It has been a long time since I last posted. I somehow lost the link to the Editing page, turns out I had two Google logins…

The plaster work, —which is NOT AT ALL plaster, but cement mortar— is a LONG process. The more arches, edges, corners and other features you have, the longer is going to take.
The brick gets wetted for the better adhesion of the first “rough” coat and the next day, the second, smooth coat gets applied. The Maestro will give you a choice of finishes (smooth, striated, etc) for you to select. I went for smooth, which incidentally is also the easiest to apply.

Before they apply the first rough coat they will apply on the concrete castillos and the concrete dalas —on the vertical and horizontal concrete elements in the masonry— a thin and rough slurry of concrete for better adhesion.

Where ceilings are to be plastered, a metal mesh is straddled over the steel flanges for adhesion.
They apply all the plaster on the interior of the house before they do the exterior. This gives time for full cure of the concrete mortar before it gets primed.

When the interior plaster work is done, they can clean the “floor” and can lay metal mesh and pour the concrete over the boveda ceilings. We just had this process started at the beginning of November.

This is Maestro Antonio doing the rough coat by the Entrance, using as “leveling” guide the work he had done on the two corner castillos. This is Cristino doing the top part of the Living room. Living room arches. Kitchen Guest bedroom Exterior West wall

July 8, 2016

The Boveda ceilings on the second floor, in the Guest Bedroom area is done first. On top of it will be the Mirador, a covered steel structure allowing ample view of the surroundings. They have been working all week on it and it is almost done.

See the upper part of the steel beams sticking above the brick Boveda. This will be incorporated in the layer of reinforced concrete to be poured on top. Waterproofing and tile flooring on top of that.

August 12, 2016

We are “topping off” now for awhile.
Take a look at the steel structure for the slanted roof that will be having the solar panels on it.

The slanted steel beams are welded to the two beams at top and close to bottom.

The steel at 1 meter from the bottom was added at my request and calculated by Ing. Oscar Chavez Castellianos ( my architect’s father) because the full line of window perforations in the masonry wall weakened the structural integrity of the South support wall. The last one meter of the steel beams are practically cantilevered from the bottom beam although they rest on the perforated wall, but not really carrying the roof.

this is the steel for the roof

The electrical for lighting on the second floor is in, you can see the boxes and conduits in the Boveda brick ceilings before they will pour the 3-4″ of reinforced concrete.

This is the “third level”. The  brick floor area will be open Terrace. The bottom picture shows exhaust fan pipe and electrical boxes for ceiling fixtures. There will be a roofed Mirador — a Kiosk on top of the roof— in the area shown with beams protruding, and that is the size of the Guest Bedroom below.

The Boveda over the Studio is done.

Clerestory at the North top of Jim’s Studio, looking into the uncovered Terrace above.

From the Mirador, looking NW towards the Sierra  mountains.

Looking South, one can actually see some of the Lake from here.

Working on the concrete on the sloped roofs. The top roof gets 12 solar panels, the lower on only 6. We will get enough electricity to run the house without grid consumption.

The side door from the Studio leads to a small terrace on top of the Dining room and we will have a Pergola over half of it.

Ilana and the boys: Lupe, Miguel y Cristino.

November 6, 2016

Pouring the concrete floors is one of the big last steps towards the completion of the structure of the house. In our case, we still have to add roofs over the Mirador —the third floor of the house—, the roof over the Garage/carport area, and the pergola over part of Jim’s Studio terrace.
The reason they pour the floor after doing the concrete/plasterwork on walls is to make sure the concrete floor is nice and flat for the installation of the stone flooring. The application of the plaster on walls produces a lot of drips which would compromise the flushness of the floor.

They do the top floors first.
Before they do the ground floor, they bring a lot of crushed stone and compact it on the ground, on the inside of the house to act as a anti-capillarity layer.
In our case, before we do the pour on the Ground floor, we will also do a treatment of the soil for Termite protection.

Following week, around the 14th of November, we will receive the delivery of some 3000 square feet of Travertino for our floors. I can’t wait… I bought the stone from the Internet in August, on Mercado Libre. I had them send me three tile samples, they looked EXACTLY as I wanted them to be. Now, let’s see what we get and IF we get.

