Ack, snow

Not yet, but it’s forecast for Thursday.  Soooo….  anyway things are moving ahead but there are no photos yet so you’ll just have to believe me.  On Friday, Nicolas came over and put up the rest of the drywall in Gabriel’s bedroom, and he’ll come back next week to help lay the first layers of flooring.  And today in between trips to Leroy Merlin and Castorama for supplies, i actually got the bathroom wall up, so the half-wall between my bedroom and the upstairs bathroom is now framed out, and the bathroom side has fermacell on it (that’s a german sort of drywall with wood fibers in it, that’s supposed to be more ecological than drywall, however, my own opinion is that after you add in the special glue that is required, rather than plain old plaster putty used with drywall, it’s a bit of a wash).  If more ecological means more expensive, then it is very green.  But there are advantages:  it’s waterproof, and has greater structural resistance, you can actually hang things directly in it without crossing your fingers that there’s a beam behind it.

But they’ve forecast snow for Thursday so tomorrow is going to be devoted to getting the sheetrock hangers and the insulation up over the office/utility room/bathroom.

Weekly update

No pix, sorry, but hopefully they’ll come soon.  What’s happened here at Maffay this last week:  as of Saturday, we now have the first light fixture in the kitchen and the living room is wired.  The pvc pipes outside are glued and fixed, and our sewer pump problem is resolved so i can do laundry again.  And yesterday i finished gabriel’s bedroom wall, the one with wood panelling where his closet will be.  Today if there’s time i’ll try to finish up the linen closet, and the cork sound insulation between the drywall wall of his bedroom, and the hallway, and will also try to get the last wall framed out (the one between my bedroom and the bathroom).  Tomorrow morning Nicolas is coming over to see if he’ll be able to help out with the flooring project (pouring the cellulose pellets, and helping lay the two layers of OSB, and helping put up the sheetrock on the walls).  Jacky is coming tomorrow or early next week to finish up the drains behind the house so that we won’t have to walk on a plank over the sewer trench to get from the mobile home to the big house.

So we’re moving ahead, which is good, because it’s getting cold, and Gabriel and i both agree that the outdoor shower, first thing in the morning, is quite a shocking wake-up call.

Sunday

We are having the most beautiful indian summer here, very cold nights and early mornings, but the sky is cloudless and blue, and walnuts crunch underfoot, and chestnuts are cracking open, and every so often a rifle shot echoes through the air, startling a langorous sunny afternoon awake from its nap.  Today we started stacking the first of our wood, from the tractor load delivered by M. Roullier; we have a long way to go.  And Jacky Duval is going to fix our drainage problems this week, and i learned how to put caps and glue together pvc sewer pipes today, so the sewer problems are almost under control.  As of last night, Gaël and Romain have given us light in our kitchen.  There is so much to do in the next two weeks, but the mere advent of light over the stone wall and (the wall i have to finish stucco-ing) and (the terra cotta tiles i have to wash with acid, then treat), makes it seem like a Real kitchen, even though paradoxically, there is nothing there but terra cotta tiles, the walls, and a light fixture.

We’re getting there.  Also Willy is back with us this weekend, and helped with Sandra and Romain to pull the last sheetrock upstairs to go onto the walls that are almost all framed out – here are some pictures of his last visit when he helped carry all the bags of damn-pellets upstairs.  Gabriel helped him, using the dolly.  We had chicken for lunch, and Gabriel even brought the boys’ bowls out into the grass so that they could have a picnic too.  After this weekend, in mid-September, we retired the parasol until next year, and took the table into the chapel.

Update

We’re dealing with sewage, and more bulldozing, but the result of this will be that we have very good drains around the house, so we’ll get back to you soon with more upbeat news.  But we’ve also just returned from Venezia, where we found some beautiful glass piastrini (mosaic pieces) for the shower.  Because the outdoor palette shower, while it has its appeal, is also starting to fill up with leaves, and get cold.  More to come soon.

Oh:  and glad födelsedagen, Magnus.  Et joyeuse anniversaire Grâce!

Lost tooth, baseball finger and neutration

It’s been quite a week here at Maffay:  Gabriel lost his first toowf at breakfast on Saturday, and on Wednesday while getting dressed the tendon on the middle finger of my left hand popped off its bone, and this Saturday both the kittoes (Max and Cip) are going to become castrati.  Or, technically, and grammatically, neutered.  So G earned 50 centimes from the tooth fairy, I get a splint on my finger which makes it look as though i’m flipping off the world for two months (and you get less typed verbosity because of that), and Max and Cip, well, they’ll get to snack on some good chicken when they come home from the veterinarian’s on Saturday.

Willy was here to celebrate the loss of the first tooth with us.