Slow and not so slow

After we got our concrete floor it has been quiet at the site – Dave Bodelson has too many jobs and too few guys. Hopefully there will be action soon, we want full height walls so we can put a roof on it all. In the meantime other things are happening, such as digging trenches for cables to the solar panels, deciding how the corbels should look, building cabinets and drawers for the kitchen. All cabinets are built and now I am making all the drawers, got the first “prototype” built with a bit of trial and error. The first drawer came out ok, the next seven will be easier to build now that I know how.

Early morning pour

At 6 am sharp the first concrete truck arrived and Dave Bodelson’s crew started pouring the concrete. Before eight it was quiet again, before nine Lalo and his buddies were “walking” on the concrete, working it with trowels. Pretty exciting!

Dave Bodelson getting dirty in the “mud”.

Plumbing and cabinets

The radiant heating and plumbing boxes in the walls are done, ready for concrete pour tomorrow at 6 am! A lot of stuff is happening, such as work on the irrigation, etc. and I am trying to focus on the kitchen cabinets, both painting some and building them.

A warm studio

It looks like we will have a warm studio/guest house in he winter. As soon as we have poured the floor slab, we will continue to build the walls.

Prep for concrete slab and kitchen cabinets

After a quiet Memorial weekend the team is back working on the preparation for the concrete slab. Now we are chasing to be able to have a floor to work from and also to enable the fire place builder to get started. Meanwhile I am “slaving” away in the garage, building my kitchen cabinets. Three are built, five more to go, but they are bigger. Then doors and drawers have to be built, but that is not so urgent, because the cabinets can be installed without drawers and doors.

Bathroom vanity almost done… and more

The bathroom vanity is getting done. The stone top has to be selected, on top of it there will be a nice Catalano sink.

At the construction site Gabriel and Jesús are preparing for the concrete slab. The walls are half built and filled with concrete.

Spending time in the studio

It is starting to look something like a house. Inspection today, core filling concrete in the walls tomorrow, starting on the floor next. When we have a concrete floor we will continue on the walls.

Walls and cabinets are being built

The walls of the studio are slowly coming up. Meanwhile I am in the garage/workshop building cabinets. The first one is the vanity for the bathroom. The cabinets will be painted like paintings, art pieces, hence the plywood structure!

Water and sewer and more

The plumbers have done a lot. Nobody knew where the water and sewer lines were – now we know, after a few mishaps. We dug trenches all the way to the street and installed conduit for communication cables, electricity for a future gate (just in case). I got to try operating the excavator, ha ha – no easy task. Where the studio/guest house is being built there used to be an area where the previous owners were trying to grow grapes for wine. There were eight large planters, which we did not want to just throw away. So we move two and two of our neighbors took care of the other. Now we have two very nice planters with fresh soil and irrigation so Andrea can plant herbs and vegetables!

A foundation has been built

Cleaning up, compacting dirt, getting ready for the plumber.