Maestro doing the concrete slab in Jim’s Studio. He made the day before some leveled concrete beams on the floor to use as a guide for leveling. The exterior is coming along nicely. The SW corner of Jim’s Studio viewed from his little Terrace. Cristino and Paco are working on the back of the house. Miguel is building the chimneys on the roof so we can pour the corner castillos and get ready for the Mirador roof. Front of the house roof parapets and skylights.

We are up and going…we are four and a half months since we starting excavation.
All the fancy arches and building of the Hot Tub delayed us a little but everything is running smoothly.

This is the East wall separating our house from the adjacent lot.

This is just the First floor.

The wall with the two half arches is between Jim’s Studio and the stairwell along the East wall.

Jim’s Studio from his little Terrace on top of the Dining Room.

Part of the balcony is built, the half-round part is still missing.

This ladder is the ONLY access for now to the second floor. The bricks get THROWN two at the time up and the buckets of mortar and concrete make it up the ladder one by one…

The rainy season started a few days ago. Our street is one of the worst ones, the Torrent drains are clogged and the profile of the street, which should bow not only in cross-section but also from E to W —so that rainwater could get to the ends of the block from where it would run to the lake— is flattened out, so water collects creating a little LAKE. I just wrote to the Chapala Infrastructure Department…. we will see what happens.

This is ALMOST in front of our house.

June 30, 2016

West wall of the upstairs, Guest Bedroom in the back, Jim’s Studio in the front.

The roof over Jim’s Studio will get two rows of Solar panels and the top of this first-floor roof will get one row.

I modified the design of the windows in this  South wall and I compromised the integrity of it. After this little wall with windows was built, I felt in my GUT that due to the numerous openings and having cut short one concrete castillo,  I don’t want big steel beams at 20 degrees slope to rest on it as I can see it shear. I talked to the structural engineer,  he agreed with me and my solution so we will show later how we fixed it.

July 8, 2016

Aiming ever higher, nice photo of the Maestro projected on the Mexican blue sky.

Working on the top of the East party wall

These are the two large steel beams – ready to come up. These beams are the result of my “Gut” feeling I had when I saw that the small windows you see below “killed” the integrity of the wall for supporting the slanted roof.

The steel beams will take all the load from the roof beams

Looking up from the side yard.

Scraping the Sky…

The exterior stair to the Mirador will start on the second-floor balcony.

The center 4″ steel pipe goes all the way into the foundation wall, through the concrete castillo.

Looking out the window from the Guest Bedroom

North, mountain view.

The west wall of the upstairs Studio has the dala/lintel installed over the terrace door and the Armex for the sloped dala/beam. Where the door lintel meets with the sloped dala, we will have one of those big steel beams set, parallel to the street wall ( with the little windows at the top),

This sloped roof will have 12 solar panels on it.

The same door as above, before the pouring of the dala. I am confirming with the workers the future

location of the steel beam. I also want them to install some steel for future Pergola support on top of the Terrace.

From left to right: Cristino, half of me behind the castillo and Miguel.

This is the stairwell before the stair is built. It will be two ramps of steps, in the same direction, with a 38″ intermediate platform. The stair is 51″ wide and will allow in the future, —IF NEEDED— the installation of an Acorn stair lift. There will be a wrought iron gate installed at the platform, to allow safety separation between our cats and dogs. The left wall, not visible in this photo is the real stone wall seen in the Terrace photos.

The arched window at the top will have right in front of it and above the top landing a Skylight .

All second-floor wall construction is done, we are just missing the flue of the first floor Terrace fireplace, so we are moving on to the Roofing post.

