No more scaffolding

No more scaffolding – whoo hoo! But this is least of the things to think about right now. We are only a couple of weeks from contractors leaving the site – hopefully finishing quite a few things left to do before we move in and finally start living this idea of a dream. Quite a few things…

dictionary.cambridge.org says that the definition of “shades of grey” is “the possibility of uncertainty”. Completely certainly that is the case for the concrete floor shades of grey that we did (or did not) manage to achieve.

Huh. Although of course I am pondering these floors in my head almost constantly for the last 24 hours (I was in Istria yesterday) and longer, for the purposes of the blog I will say that all is great and exactly how it should and could have been. Regardless of the actual result, the process was cool to watch.

Ready for the floor

After laying down the necessary insulation, the apartments were ready for the concrete to arrive. Plastic sheeting that goes up the walls was up there for wall protection. Also, the picture looked appropriate to try and show you the layout a bit. Stairs are about the be ordered and I have some ideas for the doors – which means reusing old doors from the house and make some of them slide -something like this:

Sliding bathroom doors

I am meeting someone on Monday to see about the mechanism.

This is how it gets in

Back to the floors – big truck arrived, attached itself to the house and barfed the concrete into it.

Machinery

While that was going on, the cool looking machines were waiting. These are called “helicopters” and as the concrete dries a bit they go in to compress it so big chunks of whatever concrete is made of go down and smaller ones go up.

Waiting for concrete to dry a bit

Working the machinery

Process repeated until tiniest particles and water stay on top. I think this went on for quite a few hours. Once all is dry – the surface is very smooth and shiny.

Just before it is left to dry completely, cement (I chose “black” thinking black means grey, haha) is sprinkled on top to make the whole thing harder and more resilient to use. And this is the final result.

Too dark?

You may remember how the floor in the test apartment ended up being waay to light for my liking (as well as not being smooth and shiny at all). So I wanted this one to be darker. Of course I now think it is too dark. It is at least very smooth and exactly as I wanted it structure wise. And it looks very much like the magazine pictures I had. And it also looks very cool and I think it works well with the rest of the space. Still, seeing it, it is a bit too dark and mostly I am scared of its maintenance. As you can see above – right now it is full of dusty shoe marks. Very visible shoe marks. It is not completely finished yet, final sealant has to go in – which may make it better. Or worse.

And of course, when the site stops being building site, there should be less dust overall and less builder’s shoes to go around. And when furniture is there, lot less floor space will be visible… and… saga continues. At least it will look very cool when clean 🙂

Catastrophe?

The sealing of the floor in our apartment has been attempted and it looks – well, not good. In fact, I am gutted with the whole thing about that floor. So, the plan C is to paint the whole thing with the concrete floor paint of  the right, haha, shade of grey and maybe this time finish this story. I have no idea what exactly happened, but there were dirt marks on the floor that apparently couldn’t be cleaned and then when the guy started with the sealant they became even more visible. So he stopped half way realising it is bad.

In any case, I am breathing deeply and counting good things. Of which there are few.

White walls

Walls in our apartment have been painted (white) and the space looks nice, airy and much bigger than before.

Vanja’s desk space

This is our bedroom/office – well, it will be a working office if the internet speed shows up to be fast enough. The phone has been connected and I have submitted the request for measuring the speed (the telecommunication company wouldn’t/couldn’t guarantee any speed until the line was connected) as I am too unpatient to wait for the electricity to be connected so we can measure it ourselves. I think if we are lucky we will have 4Mbit/s. 10Mbit/s is a distant possibility and fiber to home is a while away yet, hoho.

Facade

The facade is being put up to protect us from heat – no idea about the finish yet, but apparently, I have another week to make a decision.

Monolith no more

The monolith is almost hidden underneath beautiful stone wall (these guys really know how to work the stone if not concrete floors).

Field in waiting

I have been recently to a talk about biodynamic agriculture. Which might just be the way to go about doing something with this little filed we have at the bottom of the property. Any ideas about what to grow welcome. I don’t think this grass will count as green manure but we’ll think of something.

I hope we will be moving down there on 1 July. We have some “beta testers” (ie very good friends who don’t mind sleeping on the floor in an unfinished space) announced to arrive on 26 July – which makes it all too real and just in time for Motovun Film Festival. I better go and make up my mind about mattresses and beds at least. Well, beds I am making myself unless Vanja manages to change my mind.