Rich and Michele's Rich and Michele figure they are too good to swim in the river like the rest of the locals, so they're building a swimming pool.
15 December, 2009: This is what 2000 bricks looks like. All stacked up in a neat pile against the wall it doesn't look like $4600 (pesos), but that's what it is. A great price, actually...cheaper than bricks were a year ago! We thought it prudent to buy about half the needed bricks before the backhoe came to excavate, so we could easily have them deep inside the property.
16 December, 2009: Here is (L-R) machine operator Jose Candido, town "President" and Buttinski Cherimoya, and contractor Alejandro in stoic pose for the historic groundbreaking.
Rich and Michele graciously (and wisely) donate a bit of machine time to the town at the request of town President and Buttinski, widening the "road" that leads to the project.
And there it is: THE FIRST SCOOP!
And by 1:30 it's all done! 17 December, 2009: Nothing happened today. 18 December, 2009: Here is what 10,000 pesos of building materials looks like:
Here are Ruben and Izequel digging the foundation lines for the walls. The two of them worked all day for less than you would work for a couple hours.
And look, even after a day of hard work under hot sun, they've still got smiles on their faces. 21 December, 2009: Between Saturday and today, they've gotten all the foundations and castillo iron put together and placed. The concrete on the foundation is almost complete.
Here's "The Gang" taking siesta. Nailo, his girlfriend Barbara, and three strong muchachos Rene, Iziquel, and Ruben. 22 December, 2009: Zapatas ('shoes') for the columns in the pool are in. A couple need to be re-positioned to make access for the steps into the pool. Rene (foreground, back to camera) worked with Nailo on the world-famous Casa de Mack y Mazey. He's a good dude.
Here's the beginning of the back wall, with another 2000 bricks in background:
24 December, 2009: Today was a short work day, being "BuenaNoche" (Christmas Eve). But by the time it was all over, three of the four back wall sections were growing.
The entire pool floor base has been leveled and poured. This is a thin, rough coat of concrete/mortar that will support a grid of rebar covered by a thick layer of finished concrete, the final floor. All the aramex castillos have been reinforced with rebar, and since the materials company couldn't deliver this morning, they continued working on the West wall.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! 29 December, 2009: Today saw further work on the walls. The back wall is done, including columns poured, except for the open section which allows material and worker movement. The side walls are coming along nicely. The crew laid and tied rebar across the floor, and it will be poured on Wednesday. We managed to find a drain kit for the floor (I think I must have bought the last one in town) and installed it. The bricks inside and around the edge of the rebar grid are 'level points', indicating the final level of the concrete floor.
30 December, 2009: A busy day today, with a few extra temp workers to handle the busy pace. Outside the walls, the crew is constantly mixing concrete with the help of Brian's mixer. A couple guys constantly measuring sand and gravel by the bucket, another moving bags of concrete and splitting them, 1 guy on the machine, and 2 guys running back and forth with wheelbarrow loads of concrete.
Here comes a load of concrete down the OSHA-non-approved ramp. Nailo tells them where to dump it and spreads it out with his trowel, removing the "marker bricks" as he goes.
The whole base took all morning to finish, then the afternoon was spent applying a thin coat of white cement + blue tint to provide a finish coat to the pool floor. It's starting to look like it could be a swimming pool!
31 December, 2009: A short day, being New Year's Eve, but the walls of the pool have started going up, and the garden wall continues rising. The crew will be back on Monday for a full week, at the end of which it should REALLY start looking like a pool!
HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 06 January, 2010: As usual, Nailo and his crew zip along at a faster pace than I figure. They're going to need another dumpload of sand, more concrete, more rebar, more more more. Here they have finished pouring the first of three rebar-reinforced "belts" that tie the whole pool together. That's Nailo on the left, and Rene looking hip and cool on the right.
Out back, the rest of the gang: Ruben, Iziquel, and Barbara.
07 January, 2010: The second "belt" is ready to be framed and poured, and the light fixtures at each end are fit in their places. To get them centered, we had to break into the belt and columns, which will then be re-connected with more rebar wrapping around the light fixtures. The brick laying on the walls is all done, and they'll start forming and pouring those after they get the belt done.
