Still Building

We like building (on a small scale) almost as much as planting trees. So when the bath room was finished, we started looking for another project. We always wanted a workshop on the plot. The idea was that guests could get creative with beach wood, scrap metal or just paper and paint. And we could use it ourselves as well. Planting trees and building paths and rancho’s requires quite a bit of carpentry etc.

We made a design that we discussed with Francisco, our brick layer and builder. He had a few suggestions that make work a lot easier and cheaper. If you keep the work shop narrower than the corrugated iron roof sheets, life is much easier for a builder. Since we had roof sheets of 18 feet, that was no problem. And since most iron, pvc tubing and many other things come in lengths of 20 feet, the work shop needed to be longer than that. To keep it light and well ventilated, one long wall is only 1.10 m high and from there to the roof we placed chain link fence. One of the short walls has a large window and the other one is a door made of metal bars. Oh well, better look at the pictures.

To keep it al ecological and pleasing to the eye, we are going to construct a lizard wall on one side. Basically we just pile a load of natural stone against the wall, which will give lizards and other beasts plenty of room to hide. In the old house we found a vase with one handle left and that will be a ´cave´ in the stone pile…

We will also incorporate a wasp factory, consisting of old, untreated wood with a couple of holes drilled into it. Especially solitary wasps are welcome because they do not sting people and eat a lot of caterpillars! Finally we will have to build a ‘bat cave’. When we tear down the house, about a dozen bats will become homeless, which is neither ecological nor social. So we decided to provide alternative housing before we tear down the house. Some are already dining inside our workshop…

Most of the building and painting has been done; next week the lizard wall and wasp factory should be ready. Then we will build the ‘bat cave’ (this may take a little longer) and than this project will also be almost finished. Almost, because we have decided to organize a drawing contest among the children of Malena. The more we like the drawing, the larger and more prominent the artist may paint it on the walls of our work shop. The theme is, of course, nature. AS soon as this happens, we will take lots of photo’s and put those on the web and write a new blog about it.