Driveway at Villa Renata, Spain

15/04/08
A quick update on the driveway at Villa Renata in Javea.
We had a mini-bobcat driven by Ivan working on the gravel for a couple of hours last week. He shifted some of the gravel that was a bit deep, and levelled off the whole area. It is now a lot easier to drive on.
Here he is at work:









06/04/08

The driveway at Villa Renata has been greatly improved by removing the rocky outcrops that were sticking up. Then the whole area has been covered with 5cms of gravel. The result, it all looks much, much bigger and a lot neater.

Here you can see the natural sweep in from the entrance

This is roughly what that same drive would look like paved - colours and size of paving stones are not actual

A paved drive from the entrance to the car-port would break up the huge expanse of gravel, and give a firm surface for cars entering and leaving. This would be a continuation of the present entrance, using natural stone.

This is another view of the drive going towards the car port
The paved drive would sweep up from the entrance and then curve round to the right, go in front of the planter, and then sweep left in to the car port.

Re-roof Villa Trencal in Javea

Work started on 9th February. The problem here is that the roof leaks, and with the excessive rains of October 2007 the problem just got worse.
The solution: To take off all the roof tiles, clean off the roof surface, lay a skim of about 3 - 4cms of cement mortar, cover this with asphalt and re-lay the tiles.
All sounds very easy, but the roof is about 15m above road level, so getting the materials up there is not quite so easy!

The truck arrived on 9th February with the first load of materials.







Then it was a question of where to put everything. So two sacks of sand went up on to the roof












The roof could only support two bags, the rest of the sand, the cement, the asphalt rolls and the tiles all had to go on the pool terrace.




Under strict supervision ...







So now all the materials are delivered it's time to get on with the actual work of re-tiling the whole roof.


First a walk-way to access the roof via a ladder at the back of the villa.







Then scaffolding at the front to use for getting materials up on to the roof.

Building the new steps at Villa Renata

December 2007
This is what it all looked like at the start.

The job here is to raise the level of the upper terrace, and create new steps down to the naya and to the lower terrace. The treads of the steps are to be surfaced with the same stone paving as the naya, and faced with the same stone as the facing of the rest of the naya.


9th February 2008
and this is what it looks like now.


Scroll down to the bottom to see the work in order.





7th February 2008

The steps are finished, the wall rendered, the back wall made good... but, is this really right? (Click on the image to see more clearly)





5th February 2008

Now we can start on the top steps. The large square paving stone on the bottom step is neatly hiding the inspection chimney for the 1st chamber of the septic tank.




At last, the lower steps are all completed, and they look really good!





2nd February 2008

Back at work, but what happened to that tidy terrace?








We can see the shape of the lower steps






24th January 2008

At last, the shape of things to come. But sadly no more work for a week due to a family bereavement.

23rd January 2008



A lot of thought goes into all this.

and a lot of reinforcing goes into all the concrete

22nd January 2008
Out of all this apparent chaos the form of the steps begins to show through.
We built a wall at the side of the steps on the naya. This hides the drain pipe and could be a good site for a barbecue in the future.

The foundation was reinforced with mesh.






19th January 2008

A good solid ramp was laid as a foundation for the steps. It was also a good place for a lot of the rubble from digging up the rest of the old naya.





18th January 2008

After raising the upper terrace and sorting out the drains and access to the septic tank (under the garden to the right of the photo) work starts on building the base of the steps.