The brick laying on the walls is all done, and they'll start forming and pouring those
10 January, 2010: As many of you know, this 'blog' is primarily for the benefit of Rich and Michele who can't tear themselves away from their jobs...but they arrive today for 3 weeks of bliss in their soon-future full-time home. So since they're here to see the work first hand, I'll dispense with the usual witty remarks and just show the work as it progresses.
04 February, 2010: Monday the 1st was a holiday, so no workers. Tuesday it rained hard off and on so while the crew was there most of the day, they only got maybe a half-day's worth of work done. Tuesday night was a huge storm which dropped trees and power lines all over the area, so the crew all had better things to do at their respective homes (like replacing roofs, mopping out water, and getting electricity re-connected). Thursday was a mostly sunny day, the whole crew was there, and much was accomplished. First thing on the list is to pump out the rain water from the pool. It was about 8-9 inches deep at the point of the bottom drain.
With the interior of the pool "off limits" for final prep before painting, the crew worked on finishing walls. The North wall is completely covered with concrete, and ready for its "white coat", and below the columns of the West and South walls are cleaned up and ready for their "white coat".
06 February, 2010: Much brighter in the work space today, due to completion of the white coat on the North wall. The columns have all been done too, and as bright as it is with the sun reflecting off the white wall, Rich and Michele should be glad they decided not to do all the walls white (1 point: Rich's score tally). Nailo is starting to form the borders of Michele's quarter-round gardens in each corner.
The crew has broken up some bad concrete on the pool floor, and patched it. There are some smaller spots in the shallow end...they tap all over the pool looking for soft sports, break it out, and clean it in prep for filling with super-adhesive concrete filler.
08 February, 2010: A new window opened up for a pass-through from the patio BBQ and kitchen to the pool area.
Nailo has set bricks on the ground with 'spot cement' and checked levels with a string-level to establish the eventual level of the patio, with a grade towards the south to allow rain watter runoff.
10 February, 2010: The new window has its side-supporting bricks in place, and awaits the arch.
Now a temporary support structure for the arch is in place, with the arch built and curing. Tomorrow they will be able to remove the supports and coat the rest of the wall with white concrete, while also making plumb the old column on the left. The inside of the arch wall will also get a coat of enjara, but leave the bricks of the arch exposed to match the design of the rest of the house. Note also the new bricks on top of the wall to clean-up the whole 'look' of the place. Yes, that IS a scaffold supported on one end by a stack of bricks on top of a ladder, with the other end wired to a board nailed to the wall and wired to a column. This is how stuff gets done in Mexico in the absence of OSHA.
This the little corner garden area at the North-East corner, and the beginning of a "pony wall" which will hide the pool equipment.
12 February, 2010: Here's a pretty bird on the rocks in the river behind the project.
OH....the POOL is what you want to see! Well, ok:
And here is a view of the NE corner, with the new arched window, 'pony wall' (with interesting curve) that will hide the pump and filter equipment, and the new white wall behind that 'utility area'. At the right, Nailo is in the process of building a the pass-through bar counter.
18 February, 2010: More unseasonable rain has hampered things this week. It rained most of Wednesday, sometimes pretty hard. Today was nice and sunny all morning, then got overcast by 2pm, and at 2:30 the wind picked up and we got a good couple inches of rain. On one hand, we now are certain the pool holds water (there's plenty of it in the bottom), but the crew can't pour the patio in the heavy rain or else the concrete just floats off and runs away. Here's Nailo and Barbara waiting out the storm.
...And another view from inside the patio through the new arched pass-through.
18 February, 2010: The crew are in "wind down and clean up" phase. Between the rains they managed to get the patio poured, and today the "stripes" of contrasting pebbles went down. Should be easier to see the difference once they go over the whole thing with a bit of muriatic acid and some heavy-duty scrubbing.
More of the last piece of wall is going up...the current renters have no problem with the crew using the main house walkway for a couple days..they're looking forward to having a pool to use. The water is almost up to the first step! It's pretty dirty water, though...the first dose was from the last storm. First flush or two through the filter will clear it up nicely.
The Completed Project
First Beer in the Pool!
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