Plaster work

November 6, 2016

It has been a long time since I last posted. I somehow lost the link to the Editing page, turns out I had two Google logins...

The plaster work, (which is NOT AT ALL plaster, but cement mortar) is a LONG process. The more arches, edges, corners and other features you have, the longer is going to take.
The brick gets wetted for the better adhesion of the first "rough" coat and the next day, the second, smooth coat gets applied. The Maestro will give you a choice of finishes (smooth, striated, etc) for you to select. I went for smooth, which incidentally is also the easiest to apply.

Before they apply the first rough coat they will apply on the concrete castillos and the concrete dalas (on the vertical and horizontal concrete elements in the masonry) a thin and rough slurry of concrete for better adhesion.

Where ceilings are to be plastered, a metal mesh is straddled over the steel flanges for adhesion.
They apply all the plaster on the interior of the house before they do the exterior. This gives time for full cure of the concrete mortar before it gets primed.

When the interior plaster work is done, they can clean the "floor" and can lay metal mesh and pour the concrete over the boveda ceilings. We just had this process started at the beginning of November.

This is Maestro Antonio doing the rough coat by the Entrance, using as "leveling" guide the work he had done on the two corner castillos.

This is Cristino doing the top part of the Living room.

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Living room arches

Kitchen

Guest bedroom

Exterior West wall

Concrete floors

November 6, 2016

Pouring the concrete floors is one of the big last steps towards completion of the structure of the house. In our case, we still have to add roofs over the Mirador (the third floor of the house), roof over the Garage/carport area and the pergola over part of Jim's Studio terrace.
The reason they pour the floor after doing the concrete/plaster work on walls is to make sure the concrete floor is nice and flat for the installation of the stone flooring. The application of the plaster on walls produces a lot of drips which would compromise the flushness of the floor.

They do the top floors first.
Before they do the ground floor, they bring a lot of crushed stone and compact it on the ground, on the inside of the house to act as a anti-capilarity layer.
In our case, before we do the pour on the Ground floor, we will also do a treatment of the soil for Termite protection.

Following week, around the 14th of November, we will receive the delivery of some 3000 square feet of Travertino for our floors. I can't wait... I bought the stone from the Internet in August, on Mercado Libre. I had them send me three tile samples, they looked EXACTLY as I wanted them to be. Now, let's see what we get and IF we get.

Maestro doing the concrete slab in Jim's Studio. He made the day before some leveled concrete beams on the floor to use as guide for leveling.

The exterior is coming along nicely.

Add caption

The SW corner of Jim's Studio viewed from his little Terrace.

Cristino and Paco are working the back of the house.

Miguel is building the chimneys on the roof so we can pour the corner castillos and get ready for the Mirador roof.

Front of the house roof parapets and skylights.

Roofing the second floor

July 8, 2016

The Boveda ceilings on the second floor, in the Guest Bedroom area is done first. On top of it will be the Mirador, a covered steel structure allowing ample view of the surroundings. They have been working all week on it and it is almost done.

See the upper part of the steel beams sticking above the brick Boveda. This will be incorporated in the layer of reinforced concrete to be poured on top. Waterproofing and tile flooring on top of that.

August 12, 2016

We are "topping off" now for awhile.
Take a look at the steel structure for the slanted roof that will be having the solar panels on it.

The slanted steel beams are welded to the two beams at top and close to bottom.

The steel at 1 meter from the bottom was added at my request and calculated by Ing. Oscar Chavez Castellianos ( my architect's father) because the full line of window perforations in the masonry wall weakened the structural integrity of the South support wall. The last one meter of the steel beams are practically cantilevered from the bottom beam although they rest on the perforated wall, but not really carrying the roof.

this is the steel for the roof

The electrical for lighting on the second floor is in, you can see the boxes and conduits in the Boveda brick ceilings before they will pour the 3-4" of reinforced concrete.

This is the "third level" and in the area you see in the bottom half of the photo there will be a Mirador, which is like a
Kiosk on top of the roof.

The Boveda over the Studio is done.

The view is pretty nice from up here.

Looking NW towards the Sierra  mountains.

One can actually see some of the Lake from here.

Working on the concrete on the sloped roofs. On the top one we get 12 solar panels, on the lower on only 6. We will get enough electricity to run the house without grid consumption.

The side door from the Studio leads to a small terrace on top of the Dining room
and we will have a Pergola over half of it.