May 25, 2016
Wow, I can’t believe it had been seven weeks since my last post. The house detailing and Interiors are keeping me really busy.
The Boveda ceilings (the exposed brick ceilings) are going in. It is a long, tedious process, as the brick is installed one by one and they form a flat arch between the steel beams, which are no more than 36″ center to center.
The areas where the brick is going to be the visible part of the ceiling, they use a special brick and they tool the joints as they go.
The Kitchen, bathrooms, closets will get plastered for a smooth white finish and they use normal brick and do not tool the joints.
The cost of the two ceilings is the same as the price of the plastering is made up of the labor for tooling and the special brick.
Steel mesh for reinforcement and 3.5″ of concrete is poured on top of the Boveda structure for the final “slab”.
However, this is not done until the electrical wiring and plastering of the walls are done.

The strength of the Boveda structure is AMAZING. The next day after is built, they can stack PILES of brick on it… downright scary…

This is the Terrace ceiling. As there is a second floor over it, the brick is set on the edge for increased strength.

May 30, 2016

Finished Terrace ceiling.

They pour a “milk of concrete” on top of it and it is good to go. As you can see, the two architects below use it as a drawing surface.

Oscar and I are on top of the Terrace, Jim’s future Study Room. The volume in the back is the Master Bedroom, to receive the Guest Room on top.

June 13, 2016

The steel for the Living Room sloped ceiling is in.

Detail of the steel. It has steel pegs welded at the top on outside of the concrete beam to prevent sliding and continuous rods of steel across the whole roof to connect the beams to each other.

Living Room ceiling with the Skylight opening.

Boveda over the Living Room and the storage/Bodega of the garage on the front right.

Close up of the Living Room roof. The brick is on the lower flange of the steel beam, the concrete milk on top. When the wire mesh is put over and the 8 cm of concrete poured over, the half top of the steel beams become encased in the concrete for a very strong concrete slab.

Lupe started a few weeks ago the electrical conduits for the first floor. He is the electrician and plumber. Lupe worked for many years in Houston and is very familiar with American construction standards. He is a very nice and skilled man and also very creative.

This is the West wall in the Kitchen with the power conduit installed.

We are moving on the second floor. Hurray!!!!!

March 1, 2016

Today, Tuesday, they started the brickwork. They are going so fast, I have to keep up with them, making sure the windows widths and sill heights, the recessed niches, and other openings are correct…

Oscar and I fine-tuning the locations of arches and corner closets in the Master Bedroom.

They are building 1m (39″) in height and before they go further they fill the “castillo” with concrete.

Trough the door between the Dining and Terrace. Miguel is building an Architectural glass wall with plaster dividers.

Looking out the Dining room window towards the Spanish Court.

View from the back of the Spanish Court towards the front.

At the back of the house, the narrow vertical glass block window in the shower, and the window/Med cabinet above Ilana’s vanity

After the first meter (3 feet) they pour the concrete in the Castillos

The start of the L R fireplace in the corner front of the house

March 31, 2016

The loose brick under the arches gets removed once the arch is dry and solid. The same arches will
be build on the exterior line of columns, which are bigger, as they support the second-floor Studio for Jim’s Man Cave.

Behind these arches and in front of the brick Party wall there will be a real stone wall separating the long stair from the Passage Hall leading from the Day area of the house (the front) and the Bedroom area.

The columns for the front and back of the covered Terrace are built in reinforced concrete to be stronger and slimmer.

The Jacaranda trees —this one is in front of our current rental in La Floresta— are in full bloom in March. The whole town looks magical…

The stone for the solid stone wall by the stair arrived today. This is how the house looks now from the street.

Looking from the Spanish Court (side yard) through the Dining Room window towards the Kitchen and the street.

Happy Ilana sitting on the stone for the future wall. We waited for this for a long time as it is a straight face stone for a “dry-stacked” stone wall. The Dry stack only means that the mortar is on the interior only and there will be no visible mortar on the face of the wall. The machine up in the mountain that cuts “straight” the quarry rock was broken and the supply of stone was low.

April 17, 2016
The many, many arches and arched window openings are finally done. As my architect, Oscar, calls it, this is a “complex” not “complicated” architecture. It took some time, but it is spectacularly Mexican. Oscar is fabulous and his guys are simply great. Thank you.

Looking from the Dining Room towards the Den/TV room.

