Another leak

Hooray!

Thursday morning and DH surprises me by telling me that he is going to move all his tools and toolboxes, bicycles and gardening equipment into the bodega, (about time, I hear you say. No? It must just be me then?). This will mean that we can finally use the front entrance to our house, without tripping over ourselves and all the 'stuff' that has accumulated in the porch/passageway these last few months.

The terrace extension.

Nonetheless, my happiness is extremely short-lived as it appears that the terrace is still leaking. Same place as last time, where we extended it to be precise. Not only that, but the tiles have cracked as well. It's just too hot there, even with the dappled shade from the palm tree. 

Fan-bloody-tastic!

Yet another set-back and a new dilemma, namely what on earth shall we use for the floor covering now? After all, it is only half of the terrace that has to be altered; rather than try and match the ceramic tiles that are already in position, we rack our brains trying to decide on a contrasting material, in the hope of making a 'patched-up job' look like a 'design feature' A whitish ceramic tile perhaps? Decking? Shingle? Maybe even some kind of fake grass? None of which 'float my boat'. Dark grey pebbles are a possibility though.

So, on Thursday and Friday, the builders set about lifting the tiles off the offending area, for a third time. They re-enforced the floor again with zinc sheets and yet even more cement. 

Meanwhile DH went in search of roughly 12 square metres of 'piedras de bolas', ball stones. The labourers that he took to help him, were all in favour of digging the pebbles up from the river-bed, as is so often done here in CR. However, DH chose what he thought would be an easiest solution and decided to buy the rocks instead. 

Scattered sacks of 'ball stones'.

On arriving at the stone-works though, DH had the choice of either a digger emptying boulders into the pick-up (BOULDERS not stones mind-you, which would mean us breaking them into smaller pieces) or hand-pick the pebbles himself, load  into sacks and then onto the truck. Hmm, decisions, decisions! So back breaking work ensued, picking over and loading individual pebbles , all 12 sacks of them - a bargain price though as only $30 for the whole lot!

Next week, the fun begins when we ask the builders to lay the pebbles into the concrete evenly. Should be entertaining. I'll report back on their progress!

Snagging List Summary.

From this ...

... to this.

When we first started this project, Jose and his team predicted that they would be finished by December, and to be honest, the speed with which they first started working, we thought that they may well be! Then the problems with Napoleon took hold and kind of destroyed the rhythm. The kitchen delayed things and other problems cropped up that just have taken an age to be fixed.

We have now into the month of March and I think we have been working on the snagging list since half-way through January! Builders and constructors Jose and his team may be, but finishers and detailers they are not. I think that they will be just as pleased to finish this job as we will to see them go. 

So for a roundup of February:

The Complete:

• Air-con is in and boy, it works well. One in each of the bedrooms and one in the kitchen. Nice and cool. 
• Pool appears to have had no more leaks for a week. Hopefully that is that problem solved. 
• The awful stench that appears between 2.00 pm and 3.00 pm each day, (the one that I have failed to blog about as no words can describe the fetid odour), has been fixed: not only have we had the cesspit cleaned out, but new pipes installed and so-on at the end of last week. The result, no foul smell when the sun hits the front of the casita mid-afternoon. Only taken two months to sort out that little dilemma!!

The Not-So Complete:

• Leak from terrace into bodega below ... still needs a little more work!
• A complication with the front door. For security purposes, it does not work properly, so we need to re-think and re-hang. 
• Not happy with his worktops in the kitchen, DH has decided to rub them down again and apply another layer of stain. 

Looking back over the photos though at least you can see the progress that has been made. One day, I am sure we will say it has all been worthwhile. 

But for now, we have both had enough and are unable to believe that it will be finished soon!

And from this ...

...to that.

The Outside Improvements.

A long time since I posted on this blog, so time for a quick photo update I guess.

Firstly, the small garden has been tidied up. It has been leveled and divided into two elevations: the top has been shingled and a tiled footpath has been laid, whereas the lower level will be all tiles.

Snow white shingle and stepping stones laid.

The lower level still needs finishing off!

The building has had a fresh coat of paint and is now a crisp white with a pink border. It took the painter quite a few attempts of 'cutting-in' to meet DH's exacting standards; not sure if he will ever want to decorate for another European again!

The entrance is clean and fresh (and almost finished).

Clean and bright compared to the gloomy yellow and grey that it was before.

DH, like most men, wanted a larger garden shed to store his tools and other stuff. Here in Costa Rica, sheds/storerooms are called bodega's. Our bodega is built into the wall underneath the casita's terrace, so it made sense to extend it. As a result, the terrace grew too!

Rubble everywhere

The bodega being made larger.

Neat and tidy - well it has only just been built!

New metal steps up to the terrace.

A bigger terrace for relaxing (and a peep of the bodega below!).

All of the metal that surrounds the terrace and entrance has been recycled from other areas in our plot - much of it was decorative and served no purpose whatsoever, so we just moved it to where it was actually needed. The steps up to the terrace have been welded specially though; unlike the UK, the welder spent most of the time with his welding mask perched atop his head and just used his sunglasses as safety goggles!

Of course lots of boring stuff has been going on too, like electrics and wiring (I don't think photos make that task any less dull so I won't bore you with them!!). We have also had to tile the roof as it was just metal - we may have to wait a few months to see if it is water-tight though!

New tiled roof.