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The Project: A 2,163 square foot house utilizing dry stack concrete block construction with a central courtyard and based on the Spanish colonial-era missions in San Antonio. The Challenge: Can a forty-something married couple design and build an attractive, efficient and mostly paid-for house while remaining sane, solvent and married? With no actual prior construction experience? Hmmmmm - let's check in on our Contestants and see how they're doing... |
| Our building pace during February slowed dramatically due to alternating bouts of cold weather and rain. Here, in a photo taken from the pantry doorway, you can see how close the water feature around the house is after several days of torrential rains. I do believe I could go fishing without leaving the house. |  |
| Between bouts of inclement weather, I fill in those spots in the walls that need to be finished off. Here, the leaded windows in the master bath are finally enclosed. The small spaces in the wall are filled in with cement much like using mud to seal the chinks bewteen adobe bricks. The larger voids over the windows will be filled in with styrofoam blocks covered with stucco - a trick borrowed from an outdoor sign maker. |  |
| I'm taking advantage of a little February sunshine to work on my tan and get some interior walls started. Here, I'm laying the first course in mortar for the wall separating the master bedroom from the rest of the house. The block walls provide superior soundproofing as well as a weight-bearing interior wall to aid in laying the ceiling joists. |  |
| The wall between master bedroom and living room, or at least the first course of it. Part of this wall will be used to reduce the span for the ceiling joists at this, the widest point of the house. A bit of the wall addition to support the barrel vaulting is seen in the upper right corner of this photo. Notice the water level through the window? |  |
| One of the management team inspects the master bath walls. As soon as the mortar sets properly, we'll start laying the rest of the wall blocks. The plumbing rough-ins for water, sewage drain and standpipe are seen here. |  |
| Want to see a rough floor plan?Want to be notified when we post new pictures? Just e-mail us! Want to see the rest of the story? Click on Gimme Shelter Home Page. |
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| Next week's installment: No Fault In My Barrel Vault Click HERE |
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