More interesting than walls

Tim did the last post, and thankyou, I accept I have been a bit tardy in that department but your post, Tim was a bit light on on exciting product details.

Lights have been the most recent project. I have changed my mind some, if you cast your mind back to the multiline "Rekta" light which was to go above the kitchen bench, but it was too short and square, so I've now decided to go with the Artemide "Talo"

it's a bit curvy and longer, and is still a lovely light.

We are having uplights in the living room, because the raked ceiling doesn't really go with downlights, (and I'm a bit over them, anyway), so this is the one we're going for, again Artemide (love those Italians), it is innovatively called square

And to top off this taste of the lighting which will be gracing the house, for the front hall I have chosen the classic Danese Falkland suspension lamp. When you come in through the front door, this is the light you will see being framed by high windows and the wonderful view.


One positive thing with the Greek financial situation is the euro has crapped out a bit and so expensive Italian lights are just a little bit cheaper.

Unfortunately as the house comes along and looks more like a house it gets more excruciating waiting for it to be finished and every delay gets that much more annoying. I'm trying to be zen about it but I'm getting to the end of my zen tether!

We are meeting with garden designers in the hope we can plan the landscape around the house and chip away at it in an orderly fashion, rather than moving in, being overwhelmed by mud, and deciding to do the whole thing in Panorama pattern pave with large plantings of agapanthus.

Roof and Power

We now have a roof! Gutters and fascia were measured yesterday and will probably be installed next week. Its February, so rain is a very rare event indeed, and its not as if we are watching thousands of litres of water cascading off the roof and down the hill (instead of into our tanks). Carpenters are getting close to finishing timber stud framing, the last step will be to put windows in.

The other big step forward this week was power connection. Sounds trivial, but means tradies can get started on first fix work. No stopping them now...

More walls

Pleasing consistent progress has been made since the last post. As you can see from the piccies, the timber for the wall frames are almost complete, so you can now wander through the different rooms and see where all of the doors and windows go. Speaking of windows and doors, all of the windows and sliding doors have been delivered to site and are folornly waiting to be installed. All of the windows in the house are double glazed, and we hope this will make a big difference to the comfort and performance of the house.

The concrete block room you can see in the photo is the laundry. This has solid masonry walls so it can act as a radiant heat refuge in the event of a bush fire. The bush fire precautions we need to take are extensive- pumps, sprinklers, hoses, tree clearing not to mention the building requirements in terms of materials. The first major stuff up occurred courtesy of concrete block erectors. When we visited the site after they had finished, the proportions just didn't seem right, and we got out the tape measure and checked and yes, some of the wall had been built in the wrong spot. Luckily everyone was in aggreance that it was wrong and it was taken down and put in the right spot. To add to our annoyance on that particular site visit Hugo was quite excited about the large pools of mud caused not by rain but by the tap being left on. This is a bit more inconvenient that a larger than normal water bill because the water for construction is provided by a little tank which has to be filled by water carters... and it was needlessly emptied!

Onto another product- this time the bath. I can't remember which exact model it is, but it looks exactly like this