The ceilings are done

The ceilings on the top floor and the ground floor are finished.



They are done in wood and given a lick of white paint. The beams in the big room will remain natural as they are now.



Here's a view of the sauna room...



And here's the structure between the two floors just before being closed and finished. We are looking from the master bedroom up into the living room.

The roof is done! Plus, we have a chimney....

As you can see, the roof is tiled and done.



The rooftiles are from France, which is particular, given that most building material either comes from the area nearby, or else (almost all the insulation and eco-material) from Germany.





The tiles are of a reddish-brown colour, but not all the same, so it looks a bit "rustic" and not brandnew. It's actually very pretty.

And even though we will not have a fireplace, we have a chimney!

Donkey race in Elgeta

Elgeta is a small village up in the mountains, where people do strange traditional things as part of their village fiestas...



they bring their wild donkeys down from their farmhouses once per year...





They dress up the village band in red and white and let them walk around the village causing an incedible racket with all kinds of drums and trumpets...




They dress themselves up in the traditional costumes, (some of the little ones usually hate it because they are not allowed to roll around on the floor... but they sure look pretty!)

And then they set an old man on a Vespa motorbike as a pacemaker, just as in Formula 1, some young boys get onto the confused donkeys, and...

...race them around the (very small) village twice with a lot of shouting and clapping and laughing and riders falling off and donkeys running into the next bar in an attempt to escape the chaos!

It's incredibly funny to watch - 4 people to move one donkey...

And the winner gets a sack of donkey-food! So you see, a holiday in te Basque Country, especially in June / July, is full of high-level, enertaning activities... (we do something very similar with young bulls here in this area, just in case someone is interested).

The roof is covered

As you can see - the roof is totally covered now. There are 2 different kinds of covering, one is for covering the "living quarter" of the house, the outer part covers the wintergarden and the balcony as well as the path around the house. This is only the first cover, there will be some insulation on top of that and then the roof tiles will be put on.

On the western facade, the woodwork for the facade is almost finished. It will look like some kind of "Fachwerk".

Now, here comes the interesting part: They have started covering and insulating the inner part of the roof of the main room upstairs. Between the outer basic structure (see top) and the inside cover they are putting some kind of extra insulation that deals with humidity flowing freely (mainly out, we hope...) - the material is, of course, German, and 100% recycled. Then the finish is put into place: Wooden planks, with a light, off-white finish, but you ca still see that it is wood, it looks great. So the ceiling is high and reflects a lot of light. It should look fantastic with the black stone floor we have chosen for that big room (entrance, living room, kitchen, dining area).

It is almost impossible to see on the pictures, but that roof will have a most peculiar form looked at from inside - it changes angles and incline in at least 3 different places, it looks very entertaining and interesting and reflects the different areas of that big room from the top.

The big wooden beams that hold the structure will most probably also be painted white, but we would like to see the thing finished first before taking that decision. Keeping them natural will give the house a "rustic" touch, but might also make it too "nervous"... We don't know yet.