Ilana and the boys: Lupe, Miguel y Cristino.

Roofing the second floor

July 8, 2016

The Boveda ceilings on the second floor, in the Guest Bedroom area is done first. On top of it will be the Mirador, a covered steel structure allowing ample view of the surroundings. They have been working all week on it and it is almost done.

See the upper part of the steel beams sticking above the brick Boveda. This will be incorporated in the layer of reinforced concrete to be poured on top. Waterproofing and tile flooring on top of that.

August 12, 2016

We are "topping off" now for awhile.
Take a look at the steel structure for the slanted roof that will be having the solar panels on it.

The slanted steel beams are welded to the two beams at top and close to bottom.

The steel at 1 meter from the bottom was added at my request and calculated by Ing. Oscar Chavez Castellianos ( my architect's father) because the full line of window perforations in the masonry wall weakened the structural integrity of the South support wall. The last one meter of the steel beams are practically cantilevered from the bottom beam although they rest on the perforated wall, but not really carrying the roof.

this is the steel for the roof

The electrical for lighting on the second floor is in, you can see the boxes and conduits in the Boveda brick ceilings before they will pour the 3-4" of reinforced concrete.

This is the "third level" and in the area you see in the bottom half of the photo there will be a Mirador, which is like a
Kiosk on top of the roof.

The Boveda over the Studio is done.

The view is pretty nice from up here.

Looking NW towards the Sierra  mountains.

One can actually see some of the Lake from here.

Working on the concrete on the sloped roofs. On the top one we get 12 solar panels, on the lower on only 6. We will get enough electricity to run the house without grid consumption.

The side door from the Studio leads to a small terrace on top of the Dining room
and we will have a Pergola over half of it.

Ilana and the boys: Lupe, Miguel y Cristino.

Building the second floor

June 13, 2016

We are up and going...we are four and a half months since we starting excavation.
All the fancy arches and building of the Hot Tub delayed us a little but everything is running smoothly.

Hot Tub in the... we don't want to call it The "Spanish" court out of respect for the lovely Mexican people, we may call it the "Plaza de la Revolucion" court.

The beam sticking out will be part of the support of a balcony, which will cover a half round outdoors Grill area for Jim cooking.

This is the East wall separating our house from the adjacent lot.

This is just the First floor.

The wall with the two half arches is between Jim's Studio and the stairwell along the East wall.

June 26,2016

Jim's Studio from his little Terrace on top of the Dining Room.

Part of the balcony is built, the half round is still missing.

This ladder is the ONLY access for now to the Second floor. The bricks get THROWN two at the time up and the buckets of
mortar and concrete make it up the ladder one by one....

The rainy season started few days ago. Our street is one of the worst ones, the Torrent drains are clogged and the profile of the street, which should bow not only in cross section but also from E to W (so that rain water could get to the ends of the block from where it would run to the lake) is flattened out, so water collects creating a little LAKE. I just wrote to the Chapala Infrastructure Department.... we will see what happens.

This is ALMOST in front of our house.

June 30, 2016

West wall of the upstairs, Guest Bedroom in the back, Jim's Studio in the front.

The roof over Jim's Studio will get two rows of Solar panels and the top of this first floor roof will get one row.

I modified the design of the windows in this  South wall and I compromised the integrity of it.
After this little wall with windows was built, I felt in my GUT that
due to the numerous openings and having cut short one concrete castillo,  I don't want big steel beams at 20 degrees slope to rest on it as I can see it shear. I talked to the structural engineer,  he agreed with me and my solution so we will show later how we fixed it.

July 8, 2016

Aiming ever higher, nice photo of the Maestro projected on the Mexican blue sky.

Working on the top of the East party wall

These are the two large steel beams - ready to come up. These beams are the result of my "Gut" feeling I had when I saw that the small windows you see below "killed" the integrity of the wall for supporting the slanted roof.

The steel beams will take all the load from the roof beams

Looking up from the side yard.

Scraping the Sky...

The exterior stair to the Mirador will start on the second floor balcony.

The center 4" steel pipe goes all the way into the foundation wall, through the concrete castillo.

Looking out the window from the Guest Bedroom

North, mountain view.

The West wall of the upstairs Studio has the dala/lintel installed over the terrace door and the Armex for the sloped dala/beam. Where the door lintel meets with the sloped dala, we will have one of those big steel beams set, parallel to the street wall ( with the little windows at the top),

This sloped roof with have 12 solar panels on it.

