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Post by tod2 on Nov 4, 2012 16:22:01 GMT
Hearty congratulations Mark! I could never have imagined it would look half as good as this. The rooms are bright and cheerful and I can foresee many happy holidays are about to be enjoyed in your new fabulous 'adobe hacienda'? ;D
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Post by mich64 on Nov 4, 2012 17:08:32 GMT
Have fun searching for wardrobes! I have recently been looking as well as one of my bedroom does not have a closet and therefore it is technically a plus one room, will need to alter that.
Your personal touches in your private bath are lovely choices. I also enjoy the scale and design of the metal railings. The tile patterns will enable you to decorate the space with little clutter as they bring that element to the space.
You have chosen colors that will endure changes in decor. The white subway tile in the bathroom is perfect, just changing towel colors and accessories will always keep the space current. Your outdoor space is perfect and I can imagine how the addition of the pool would be outstanding. I can imagine you and your family enjoying many decades in this wonderful home.
How did your dispute with your neighbor resolve, or has it?
Kerouac, we are approaching the end of 2012. I am sure there are many of us waiting to see your project as well.
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Post by bjd on Nov 4, 2012 19:59:53 GMT
What a great job. Difficult to believe it's the same place as what you showed us in the first pictures. I'm sure you'll spend lots of time enjoying the house.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 5, 2012 4:17:50 GMT
Changing towel colours, mich? That's not my department. I build things! The neighbour has not got back in touch with us as regards what is supposed to be his bit of land. We doubt he will, but for now we'll respect what he says - until it suits us not to.
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Post by lola on Nov 6, 2012 3:55:49 GMT
Only amazing, OnlyMark. What an achievement. Thank you so much for letting us follow it. I'm sure I'm not the only one with Castle In Spain Envy now.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 6, 2012 7:24:36 GMT
Could be a good idea for a TV programme. "Castles In Spain".
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2012 7:36:03 GMT
The rooms look even bigger than they used to -- I suspect that this will change when there is more furniture!
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Post by lola on Nov 6, 2012 14:33:05 GMT
Sorry if this was addressed earlier, but:
Did you keep the house's name as on the gate? Is it El Mocaen, and if so is there a translation for that? Why were you advised against wooden doors etc again? Security, or warping?
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Post by mich64 on Nov 6, 2012 17:31:48 GMT
I assume that you do not make the towel decisions in your family, but your tile choices have made it easier for decor change in future for the person who will want to make changes. You have done an excellent job with this renovation and I think you will enjoy your choices for a long long time.
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Post by onlymark on Nov 7, 2012 4:43:06 GMT
Lola, I'm not sure at all what the name of the house means. We asked the previous owner and he came out with some garbled story concerning the Moors that inhabited the area. He also mentioned the name to be Mocaden rather than Mocaen and that when the original gates were made the 'd' was missed off so that the letters could be split evenly between the two. There's probably no element of truth in any of it but eventually we'll return the name to the front with a plaque or some such thing.
We were often advised not to use wood because of the climate causes it to warp unless you really protect it every year. We did try quite a few wooden windows we came across in any local restaurant etc and found that many of them had warped and were difficult to open. What I didn't want is that every year I had to use up my holiday time re-varnishing them, so we opted for the easy option of just having the one door which I can can attack easily enough.
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Post by lola on Nov 8, 2012 13:44:01 GMT
I'll go with the Moor theory. It adds a nice mysterious note, and you can decide yourselves how to pronounce it. I've always thought it would be cool to have a house with a name.
I wonder whether it's the heat that warps it? It's a beautiful wood door, and the metal ones look good, too. We'll be happy to help with the sanding and varnishing when we're guests there.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 1, 2014 19:48:59 GMT
Aha! Found this again. I think it needs quite a bit of updating.
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Post by mich64 on Nov 1, 2014 21:25:40 GMT
YEAH!
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:24:13 GMT
I'll add to this but the extracts are from my log of the works and as so much time as passed it may sound a bit strange when I talk about something happening now but it was actually a year or so ago. Well start as from Summer 2013......
