Dennis Hollingsworth

The Fourth Floor

Or should I say, la trecero planta? In any case, the top floor of our house has a terrrace and a little room for romping. Our builder, Fransico Noguera (aka Kiko) is midway in the effort to repave it and eliminate the leaks that have begun to erode the walls of the floors below. Being next to the sea, this place is humid and mold is a common problem inside many homes here. Keeping the water out is much more important than it was for us in the dry desert air of Los Angeles.

I wish I took a better shot of Kiko. Here he is in action. He's got a crew of four or five and it is unusual to see the boss get his hands dirty. Kiko came into the building trade from masonry, and I think he likes to get some clay tile action from time to time. Now, he is a general contractor... as far as I can figure... I'm not sure how the building industry organizes itself here in Spain.

Here's an old shot of the building from the promontory that you can see in the first shot of this entry above. We live betwixt the church and the beach. A dream come true. Our place is just below the rose window of the church fascade. And now, the close up;

There were planters atop the terrace that we have eliminated. The windows that you can see here (barely) were damaged so much be sun and rain that they were beyond repair. So we have Ramon on the job, building new ones for us.

You can see the line of the old gable roof that was reformed sometime in its' ancient history, flattened into a terrace. Funny how they kept the lne of the the old eave and gable end.

Now, in the last post, I said that art supplies (paint) are about double the cost is was for me in Los Angeles. After recently replacing a roof on our house in Echo Park, and now doing this in Tossa... I estimate that the cost of construction is about half here compared to the USA. Food here is about three quarters the cost of that in the states. Hmmm, what else?