My mother comes to join The Wife and the members of project management (a/k/a "The Doppel Gang") in working on The Garage Mahal. While I labor on the roof, the women are busy chipping cement spills that have accumulated during the course of construction. Here, she is cleaning up one of the window sills in the living room.
We got a number of e-mail comments from people who apparently like the biotapestry we've made in the courtyard out of some old chicken wire and some wild morninglory. Here is another look at it from the roof. The chicken wire is suspended far enough away from the wall to avoid any damage from plant tendrils.
Back up on the roof, we are finish-coating the ferrocement roofing with another layer of meshcrete. This process, which we think we've originated, involves laying out sheets of common nylon mesh fabric and hand-troweling in a grout mix of Portland and fine sand in a 1 to 4 mix. The nylon provides a lath-like matrix and significant reduction in cracking during the curing process.
We've built up the roof from its ferrocement substrate by laminating thin coats of meshcrete. In this photo, we're applying a final coat to the barrel vault over the living room. Note the smooth finish from the #4 sand we're using in this mix.
A look at some of the finish coat we've applied this week. We'll continue working our way around the roof and hope to finish the cement work for the roof next week. After giving the cement 30 days to cure, we'll seal the roof with an elastomeric, waterproof coating that contains reflectants to bounce the sunlight off the roof.
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