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:25:30 GMT
So, latest update (June 2013) - Arrived and found the builders had made a temporary connection to the water and electric for us to stay in the house without missing out on it. They had disconnected them to begin to reform the outside. The first steps were to knock down an outbuilding that had housed the solar batteries and the hot water tank. This is being rebuilt to get more room inside. Also there is a piece of ground that used to be enclosed with walls and forms part of our house footprint even though nothing was ever built on it. This is to become the swimming pool. If you walk from the back door around to the left side of the house you now see the top of the new outbuilding and the shuttering for the pool - Walking on top of the 'shed' gives a better view of the work they've done to put up the shuttering for the concrete - A view of the pool - It will be 9m by 4m with an extra 1m at the side for steps and a place to sit inside the water. As you walk down the side of the house you get an idea of how much above ground the pool will be and an idea of the slope we've had to build on -
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:27:25 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:28:09 GMT
I don't normally use the date thing on the camera but I needed to when I picked up the hire care from the airport to have some proof of the damage already done to it. But that's a different story. I forgot to switch it off. Anyway, the concrete was poured today, it'll take some time to dry enough to take the shuttering off and then I'll see how it is from then on. This is what the front used to look like after the first stage of work to the interior and on page 1 of this report is the original frontage. Originally it looked quite good but the photos do give a false impression considering the state of the inside - Now that has been completed the facade can be done. This is the stripping away of the original covering, removing the outside steps that are no longer needed and then putting a coat of render on the surface. The render will be white, the edges of the building will be a pale red (hard to describe the colour) and there will be similar as borders around the windows. Probably best in a week or two to post the final look as well. Note the scaffolding tied to a grill with a bit of string and wood - The 'courtyard', an area of 14m x 9m, so errr............. 126 sq m, is being used for the rubble from the building work going on. Eventually a front wall will be built bordering the access track to the right and the courtyard decked out in some nice tiles with a compass needle as a centre piece picked out in marble -
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:30:08 GMT
Probably best to do a bit of a round up as it's been so long since I posted on this, just as a reminder. Floor plans – The ground floor with the two bedrooms hasn’t changed as they were the first to be completed though one of them is being used at the moment by the workers to store their kit and is in a bit of a state. We need to redecorate these bottom two anyway. The middle floor is on the road to being finished apart from several bits of furniture we need to save up for. The kitchen needs a breakfast bar building behind the cooker and a couple more units for storing crockery etc nearer the dining table. The table has had a bit of a refurbishment with a coat of varnish – the kids seem to have left several deep scars in the old surface. I reduced the gap between the cooker and the sink by 40cm by removing one kitchen unit and replacing it with a smaller width one as it was just a bit too wide for comfort. The cooker still needs a plinth building for it. The guest toilet has had a coat of paint and wall paper to finish it off. The back door has had a coat of varnish and a cover put over an ugly electrical box with also some coat hooks in the entrance hall/room.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:30:56 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:31:32 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:32:10 GMT
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Post by bjd on Nov 2, 2014 6:54:50 GMT
Wow! You certainly have improved the place since the beginning. I really like the use of the strong colours in the bedrooms -- they go well with the general feel of the house and the area.
Do you plan to live there permanently at some point, or is it always going to be a holiday house?
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:55:17 GMT
The pool, now going a shade of green, will be tiled eventually. The far side of it, the other side of the steps, will be built up to a patio/sunbathing area for about four metres or so and underneath this will be space for a workshop for me – the roof being the patio floor. Hopefully I should get something single garage sized over there. This is the side of the house towards the pool. Obviously needs some work doing to it. And this is the other side.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:55:44 GMT
On the side of the pool nearest the house are the outbuildings for, nearest us, the battery, hot water, washing machine and storage room – more on this in a minute. Then there is a long corridor room down the side of the pool which we’ll store something like sunbeds in, then on the far end it the room for all the pool and pump/filter stuff plus and overflow water tank as it is an infinity pool (mentioned before). Coming down the steps to the bottom level where the doors are we look into the ‘wash’ room. The floor here has been finished off and we can start to see the technical side of the house. The batteries and control boxes are on the left, the old, too large, kitchen unit in the middle full of my tools and the water system, hot water tank and solar heating control box are on the right.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:56:51 GMT
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:57:50 GMT
I’ll just slip in a photo of the facade. One just after lunch and the second just before sunset. The red surround mirrors the colour of a lot of the earth in the locality. We took a sample of the earth to the supplier of the cement to get the colour matched. The red areas are actually in relief and are raised from the white part of the facade by a centimetre or so. Much debate was made with the builder as regards the spacings of the relief parts as, because it is an old house, the window and french type door spacings are not regular. As you can see in the bottom left, the window there is close to the edge of the house and is only 60cm wide due to the irregularity of the building anyway. We could have done our own thing and not followed the seemingly random building and made it all precise, but we didn't want a symmetrical look to it, we wanted to retain a certain amount of its character. The bottom of the facade will have stone cladding when we get round (next year?) to doing something with the courtyard apart from just concreting it to form a base for the tiles/bricks. The security grills on the second floor will be removed when we come to live there properly (god knows when) but for now will remain due to the house being empty for extended periods.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 6:58:32 GMT
That'll do as an update for now. Quite a lot to take in. More in a few days probably. This takes us up to nearly the end of the summer last year.
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 7:13:48 GMT
bjd, from March next year I'll be living in it as that is when I will officially leave Jordan. Mrs M will arrive in July for a sabbatical for a year (she'll visit for a holiday beforehand though) and my two daughters will arrive about the same time. The girls will then go to a local school for a year. They are currently at a boarding school in Germany (their choice. They didn't like the USA school here). My son will stay at his boarding school, also in Germany (his choice), for that year. The house will be our permanent home for that time but moves are afoot that at the end of the summer 2016 Mrs M and I will move again to a different country for her work. The kids..... well, we need to ask them what they want to do as regards further education. So the Spain house will revert to being a holiday home again.
In the future (better saying that than that awful term 'going forward'), Mrs M still has about twenty years of working life before retirement. When she does then the house will be lived in full time (I'll be quite an old man as well by then) but until then.......? We both will spend extended periods of time there, Mrs M will continue having sabbaticals regularly which will be spent there and with the kids off our hands I could well be there quite often. But whilst she is working and we are moving from country to country every few years it will remain as 'temporary accommodation', more actually like our bolt hole away from the trial and tribulations of modern day life.
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Post by mossie on Nov 2, 2014 8:47:11 GMT
Well, I suppose Spain is half way to the Muddle East, BUT that scaffolding certainly would get a very black mark here. I thought both countries are in the EU, or do our useless civil servants(sic) embroider the rules so much
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Post by onlyMark on Nov 2, 2014 9:04:54 GMT
There are rules, at least I expect so but I put it down to a different attitude. In the UK it seems workers wont do anything until they have all the safety equipment and bugger the job. In Spain they know of it but it's not generally available and they just get on with it. In the Middle East they don't know of the equipment at all anyway.
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