With enough canine supervision, we close in on finishing the walls. The southeast corner of the house is the last wall area to be filled in. We begin to plan roofing, ducting for the HVAC and runs for electric, water and phone lines. Management here says they will sign off on any requests for more dog biscuits.
To finish off the southeast corner, I will have to fit blocks in carefully around the 6 leaded glass windows which will overlook the tub area. This will call for pouring my own concrete blocks in places to accomodate the irregular spacing.
The dance of light, shadow and prismatic color through the leaded glass windows are worth the trouble of building around them. These patterns change as the sun moves across the sky and dapple the entire dressing area.
Our first bit of roofing work will be the entryway. We are using wire fencing called "cattle panels" as framing for the barrel vaulted ceiling. This will be covered with several layers of chicken wire and a thin concrete shell troweled in by hand. The resulting material is called ferrocrete and the technique is widely used in Mexico and Asia for home and commercial construction.
A closer look at the framing for our ferrocrete ceiling for the entryway. I will be laying down a layer of 6 mil plastic over the cattle panel but underneath the chicken wire before troweling in the cement mixture. The barrel vaulting is a self-supporting arch, a technique that was perfected by the Romans when they made widespread use of concrete in construction.
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Next week's installment: I'd hit the roof if I had one... Click HERE

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