Day 1+

We have only just started (yesterday afternoon) digging the foundations for the guest room (which will in fact be a tiny guest house at the other end of our land). Nothing much to see yet, but I thought it would be fun to document the progression. 

My idea is to take a picture every day (probably less, in the long run; or I'll group them weekly) and post regularly to show how exciting, frustrating, upsetting, and rewarding it is to build something (or, rather, to have something built), no matter how small it is.

Floor treatment #2

After everybody went to bed tonight, I found myself in the kitchen, trying to work, and having little success. Insects were bothering me and I first thought I would use this floor cleaning product that is also an insect repellent, but then I thought, why not apply the second coat of hard oil on the floor? Surely the turpentine in it will discourage quite a few insects too, and I've waited long enough to see how much oil got absorbed by the stone and the mortar.

Here is the floor just after I wiped a hard oil soaked terrycloth on it. I used very little this time, probably less than 0.25 litre of the mix for a 15sqm room (probably closer to 10sqm, since I didn't move the hob, fridge, and freezer and there are built-in shelves on one wall that extend to the floor and I didn't touch them either). It's shiny because the stone hasn't absorbed the oil yet. We'll see tomorrow how much was absorbed and how much needs to be wiped from the stones.

I still like the way the stone's colours are deepened by the hard oil and how they are set out against the mortar. I can't wait to do the rest of the house!

A glimpse of Papio-REI

Warning: this post is as serious as a heart attack. We are talking retirement planning. Yes, really. Retirement is around the corner. 60 will happen faster than I'll like it and nobody will be there to take care of me, not the state, not my kids. If I'm lucky, little feet, now 3, will be about to enter university when I turn 60. So... For when I want to slow down (or new software stop amusing me and I start losing more and more battles on the scarily huge field of self-actualisation, lifelong training and whatnot), I need something that will generate sure  money without much input from me and that is, I think, real estate.

If you are building to rent, efficiency is the word. Better build 3 small units than one large: if one is empty, the other two may be rented out and you are not putting all your eggs in the same basket. That's my credo. Now, I have to come up with some plan that will look good, be reproducible, and allow you to cram as many units as possible on any given plot without looking cramped or cheap.

One type of housing I've always admired is the terraced house in London, UK. Thanks to the Internet and many excellent real estate agents' websites, I've come up with a plan that I find completely suitable:

I still need to tweak a few things (including exchanging my plot for another one, which was not available when I bought it, but is now), but I think this will serve my purpose perfectly.

Now, all that remains to be done, is to generate the funds and start building!

Floor treatment

After a discussion with a colleague who's been treating her stone floor with linseed oil and turpentine for decades, I've decided to bypass the R&D part and follow her advice.

Although the natural, untreated stone is wonderful theoretically and works well on the porch, it does show its limits indoors, especially in terms of dust raised (not so much by the stone, of course, but rather by the mortar, which seems to be very sandy) and stains in the kitchen and elsewhere. When food is cooked from scratch every day, when you have a 3-year old child and an indoor cat, stains are not something you can just ignore and hope they won't happen.

Here is the floor before treatment:

I checked a few websites and came up with a 80% linseed oil / 20% turpentine mix, which I applied with a terrycloth diaper, since it had to be something soft, that wouldn't shed too much on the irregular stone and mortar floor, and that would soak up the oil. 

Here is the kitchen floor after the first application. We love the way it  brings out the stone with its many hues, and defines it in contrast with the mortar, which looks more sandy than ever.

The stone doesn't seem to be extremely porous, so I don't think it needs much more than 2 "coats", but the mortar in between may be more thirsty. I'll go on hands and knees tonight again, when everybody else is in bed, and see in the morning how much more work is needed, if at all. I may just have to polish to remove the excess on the stone and somehow push it into the mortar.

To be continued...

Emergency building

While we were getting used to the new house and playing around with the ideal protection for our stone floor, a real emergency happened: I now have a 3-year old girl, and a visual artist partner. And the partner is due to exhibit in a few months, preferably sans the 3-year old's contribution. Meaning, her finger-painting on the said partner's completed works is _not_ welcome. At all.

So... We are in urgent need of outside storage for the completed works and also for the work-in-progress. And, we need a guest room. Finance is limited, and ideally we'd rather have waited a few months more, but the risk of more works being spoiled by an unruly, opinionated, stubborn child is too high.

Back to the drawing board, then, for the ideal visitors' bungalow. (We are only expecting our first visitor in October at best, and the exhibition is in September, so the visitor won't have to sleep among the stretchers.)

One technique we've been gathering information about is compressed stabilised earth blocks. A friend of mine in Senegal has a house currently being finished using this material. The artisan uses 98% laterite and 2% cement blocks. What I've read elsewhere is closer to a 95/5 or 90/10 ratio, but I'm willing to learn. With such a low cement content, compression is key. Fortunately, I was able to trace a block-making machine that would fit the bill. It's local, and it's proved its efficiency.

If the Senegalese builder is right, and this technique will indeed halve the cost of building, we might just be able to do more than just a shack for the paintings, and get the guest room ready earlier than expected. The plan is simple; small, efficient, no space or materials wasted. What we have in mind is something like this:

The most important aspect is that we are back to the wrap-around porch idea, this time a full wrap-around: the first building's porch covers only two sides, but I regret sacrificing the east side, which gets quite a lot of rain. Experience shows that only the north side doesn't really need it. Besides, since we've moved in, we practically live on the porch, and consider it a very useful and pleasant addition to any house.

So... drafting, drawing, counting, calculating... We are back to all this fun, and more!

Experimenting with stone floor sealing

Long time no blog! I'm now living in my dream house in the bush, with visiting cattle (a lot), birds of all descriptions and interesting flora. For various reasons (time constraints, mostly), the house is not 100% completed and all the painting and floor finishing remain to be done. Of course, it's far more difficult once you are already living in a one-room, loft-style place, but it will have to be done, somehow.

My most immediate need is to seal the natural stone floor so that stains won't permeate and spoil it. I was thinking of a clear stone varnish, but then thought I'd like something more natural, and easier to apply (again, considering we are already living in the house). I came across various options that fit my requirements, among which liquid black soap; boiled linseed oil; a 80-90% to 10-20% linseed oil + turpentine mix; and olive oil; to which I added, tentatively, coconut oil (well, why not?).

This begs for experimentation. I've therefore collected 5 stones remaining from the stone laying work and traced a line in the middle, to make the "before" and "after" very visible. I only have coconut and olive oil at home today, so these are what I started with. I'll get linseed oil and black soap tomorrow, hopefully.

I will document the progress of this multiple experiment here.

To be continued, then!