Beams

These beams:

These bloody beams.

Bit of a backstory, so the house originally had traditional archways upon entering, but were already removed by the time we had acquired it. This worked in our favour as it created more of an open space without us having to do anything. The question was, what were we going to do with the yellow, flaky beams?

Our first preference was to box them up with wooden encasings to give it a rustic feel. The second option was to box them up in gypsum to give them a more streamlined look. However, both options presented a challenge, because of the electrical wiring:

Pictured: a nuisance

Pictured: another nuisance

Boxing the beams would mean having to make them particularly wide to properly cover the wiring, and there was also the headache of having to create some form of access to them for maintenance purposes. Embedding the pipes into the ceiling was not an option as no one wanted to risk the structural integrity of the ceiling. There were a lot of back and forth discussions with our carpenter, electrician and gypsum guy, and we were getting nowhere.

Then, one day, we visited this recently refurbished place, that had similarly exposed beams that were simply painted the same colour as the ceiling. And it looked great. Not only did it look great, having the beams exposed created options for hanging various decorations for different holidays throughout the year (I'm thinking floating candles for Halloween).

And so, the end result is up there in the first picture. All it needs now is the light fixture to complete the puzzle. 

Things Suppliers Do #3

Step 1: Have your website include the ability for clients to choose a delivery date for your products.

Step 2: Don't be aware of this ability, and wait for the client to call you himself a couple of days before the chosen date.

Step 3: Ignore the requested date, choose your own.

Apertures, Pt. 1

The rainy season has now been long upon us which, although I generally enjoy, inflated my general anxiety this time round. We had spent many weeks with gaping apertures throughout the entire house, draped only by loose sheets of plastic which can only hold back so much.

 

I was quite literally crossing each day off the calendar until the installation date arrived for the rear-end doors and windows. Morning came, the installers called us at 7.00 and half an hour later they were onsite. It took a full working day, but thankfully it went mostly smoothly and just in time for the rain later that very same evening.

While we are bound by UCA rules to have wooden apertures for the facade, we could use PVC for the back.

Aside from keeping away the rain, the flapping plastic was very noisy on windy days. I was conscious of how disturbing it might have been to the neighbours, so thankfully (aside from a couple of windows in the facade) most of that is gone now.

We wanted to maintain a French-frame theme throughout, to compliment the overall style of the house. Quite happy with the result.

A special shoutout goes to Prodoor Malta for their fine work.