The work started this week, it's a PITA having workers here at 8am and staying until 6pm every day. In addition, there is an enormous amount of construction material being delivered. I really can not believe how much cement and gravel and sand and rebar and concrete beams there are. Storing them is a problem, getting them up 3 turns of a staircase is a problem and so far they have only delivered what they need for half the roof. Because of the pond and the trees it was decided to do half first and then move everything onto that half and do the other half. It looks to me like they are doing the right side first instead of the street side but hey, I'm not going to argue over that kind of detail. Filling in the big drop outside the door was a problem. If I have this right, they are going to leave part of it deep but with aluminum slats over it, a small section that we can lift off easily and make sure that everything is draining correctly. We get monsoon rains here in the summer and drainage is a huge consideration. All that water has to be gotten off the roof and down to the street level. The roof above it, over our bedroom, also drains to this roof so that water has to be channeled off as well.
Also, the AC compressor for the office has to be moved. The water and gas pipes have to be secured and then covered. There are a lot of details. Because of all that, I got the architect who did our original renovation 6 years ago to draw plans and manage the project. He is good, he knows the systems of the house and he guarantees his work so if something goes wrong (madly knocking on wood now) he will fix it. Since we can put whatever we want under the new floor, I'm having a cold water garden sink and a potting table put in, lighting put around the perimeter, electrical for the pond put in, and hose bibs and irrigation outlets around the planter boxes.
The first few days they were mainly moving stuff and cleaning the area. The pond was moved to the area near the house and all the trees were moved.
The smaller plants were put on the little terrace off the bedroom.
We had already moved out of the bedroom and pushed the bed and furniture up against the wall. Now the bedroom is full of construction material. The foam is what they will use under the tile to raise the level of the floor.
