Day 72: Just around the corners

Today they guys were covering all the corners of the buildings. I think these are the last of the columns. Luis says they will pour the concrete of the columns and the stairs on Monday. He says the entire structure will be done next week. Mary (my dance friend who's an aparejador) says this stage is when they typically hoist the flag on top of the house to celebrate that the most dangerous stage of the house building is done.

Here are the corners and window/door frame arches that they prepared for the cement on Monday. It's a lot of work just for such short columns. And to top it all off, one guy has to be on a super tall ladder on the outside of the building...

here's how long the ladder is.

And this is where the guy on the inside stands. I'd rather be on the inside than on that ladder. But Guzman is a bit like a monkey.

All that work for such a small chunk of cement...

Here's the boss overseeing the work....and the neighbourhood. I asked him in Lajares was going to grow much more. He said nah, about 10 houses a year... if we're building 2... alone, we make up a 5th of the annual growth!

I don't know why all of the columns could have been done this easily? I wonder if it's finished...or maybe it's just the start.

This is how they tied the forms together when they run out of supplies.. Actually, I don't know why they did it like this. This is just what I assume.

Now on to the stairs 'à la Luis'. Luis said it was a lot of work (he did it all by himself) but in the end it's worth it because it will turn out very nice.

He told me I could walk up the stairs and he showed me how to go up without ruining his work.

This is the support in the back. (this area will be the wet room/storage)

A safety railing for now.

Here you can see the steel rods going into the holes of the blocks on the side so the stairs are stuck to the wall well.

Here's the storage area. Just enough room to roll my bike under the stairs and hang my kitebags.

This is the courtyard of the wet room area. where I will wash my kite stuff, dry my laundry and stuff like that. Right now it kind of feels like Hong Kong because there's so much cement around but it will be white and I'll decorate it ;).