From Dining Room, same spot, but looking more Left towards Terrace/Outdoors Living Room

The West wall, (atop of the arches) is now at the full height for the Cathedral ceiling.

Looking Right (towards the front) from the Spanish Court through the Dining Room window and the Kitchen arch and window.

After reading a Mexico History book and finding out the hard time the Spanish gave to the Mexican people for centuries, that we will change the name of the “Spanish Court” to: “Plaza de la Revolucion” in sign of respect. I think it is very funny.

Great Construction photo. Jim is doing a great job at documenting the work on the house.

Look at the clean, nice, red truck bringing in the “special” brick for the Boveda ceilings.

It is smaller than the masonry brick, lighter, and better quality at it will be exposed (for the most part),

In the back of the house, along the neighboring wall, they built a little Bodega for additional storage.

The roof –half-built in this photo— is done with brick resting on steel beams edges.

The covered Terrace/Living room will get a second floor above (Jim’s Studio). Here you see the little fireplace already built.

The Boveda Maestro joint the Team and started on the Dining Room ceiling, which will be an intersection of two partial cylinders. I will post more photos, this is an AMAZING skill. The man does ONLY this and he is called upon to build all over this part of Mexico.

The Stonewall is started. We hoped it would be a “dry-stacked” stone wall, but unfortunately, as I had said before, the machine in the mountain, which cuts the rock “straight” out of the mountain has been broken for a while and the supply of “good” stone is all gone. I love the light yet rusty color of the stone and I am pleased with the look of it. This wall is along the stair, and along the walk from the day area to the Night area of the house. The columns will be part of a wrought iron wall with glass and a big door to the Terrace/Living Room. The brick is the back of a recess in the stone wall, centered to the big opening toward the terrace and will make a charming seat area.

May 13, 2016

On April 18th the Maestro started the Boveda ceiling in the Dining Room. Because the room is small, he had decided that we will get a smoother curve if he works with half bricks instead of full bricks. Well, that is more than expected, and the man has to cut by hand EVERY brick and of course, has to place in position twice as many pieces. The end result is well worth it.

At the same time, they had to “open” the front wall of the house at the top to allow for welding into the steel inside the concrete Castillos the steel beam of the Garage, which touches the front wall.

The house is progressing nicely. All my arches and fireplaces, stone wall with an arched recess in it and custom-built Hot tub are done but slowed down a little the process, so I think, for now, we are few weeks behind the original schedule.

Dining room Boveda is done. It will get little lights in the four corners and a little pendant in the middle.

Hot tub in progress

Arched recess for a bench in the stone wall

The electrical work stated. Lupe is the Plumber/Electrician. He worked in Houston for many years and he is familiar with North of the Border “standards”. Master Bedroom fireplace. They started the Boveda ceilings over the 1st floor. The brick is set on the edge for more strength and a 6″ layer of reinforced concrete will be poured on it to make the slab for the second floor. The wall separating the Court from the back —for the dogs— will have a wrought iron gate and openings. One of the concrete posts contain the round steel tube for the center of the stair from the 2nd-floor balcony to the roof Mirador.

February 2016

The city water in Ajijic, while “unlimited” it is not pumped through the system 24/7.
I don’t know what the reason is, but the way it works is that each house has its own ALJIBE —reads ALHIBE)— connected to the street lines and it fills up every time the street system is pressurized.
This gives you a reserve (in our case 2000 gal of water) from where you supply your house and garden. From this point, one has the opportunity to install a water filtration system on the house lines. This could be UV light, carbon, Ozone, etc…
To get the water to the house faucets, you have two options:
Option 1 – a pump sends the water up to the roof to a “gravity” tank called Tinaco, which will gravity feed all your faucets etc in the house. The advantage of this option is that, IF the power is out, you have a reserve of few hundred gallons on the roof and you can use your plumbing in the house.
Disadvantages: looks nasty/industrial, you have to worry about roof lines to your plumbing locations and algae growing in the lines, insulation etc
Option 2 -An automatic electric pump sends water to a pressure tank —inside the Aljibe— and from there to the lines when you turn on any faucet. This solution has regular underground water lines but the disadvantage is that IN CASE there is a power outage, one does not have water either, because the pump would not work. The obvious solution is to have a piped Propane generator for the water pump and for “emergency lighting and power” in the house. We opted for this solution and we will have some emergency lighting and power (TV, Computers, refrigerator…) and the water pump set up in a Transfer switch panel to be easily flipped to the generator if needed.
The liquid Propane tank of about 300 Liters (75 gal) will be piped to the Kitchen stove, Terrace grill, all four fireplaces of the house and of course the generator. To fill a 300 liters tank of Propane costs around #130 USD and lasts some 4-6 month of full use depending on season.

