Happy Anniversary, Trauma

I passed by the “other place” the other day. Unsurprisingly, still not ready yet. Another 12 months that we would have wasted.

Only now are we in the position that we should have been 18 months ago (or more, I no longer care to count). Every week that passes by, with every bit of wire installed, every minor design update, every speck of dust removed, is a small battle won. Minor steps in the right direction, one after another. And by no means has it been easy – moments of frustration still come and go, there are still unexpected obstacles and delays. But it’s a challenge I would gladly prefer ten times over.

 

Yet as I try not look into the rearview mirror, I can’t help but continue to long for some form of retribution. Your name still sends chills down my spine. And in the real world, there’s no such thing as karma, only mistakes which become too big to cover. Maybe one day, you’ll slip up bad enough.

Konkos, Pt. 1

Alongside plumbing/drainage come the preparatory works for electricity. That too means digging up everything, everywhere, so that conduit pipes could be laid through which the new wiring would pass. The house, being as old as it was, didn’t have much wiring to begin with, and the first floor was relatively straightforward in terms of uncovering the foundations.

The ground floor was a bit more interesting. You see, as I started to dig it up (using nothing more than a spade, a shovel and a bucket) I began to uncover earth, some more earth, and then some more. Apparently, there was a time when houses didn’t necessarily have a solid foundation. Who knew? When the tiler popped by to check in on things, well, he had a mini heart attack.

 

A lack of a solid base can increase the risk of your floor caving in in the future, especially in larger, open-plan areas. We were presented with two choices; either trudge on and lay new piping on top of the soil before covering it all up with new tiles, or dig even deeper and create a fresh layer of concrete first.

 

My thought process from the first day was that anything we do now, we do it properly while we still have the chance. And so, we brought in a couple of experienced workers, with more appropriate tools, and within a couple of days a full ten inches of soil were cleared out from almost the entire floor.

 

A few days later, we filled it all right back up with the grey stuff we Maltese are so fond of.

  

And all the while, I couldn’t stop thinking about this guy:

Seal of Approval

 

From the Back

With the interior completely gutted, one of the first things we did was work out the layout for the drainage system. The unanimous recommendation we received from everyone was to pass everything out from the backyard and through the garage. The reasoning was that if something were to happen that required tearing the floors up again, better to at least not do it in the middle of the house. In fact, the original piping went straight through the living room and it would really break my heart if we’d have to dig that up again in the future.

 

And so, the first project was the backyard. The old tiling was removed, the earth underneath was ploughed deep enough for new pipes, and all old piping feeding downwards from the first floor was removed from the rear facade. The enclosing walls were all sanded down and painted over. It was especially tricky to have the scaffolding set up due to the layout of the yard, as explained before, but they got the job done.

 First half: Before 

First half: After

 

 Second half: Before 

Second half: After

While we were at it, we added a couple of layers of limestone to the outside wall on the first floor (which can be compared to the pictures from the entry concerning the cylindrical structure behind it), and all that was painted uniformly as well.

Safety first.

 

Once the pipes are laid, the new tiles can be cut into all fun shapes and sizes to align with the wall. I’m sure the tiler won’t mind.