The Concrete is Finished

The concrete is finished, look:
We (the whole family) all went to Morzine today so that I could meet Hervè and talk over the building. The concrete is basically finished, it needs rubbing down and trimming up but its all been poured. Next is the timber and the roof. Apparently that will start shortly and it should take only about ten days to get some sort of roof on the chalet and get it rain proof. I dont think this includes completely finishing the roof like with tiles but just finished enough to protect the chalet and the other workers from the rain. Hervè promised to inform me of the date that the carpenters would start.




This is the box just in from the front door designed to keep the warm air in the house and the cold air out when you open the front door.
There will be a window inside the building which is unusual and this box is roofed over with a mezzanine type floor with access from the top floor. This was causing me concern as my original plans for a grand mezzanine we stopped when I discovered that the roof truss would prevent any access. I could not think how to get access to this space in a tidy and neat manner. trap doors and ladders might work but where to put them, there certainly wasn't room for a staircase. Hervè once made some comment about getting access from beside the fireplace but I never understood until today. I thought that the wall behind the fireplace was going reach to the ceiling but it doesn't. It stops. So I can have my stairs by the fireplace leading up to the mezzanine overlooking the kitchen, dining room and salon.

These are the stairs up to the second from top floor.
I show these as it took ages for Robs chalet to get the stairs installed. I don't know why this was but it seemed to take months. Maybe because my chalet is being built towards the end of the season they seem to have done most of it at the same time. I know this seems logical but they just took ages finishing off Robs place and I kind of expected the same story. Well they are not quite finished yet so I will still wait and see. The concrete needs to be rubbed down the the misaligned edged need to be ground down to look smooth.



I must say that I am not impressed with the quality of the concrete. Well the actual concrete is OK I suppose but the quality of the placement is pretty bad. There are holes and misalignment's everywhere. One example of this is the missed door I mentioned before another is this window:
OK, I mean the house is probably not going to fall down because of these but it just doesn't inspire confidence.







Even more important is the fact that people have been paid! The builder got his money and the architect has finally had the balance of his money. That means all is well with the bank and that I finally have the mortgage sorted out. I was a bit worried as the bank had not responded to my emails.
The bank has only just got email after years of faffing about with faxes and phones I know have a slightly more direct line to the bank, well easier for me anyway, although I it still seems a bit one way as I have yet to hear from him via email.