Eleven Weeks into the Re-shaping of Orca House

Work has progressed very well in the upstairs main bathroom.  The little dormer sash windows are in position now, and the dry wall structure is coming along too.  We thought it would be just another normal size bathroom, but now we find we'll be able to hold fairly large parties in our bathroom !! 

The floor has been raised by 40cm on the original cast slab, enabling us to see ever so many more whales and dolphins from the bath, which will be positioned right in front of the dormer window.

Grant and Eric hard at work

Between the rafters in this bathroom we are going to have a corrugated iron ceiling. It'll be a pity to block out the wonderful winter blue skies that you see here. 

Wow, what an awesome construction this is turning out to be.  In this photo you can see the white 'sarking' board ceiling that went on this week.

And, although you can't see him here, Simon is up on top of this scaffold, working on the matching gable in our bedroom-to-be. 

At the moment, all the work seems to be focussed on the upstairs, but don't worry, once that's finished we're planning to clad the downstairs brick walls with horizontal wooden planks, which will help to pull the whole thing together.

The sea is alive with dolphins and whales, most days have been glorious sunshine.  The white beams against the backdrop of the blue sky look so pretty - all too soon the roof will be on, and we'll just have to remember how intoxicating it looked.

Here's Simon up on that scaffold.

I like this shot taken at an angle, it shows all the hectares of indigenous forest to the North of Orca House.  The forest is full of baboons, vervet monkeys, bushbuck and duiker, tree frogs, Knysna loeries, buzzards and many varieties of forest trees.

Here are a couple of our bricklaying team, doing a sterling job on the parapet walls.

Lastly, a picture taken of Simon on his Scaffold, lording it over everyone.  Next week I'm sure that all the 'sarking' will be put in place over the main area, and much of the upstairs drywalling will be completed.  Hoping that the truck will arrive with the old windows and doors which we bought from Sarah Raymond at "Tique"in Malmesbury, Cape.