Progresses for the pool house

Every spring we state that "this summer we are going to focus on the pool house". Then we realize (sadly) that summer is short and our time goes into travels/cutting hedges/do regular maintenance and that the extra work progresses way too slow to be perceptible. In this case, the pool house is still a skeleton waiting for doors, windows, some better paint among other things.

At least, we made some more visible progresses recently.

We managed to get mounted the external lamp that I have bought few years back at a auction, hoping it would work out, both functionally speaking, but also aesthetycally.

I wanted to get a lamp close enough to the one we have on the main entrance.

The main entrance (as it was 2012) with the lamp lit

It seems at least reasonably ok. Now, we "just" have to finish the rest. Next summer, maybe?

Lamp, view #1

The half finished pool house, with the lamp

Lamp, view #2

Useful modernities

 As we have this incredible controversial relationship with the wind, last year I tried to pragmatically buy a "Weather station" that could support, at least mentally, our handling of extreme weather situations.

I will never be tired to repeat that, as every project for us, things take its time and now, one month and one week later, we are finally able to have the "weather station" up and running, to enjoy being obsessed about temperature and m/s when the wind blows.

The main interface of the weather station: you can read indoor and outdoor temperature, how much it has been raining, what time is it, and how strong the wind is. It also predicts the coming weather

It is of course something that does stick out a bit in the structure of the house. But I doubt i would have ever managed to find something "jugend" inspired ;-)

We need to get happy we could sacrifice the "pumps" house, that has an half painted door, odd tiles and well, it is at least placed in the most wind sensitive part of the garden (that is why we have mounted the wind sensor there).

The wind sensor

We also sacrificed the look of the balcony. Well, that balcony has nothing to do with the original balcony, really. Plus, since it has been probably built in some cheap/fast/unorthodox way, it does look like it would need a hand of paint, or two, or some love and care.

Anyway, I must confess that the rain sensor is just horrible... 

Rain sensor on our beautiful balcony

Now, will all of this help us out to defeat the worst storms that will ever attempt to lift pool roofs and slam trees on the ground?

Let's see if this is just a toy or something useful...

Flying pool roof during Easter time

 We have just had our Easter vacation which got concluded with a real crazy April weather. In Italy, that would be a crazy March weather. 

Snow, hail, sun, snow, hail, wind. All at once, almost. 

Snow for the day after Easter

We managed during the few days off from work, where the weather was decent, do to some minor work with our projects to recover from the pool roof flying last year. 

Mattias is keeping a decent tempo in repairing the different parts, so that the section that he was working is back on the pool. 

One section is back on the pool

Testing if it rolls fine

Putting it back was not exactly trivial, but it was good to see that it was rolling fine on the tracks that got repaired. 

While he kept working on another section, I was busy recovering the boule track from all the weeds that had grown, as in a green house, under the pool roof. 

Weeds all over the track

All of this doesn't move completely smooth all the time. On saturday, while he was working on another section, he asked Isabella's help to hold it, while I was inside the house a while and it was very windy. Isabella got the the heavy section on her head while the wind took it down and she couldn't it hold it anymore. The roof kept falling few times, also breaking a chair that Mattias used optimistically for holding it. 

But progresses, at least and at last.

A day of spring

Both yesterday and today have been "warm" days. It is the end of march and we have been steady below 10 degrees except for these two days. Today for many in this country, it was possibly almost summer time.

I tried to enjoy the sun and the warmth by being outside a little. In this way I have helped Mattias moving a section of the pool roof that had been lying just in front of our secondary entrance forever and that, due to that, had created a good collection of weeds under it.

The first thing I did was enjoying removing them.

The weeds (dandelions) where the pool roof piece had been

Mattias is enjoying trying to renovate the pool roof after it flew last spring. The section that we moved today is under "polishing". He is cleaning it and I guess doing small adjustments.

Washing the pool roof section

He made a reparation "table" so he can try to fix the pieces that broke

The work with the pool roof has gone very slow. We were hoping the insurance company would pay for it, after talking with the people that sold and mounted the pool roof on the first place, but that was denied and we have been trying to seek also the possibility to get spare parts. I don't know how that operation is going. 

Nevertheless, the pool looks like *h*t right now, as during winter time there was no cover at all. 

Isn't it inviting? 

While Mattias was being the usual pool boy, I did some more clean up on a flower bed, removing leaves, moss and trying to make it look cleaner. It is not easy as there are a lot of small flowers coming up and I don't want to step on them or pulling them up when I rake it gently.

Among the flowers I saw today it is worth mentioning is a blue anemone.

Blue anemone

When it got a bit chilly, I went indoor. As always, it is not like there is a shortage of things to do and I took the occasion to look at my samsas where the two small cats have decided to have a party since they came and live with us.

I will have to glue a band that they manage to tore apart, but I had some serious issue with a button, that has always been not perfectly in place.

The button is in a quite bad state and it is not fixed properly to the back of the couch 

I have asked some suggestions on how to fix this, but I would have to dismount the couch and I guess it will stay like this. I would just hope I could find a nicer looking button, because despite my attempt, this looks crappy still.

