We start this week where I have spent most of June: bailing water out of the courtyard. Torrential rains are a problem when your DIY crew hasn't had the chance to bring in the fill dirt for the courtyard yet. The red arrow marks where the courtyard drain is. We rig up a raised sump basin, which is higher than the rest of the courtyard, and set to work with a bucket under the "baleful" eye of project management.
In between storms, I manage to get The Wife's prized chandelier hung under the barrel vault in the living room. We have been collecting fixtures, doors, windows and other pieces to the puzzle in our garage for years before being able to start construction. It's nice to be able to start moving a few of them from storage and into the house. In the background you can see one of the screen blocks set into the barrel vault.
We're still working on the ferrocement roof between (and sometimes even during) storms as we fill in low spots and seek to improve our rain runoff. This is a closer look at one of the drainage ports and the chute we have built into the roof to help channel water. I have yet to finish placing cement around the drain block and we'll probably add another finish layer of meshcrete here. Say, isn't that the sun I see coming out from behind a cloud?
The sun is putting in a brief cameo appearance, so we grab the camera and scramble onto the top of the barrel vault to survey our little kingdom. The top of the cement elevator is visible at right and the drain/chute pictured above can be seen along the back wall. As you can see, we're almost finished with our ferrocement roof construction and can start thinking about sealing it.
The other side of our roof. #1 marks one of the plumbing system standpipes, #2 and #3 mark drainage ports for this side of the house and #4, of course, marks your humble correspondent casting a mighty tall shadow after a brutally hard month of work in June. We're a bit the worse for wear, but still standing and that's what counts at the end of the day.
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