Competa news blog

So, we had a kitchen, a bathroom of sorts, a lounge, a bedroom with a leaky roof....Plenty of storage in the kitchen, a fridge and oven which worked on bottled gas and taps which worked.  Bliss!  With winter approaching, I decided it was probably best to tackle the roof next.  What I thought was a minor leak turned out to be a major problem with rotten beams in the bedroom and part of the lounge... no point in trying to patch it up.  Good thing I was still on a Middle Eastern salary!  So.... off with the roof, timbers and all.  The best ones were saved,  de woodwormed and reused.  Great.  I decided to have a porch put on the front as well with the door facing west so when you opened the door, you didn't get a blast of air - hot or cold!  The porch meant more room to sit in front of the fire as well.... Seemed like a good addition!

I must admit, the builder was very professional.  Everything was fastidiously covered up with plastic sheeting to keep it clean.  Off came the roof, dust, wattling and all.  Tiles were kept where possible.... quite a lot of them. Then came the good stuff - thankfully no rain and the builders worked every day to get it finished.  Just as well really as even to this day over 25 years I remember that they had just finished when there was a mega storm and part of the track went flying down the hill - cutting me off at the finca.  The neighbours rallied round to fix the track so I could drive out.  The roof certainly got a good water proof testing that night and for 3 nights afterwards!

Then came the boring stuff of cleaning everything up, although the builders had done their best, and admiring the new arrangements.  A nice archway instead of the odd shaped thing which had developed when I took a sledge hammer to the "wall" between the kitchen and the lounge and tried to patch it up...., a solid roof and everything tidy.... except I didn't like the concrete floor.  Everything else looked nice and there was this crappy floor.... well, it would just have to come up.