Pool cover arrives

Today was very exciting - up until now we've been very much on our own for the construction - but today they delivered the pool cover and tomorrow someone is coming to put it up - they should be finished on Friday. Next Monday a team arrives to fit the liner and connect up the pump and heating - all should be operational at the end of next week !!!!

Pool house finished

The roof is on and I've just finished laying the floorboards - all that's left to do is paint it - this is a job that I'm going to give to my parents when they come on holiday in two weeks time! Thanks Mum and Dad x

Pool House construction

The Pool house construction started today - went up really quickly - just the roof to go on tomorrow. One side of the house will be a changing room (the larger side) and the other side will be the pump/filter/chemical area.

Grouting, grouting, grouting

The paving slabs are now all laid (hooray!) Now for another time consuming job - I have to grout all the gaps in between. For those of you who have grouted tiles, this is nothing like the same job - the joints are 10mm and the stones are porous, the grout is a lime/sand mixture so you cannot just slap it on and swirl it about until it falls in the holes. It is a painstaking exercise of trouelling the mixture and pushing right down to the bottom of the joints. I have been at it for 4 days and I think that I've got another 6 or 8 days to do .... on my knees, bent over double with an icy wind bearing down on me. However, it is looking great. Because of the below zero temperatures at night, I am having to cover it up with polystyrene sheets to protect it each night - roll on the summer!

The icing on the cake!

Today I found that the easiest way to grout the edging stones for the pool (5cm thick and rounded edges over the pool) was to use a Lakeland Plastics disposable icing bag ! Went in a treat - as easy as making a cake :-)

Paving Progress

Paving the terrasse

For the past four days we have been laying the paving for the terrasse around the pool. This involves laying a sand/cement mix (une chape) of about 5cm - tamping down, levelling and making absolutely flat. After this a mix of pure cement and water (une barbotine) is slopped on to glue the slabs to the chape. This has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever done - the sheer surface area (154 metres square) and the weight of the stone - but we're nearly there - probably 1.5 days to go ...