We're ready to render and pave - Woo hoo!! (12 November 2006)

Since the last entry, we have moved on to the walking surfaces. It looks like we had made a bit of a mistake also on the heights of the steps, so we had to make some form work and re-set in concrete the steps to the fountain side.

We also built the steps to the garden using bezer blocks which were then filled with concrete; and we waterproofed the entire surface of the water feature, including the back wall.

Another thing we realised was that the pipe we had laid under the concrete footing to the fountain was not wide enough to carry the flow required by the water head, so we are now debating how to fix it. The most likely answer will be to bury a large water tank behind the wall (in the front garden), cut a wide hole to feed the water back into the tank, and feed the appropriate size pipe through the back of the wall.

The back of the water feature is now waterproofed...

...Including the base and pit

We had to use (diluted) hydrochloric acid to clean the cement from the walls

And the steps are now formed and ready for the next steps

The walls are finally up (10 October 2006)

It took some weeks to get back into doing the walls, but we finally finished them!! I decided to hire the help of professionals to finish the project, and Dave Killian, our trusted handyman (and retired builder) was kind enough to guide me through the steps, and allow me to work with him to finish the project. There were a couple of things we had to do to finish it off:

1. Lower the wall towards the back of the house. With a sloping land on the neighbours side, keeping the wall at the same height all along created too tall a division between the properties.

2. Re-lay quite a number of the cement-fiber sheets. As Dave explained to me, if we had kept laying the cement sheets in a variety of patterns, we would have an impossible time later on when we try to get a smooth finish during the paint phase.

After a few weekends of working on these 2 things, however, the walls are finished (the structures, that is). Next step is to get them rendered and painted.