Same door as above, before the pouring of the dala. I am confirming with the workers the future

location of the steel beam. I also want them to install some steel for future Pergola support on top of the Terrace.

From left to right: Cristino, half of me behind the castillo and Miguel.

This is the stairwell, before the stair is built. It will be two ramps of steps, in the same direction, with a 38" intermediate platform. The stair is 51" wide and will allow in the future, (IF NEEDED) the installation of an Acorn stair lift. There will be an wrought iron gate installed at the platform, to allow safety separation between our cats and dogs. The left wall, not visible in this photo is the real stone wall seen in the Terrace photos.

The arched window at the top will have right in front of it and above the top landing a Skylight .

All second floor wall construction is done, we are just missing the flue of the first floor Terrace fireplace, so we are moving on to the Roofing post.

Building the second floor

June 13, 2016

We are up and going...we are four and a half months since we starting excavation.
All the fancy arches and building of the Hot Tub delayed us a little but everything is running smoothly.

Hot Tub in the... we don't want to call it The "Spanish" court out of respect for the lovely Mexican people, we may call it the "Plaza de la Revolucion" court.

The beam sticking out will be part of the support of a balcony, which will cover a half round outdoors Grill area for Jim cooking.

This is the East wall separating our house from the adjacent lot.

This is just the First floor.

The wall with the two half arches is between Jim's Studio and the stairwell along the East wall.

June 26,2016

Jim's Studio from his little Terrace on top of the Dining Room.

Part of the balcony is built, the half round is still missing.

This ladder is the ONLY access for now to the Second floor. The bricks get THROWN two at the time up and the buckets of
mortar and concrete make it up the ladder one by one....

The rainy season started few days ago. Our street is one of the worst ones, the Torrent drains are clogged and the profile of the street, which should bow not only in cross section but also from E to W (so that rain water could get to the ends of the block from where it would run to the lake) is flattened out, so water collects creating a little LAKE. I just wrote to the Chapala Infrastructure Department.... we will see what happens.

This is ALMOST in front of our house.

June 30, 2016

West wall of the upstairs, Guest Bedroom in the back, Jim's Studio in the front.

The roof over Jim's Studio will get two rows of Solar panels and the top of this first floor roof will get one row.

I modified the design of the windows in this  South wall and I compromised the integrity of it.
After this little wall with windows was built, I felt in my GUT that
due to the numerous openings and having cut short one concrete castillo,  I don't want big steel beams at 20 degrees slope to rest on it as I can see it shear. I talked to the structural engineer,  he agreed with me and my solution so we will show later how we fixed it.

July 8, 2016

Aiming ever higher, nice photo of the Maestro projected on the Mexican blue sky.

Working on the top of the East party wall

These are the two large steel beams - ready to come up. These beams are the result of my "Gut" feeling I had when I saw that the small windows you see below "killed" the integrity of the wall for supporting the slanted roof.

The steel beams will take all the load from the roof beams

Looking up from the side yard.

Scraping the Sky...

The exterior stair to the Mirador will start on the second floor balcony.

The center 4" steel pipe goes all the way into the foundation wall, through the concrete castillo.

Looking out the window from the Guest Bedroom

North, mountain view.

The West wall of the upstairs Studio has the dala/lintel installed over the terrace door and the Armex for the sloped dala/beam. Where the door lintel meets with the sloped dala, we will have one of those big steel beams set, parallel to the street wall ( with the little windows at the top),

This sloped roof with have 12 solar panels on it.

Same door as above, before the pouring of the dala. I am confirming with the workers the future

location of the steel beam. I also want them to install some steel for future Pergola support on top of the Terrace.

From left to right: Cristino, half of me behind the castillo and Miguel.

This is the stairwell, before the stair is built. It will be two ramps of steps, in the same direction, with a 38" intermediate platform. The stair is 51" wide and will allow in the future, (IF NEEDED) the installation of an Acorn stair lift. There will be an wrought iron gate installed at the platform, to allow safety separation between our cats and dogs. The left wall, not visible in this photo is the real stone wall seen in the Terrace photos.

The arched window at the top will have right in front of it and above the top landing a Skylight .

All second floor wall construction is done, we are just missing the flue of the first floor Terrace fireplace, so we are moving on to the Roofing post.