See below progress photos of the aljibe. I will update as we go along.

Hole in the ground for the Aljibe at the NW corner of the house

Deep foundation wall will be built between Aljibe and the adjacent Master Bedroom

Today, February 22, 2016

The Aljibe will receive a metal mesh on the full interior, creating radiuses at all edges and corners and 2″ of special plaster.

February 28, 2016
The Aljibe got the got the plaster coat and the beam to support the future “roof” structure.

Looks really nice and smooth. We will make sure it will be fully cleaned out before we fill it up.
I did some research on the purification systems and I am very pleased to say, that after the confusing phase, it became VERY clear what has to be done and especially what NOT to do.
The NOT TO is the Reverse Osmosis. It is an absolute onerous system with a waste of water in the range of over 90%.
The TO DO thing is:
1. Big time “sediment” filtration. The closer your house is to the neighborhood reservoir tank, the more sediment will be in the water. Good sediment filtration will reduce the amount of deposit on the bottom of the Aljibe and increase the life of the pumps.
2. UV light treatment. There are no “chemical” particles added, the lamp has to be changed once a year, does not matter if you run ONE gallon or A THOUSAND gallons by the light bulb…
The “hard” glass Quartz (not soft) should be used. It KILLS not traps bacteria. The less residue in the water, the better it works. (Small suspended particles in the water will “shade” some bacteria and can’t be killed.) One should run all the water coming out of the Aljibe through the UV system.
IF installed in an existing house the pipes need to be Chlorine treated firs, but it is perfect for new construction.
3. A Carbon filter under the Kitchen sink should also be used.
I will still have at least in one location in the house (Kitchen or covered Terrace Kitchenette) a Garafon (3-5 gal bottled water) water dispenser.

March 1, 2016

The “roof top” on the Aljibe is in. It is build of Boveda brick on steel channels and a milk of cement for starters. Tomorrow, one can walk on it. Then, it will receive a 6″ concrete pad over it and garden soil, leaving just a raised visitation manhole for access above the grade.

 

The fine inside plaster had been wetted every day and now it is filled to fight hydrostatic pressure.

 

Week of February 22, 2016

A Forest of castillos… Oscar is telling me that when they build the brick walls, they only build 3′ in height at the time and fill in the adjacent castillo with concrete for support. They also build at the same time a portion of the intersecting wall for rigidity. The interesting thing is that they don’t pour the concrete slab on grade till after the interior plaster is done, to insure a smooth, clean surface for the stone floor.
One can “read” the layout really well now. Jim had trouble at first, but now he can see how it will lay out.

Forest of castillos

The Terrace columns, holding up the second floor where Jim’s Studio is will be footed with reinforced concrete not stone wall. See below the R-bar bottom grid to which they will attach the vertical reinforcing.

Large compacted gravel on the bottom, the Mother of all footings…

February 25-28, 2016

Blocks are used to “form” the footing of the columns

The outside columns supporting the second floor get BIG concrete foundation and much heftier steel.

Foundation of Big columns up to the level of the stone foundation walls.

After the installation of the ARMEX (reinforcing steel) for the Castillos (columns) and Dalas (the horizontal steel), they are thoroughly tight together in preparation for the pouring of the concrete.

At any “splice” the Armex is overlapped and the same at all corners.

And now comes the good stuff… the concrete. We got REALLY lucky, we got an unexpected rainy day just as we were pouring the concrete and that is going to give us a REALLY strong concrete.

