The next stage is to construct the frame for the North block, the living quarters with the kitchen & utility room, the living area, and our two studies. The whole building is going to be (we learn!) built in two stages. The North block frame is separated from the Atrium and South block, I think for earthquake resistance.
Then there is yet more wood shuttering, scaffolding supports, and nails! Nails everywhere.
The South block will have our bedroom (with its glimpse of the sea!), bathrooms and the gym where, when we’ve recovered from the build, we will work out!
From the bedroom terrace, we finally see that we will get a glimpse of the sea! So we can boast, “sea view”!
With the basement it creates quite an impressively tall frontage from the north end, although we still need to decided the final ground height in front of the building.
Then the pool…
Meanwhile work is also progressing here. We had a meeting with the pool expert and worked out how to create both an overflow “infinity” system together with a conventional skimmer. This will enable us to run the infinity in the summer to look as if we float seamlessly to the mountains!, and look good from below; together with the skimmer when we want a quieter filtration system (at night say), or if we at some time in the future want to heat the pool and don’t want heat loss from the overflow.
And we have been busy with choosing toilets and washbasins etc, as I’ve mentioned before. Now we have moved on to selecting tiles – over 300m2 for the floors, terraces and more for bathroom walls and splashbacks in the kitchen. My, what a task that is!
We’ve found a tile with a good antislip resistance (another of the oldie friendly aspects we are pursuing, along with being step free), apparently thru nanotechnology?! We intend to have it throughout the house. But to break the monotony we’ve selected some patterned tiles and devised arrangements for them. It also helps to distinguish one room/space from another.
With the completion of the frame of the house, patios and terrace concrete, and some more concreting for the pool we will be ready to move onto phase 2. This is the construction of the walls, and the installation of the plumbing and electrics. The builder is about 5 months behind the schedule he first gave us!