A week of Mad Building Work

This week has been total madness with keeping up the paper chase and also carrying out some urgent building work before the furniture arrives, which is sometime around wednesday next week, Jenny had a great idea of removing the dividing wall between the two downstairs rooms, i was worried that it was a load bearing wall but I was assured it wasn't, I found a retired british builder who was happy to help and instruct and bring all his tools as i have nothing, we used a large grinder to cut through this wall which turned out to eb only 10cms thich, but the amount of dust was astronomical, the dust filled every inch of surface in the house and around trhe wall was nigh on an inch thick, i was almost disheartened by the immense scale of the cleaning job and the arch we cut wasn't perfect as the grinder was like a lethal weapon, it would snag in the brick and jump out and almost hit me and almost hit Brian the builder in the head, very dangerous, I did my health and safety thing, i had steel toe boots, safety glasses and ear plugs, plus a dust mask which was critical, the dust was so thick it was like fog and was just amazing. I have never used an angle grinder on bricks before. Never again, we spent the next day trying to find a way to cover the ugly cut brick ends, I thought about fancy plaster work and Jenny thought about a wood finish, i went to a large DIY place in Malaga and walked around looking for inspiration, i found some thin marble tiles on a web backing, probably used for swimming pools and I thought of tiling along the cut edge, this was the answer, one the material looks nice, the rustic finish is perfect to cover up the imperfections of the cutting, and we also had to patch the floor and the tiles have been great and look fantastic, we also put in some fancy plaster coving that is really cheap here in spain, but it has been non-stop cleaning sweeping dusting, mopping and more mopping, to kill all the dust, I will never do any wall cutting with a grinder ever again, maybe a big hammer but never a grinder, just too much dust, today we bought some pain, a summery yellow and a nice pale beige as a contrast, now the house looks 3 times bigger downstairs and we can eat in a normal dining room that isn't a black hole.

Me and Brian the retired builder. that is floating dust particles that are reflecting the light.






We have been into Malaga to carry on with the immigration thing and we were told that we have completed 90% of the worady in Costa Rica, this was great news, we only had to get two papers sent to Madrid for authentication and a paper from the town hall saying Jenny lived at a certain house(Ours) and that was it, we have an appointment on the 14th of April and hopefully Jenny will get her residency ID Card which will allow her to work for 5 years, the step after that is permanent residency so we have jumped to the last square of the snakes and ladders game, that was more by luck than planning but at least the hard work we put in has paid off. this sunday we are going out for a meal at the Fuente De Peidre lake, it has 9000 breeding Flamigo's there right now and it is about 50 miles away. Next week trying to get my furniture is No1 priority and and making sure the painting is all finished.