Starts to look as “seeds coming out of the ground”. Nice…

Monday, February 29, 2016- Bonus Day!- leap year….

Today they are installing on the perimeter foundation beams a Fiberglass membrane into a bed of asphalt type water proofing. I don’t have a detail photo, but you can see below and in the Brick section the black band over the concrete dala. That is the water proofing. 

The brick delivery started today. Oscar has all the material sent to the job site on time. Way to go my boy!!!!!!!

I am adding this at a later date, as I had an error in my previous paragraph. The water proofing (the black stuff) goes on ALL of the foundation walls, not on the Perimeter only. I also have some detail photos.

This is supposed to prevent any Hygroscopic water migration from the soil into the brick walls

January 26,2016
The excavation was finished as planned last night.
Large gravel and Lime powder was delivered to the site.
Today four people started on the foundation work. Come Monday, we will have a team of eight.
Oscar estimates that it would take three weeks to do the foundation.
PROBLEM #1
The stump of the huge tree that once lived in the middle of the double lot and which is close to our lot line has part of the root inside our foundation trench. We need to cut the root, treat it immediately with Roundup (glyphosate), drill some deep holes and inject that stuff. After the soil comes off of the top of the stump, we need to make a FRESH cut and drill holes and treat the edge of the tree, the layer under the bark with that stuff.
We also need to get the dead tree on the sidewalk removed.

Stump root in the way…

Future Kitchen

Cal at the bottom, will expand with moisture and act as a water barrier.

The large root, half cut off.

The START of the foundation wall

Detail of the darned root

Picture taken from the Trenches…

January 28, 2016
Oscar set the levels for the house. There will be a step up from the sidewalk into the property at the pedestrian gate but the sidewalk itself, in front of the house will be about 4″ higher than the adjacent sidewalks. The lot has a natural small slope from back to the front of the lot favoring drainage towards the street. We may need drainage holes or pipes toward the street.
The East side neighbor’s trees, at the sidewalk, may have to be trimmed as they interfere with the electrical lines on the street and may make difficult our connection to CFE.

The fun thing today occurred when Jim downloaded the photos he took today. The mason building the foundation WALL at the front fence of the house was wearing a Baseball cap with Pink Floyd “The Wall” on it.

Part of the root stump is still there, they gave up for now to make progress on the foundation wall.
There is “cave” under the stump root. It is dead, for sure, but still giving us a lot of work to do.

We are making nice progress. It is amazing how much manual labor is involved in setting stone by stone into mortar for the foundation wall, including under the fence wall…

The gap in the foundation wall is for a reinforced concrete post called Castillo.

Every 9 feet or so they have a Castillo, which is a little concrete column imbedded in the masonry wall, from the foundation, through the concrete slab. Horizontally, on each floor you have two Dalas, which are reinforced concrete beams tying together the Castillos and providing structural stability to the masonry construction. Amazingly strong construction…

I am sure having a good time… I missed it….

Week of February 8, 2016

One more week and the foundation wall is finished. They are on schedule and making good progress.

They still have to do the Kitchen and Dining Room.

This is the East wall separating our house from the adjacent lot.

The pile of dirt on the left is our Master Bedroom.

The little openings in the foundation wall are for the castillos (reinforced concrete little columns) which will strengthen the masonry walls. The foundation walls are at least twice as thick as the masonry walls on top of them will be.

Standing in the future Bathroom, the walk in closet is behind me and on my left the Bedroom.

We need to cut down soon the dead tree on the sidewalk in the front of the house so we can build the masonry fence wall so we would be able to enclose the yard to store materials.

Week of February 15, 2016

Foundation work is done. One can finally see the house layout. The foundation walls are about three times thicker than the brick walls to be built. There will be an 8″ “dala” (reinforced concrete bean) on top of the foundation wall and the brick walls will go on top of that. All those interruptions in the foundation walls will receive a reinforced concrete column (the castillos).

With this, we move on to SMALLER posts/topics. The foundation work took exactly 3 weeks, to the day, as scheduled. Good job guys and Oscar.

The first of the R-bars on February 16.