms can be started. http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week25 Mon, 19 Dec 2004 The last fornight has seen a lot of smaller details going on before the plastering work began towards the end of the week. The 'pre-frames' for the windows have been fitted, along with the finishing up of most of the plumbing. The outstanding bits and pieces of brickwork have been tidied up, such as the front of the chimney - we now have a working fireplace! The plastering is something to behold. From what I can gather without seeing them doing it, the huge container out the front holds the plaster as powder, which is pumped to a mixing machine, and the results 'sprayed' on! Theory deduced from the results splashed everywhere! As you can imagine, it doesn't take them long! Updates to follow.... http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week22 Tue, 7 Dec 2004 We have had a busy week, having to meet the electician and plumber a couple of times to revise the distribution and instalation of things. Its quite dificult at times! Deciding whether or not you need a socket, radiator or light switch in a particular point requires you to have a pretty good idea of how you want to use the house! In the end we took the approach of adding more than we'll probably need, time will tell! I also asked to have network cable run to each of the rooms. As you can see, they quickly got on with things, and the main distribution is ready for the cables to be run though the tubing. The plumbing is interesting, not a copper pipe in sight. The water runs through some pretty heavy-duty PVC piping, while the heating system consists of a semi-flexible piping, a PVC core, wrapped in a thin layer of metal and protected with an outer plastic sheath. http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week20 Tue, 7 Dec 2004 As predicted the dividing walls have almost been completed upstairs. We asked to make use of the space over the kitchen so as not to waste it, almost doubling the size of the bathroom! This required the anchouring and welding of some RSJs which will support some concrete 'planking' which was also done this week. http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week19 Tue, 7 Dec 2004 The roof is finished for all but the chimnies, and the brickwork has continued to fly up. The two 'skins' are all but finished downstairs, complete with the insulation. The downstairs distribution has also been completed, so we really have a good idea of the space of the rooms. The upstairs has also been started and won't be far behind. http://www.malapata.com/project/index.shtml#Week18