 

Little fishes near the pool

 I did think that just having a white ceiling could have been a bit blend in an already simple poolhouse. Not that it needs to become anything complex but I think having some decoration it would embellish it and make it more welcoming and particular.

I had a vision on how it was supposed to be, but it is always very hard to transmit what you have in your thought to someone else while also accomodating Mattias' wishes to have something water related theme. 

After painting the whole ceiling with white linseed paint, we got a rim of little fishes painted with acrylic colors, catching on the shade of blue and brown of the mosaic tiles on the walls.

The tiles and the fishes goes in the same tones

The fish motif is taken from a stencil which reminds of a mixture of jugend and art deco. Using a stencil on the ceiling was not a straightfoward operation and required a bit of turpentine to clean out the first trials.

A close up on the fishes

The poolhouse is then getting relatively close to be completed. I still have to finish the exterior and the doors and the windows. I should have been done in june... :)

A vintage look for some fishes

Finishing and restarting

It is summer and, even though we are not travelling this year, it seems that the amount of tasks we are dealing with never decreases.
The days pass by too fast to have reached the feeling of completion when one of the eternal tasks we need to address are actually done, really done.
There are always a lot of leftovers and even if it is summer and we are here, things accumulated from last year are still waiting for us.

The escutcheon is back

With a certain satisfaction I can state that our garage doors are soon completed. We finally managed to put up the last escutcheon, after losing the screws in the grass just outside the garage. A memorable story that one, which should be spared from this site.

Anyway, still some minor steps missing from the door per se', but we are getting closer. 

I am though desperate between the rain and the amount of things just piling up and I don't manage to get really a momentum with things that should have been done few years ago.

Hence, I really pushed myself to go out with the brush and color and start to pain the roof in the poolhouse as we have some decoration ideas that should be implemented as well (luckily, those not by us, since probably they would happne in 30 years).

There, now I have started painting

I never understand why my base color is very thin in pigment although I mix it properly. Maybe for that reason I always end up with three layers of color...

View from the ladder. I have got quite some nice bushes there

 Now, it is "just" to wait to dry. Not a problem. There is plenty more to paint!

One of the two chambers 

Another step forward for humankind

As always, our projects are neverending. We are now back to the pool house, where time stands still as everything else takes time, of course.
After the first attempt of getting the downpipe end correct, we finally got them right.

The downpipe is now gracefully ending with water towards the flowerbed.

The other downpipe has the same

As it generally looks, currently

The poolhouse project is still far from completion. If now I have just added to the list the painting of the final parts of the downpipes, doors and windows and other external elements still need to be painted.

Then, finally, we can probably mount the external lamp, put the toilet and the different shelves.

So, gives us a couple of years more? :)

Our poolroof can fly!

I must say that it is quite interesting when you all of a sudden get pictures of your pool roof which seems to have been flying around in the garden.

Two sections of the pool have been  dislocated by the wind and thrown over a hedge

It is scary and also quite annoying. Fixing this back will of course take time and, in this case, also a big chunk of money.

One of the profiles broke probably when flying over the hedge

Anyway, the 12th of March a storm passed by with gusts of wind of about 26 m/s. Possibly, around our pool it got a bit extra power, it managed to get hold of the two side sections of the pool and eradicated them from the rails to then throw them on the other side of the hedge, thankfully stopping before reaching our neighbors garden.

The wind was so strong that it broke the construction

Watching the roof flying must have been scary. Luckily for us, noone was home or nearby. 

The two sections after moving them and securing them in a better position

It is a bit scary to know that this have happened and might happened again. Hence, I think we need to think of a strategy to secure that there will be less wind hitting the pool. Probably, some form of barrier on the southern side.

What's left of the pool today (with some radioactive water)

A step forward in the poolhouse project

Finally we have some progresses in the poolhouse, for the missing steps that would declare this project concluded.
One of the parts that were partially done regards the metal sheet. Some protection around windows, doors and the terminal part of the downpipes.

The parts for the windows and doors became correct (I am sure plenty of people will stumble in the door stuff), in aluzink, so I will be able to paint them.
While, sadly the parts for the downpipes were wrong. I wanted again to have aluzink and we got them prepainted.

Window #1

Terminal part of the downpipe #1

Door #1

Downpipe #2 

Window #2

Last, door #2

Nice summer weekend

It is fantastic that despite being in Sweden one can still get some summer days in August - this can be a quite rare event some year.
Anyway, thanks to this we have managed to (of course slowly) made some progresses in some of the billion of projects we have.

First. Mattias fixed properly the downpipe that collapsed.
However, the vine is still hoping for a better care.

The downpipe is back on its position

The vine needs desperately some support

Flowers are blooming in my most effort taking but satisfactory flower bed. The one behind the pool, which is enriched with ground elder and all sort of weeds one can think of. 

Though, every now and then, some of the flowers I try to plant to kick the bad stuff out, is emerging and shining.

Gladiolus

Dahlia of two colors.

And finally, a four year long project, a two year old birthday presence, is out to be installed. 

The famous outdoor clotheshorse (I wonder if this is the right translation for torkvinda) is almost in place. 

There is where the clotheshorse should be!

Finally, I have also managed to paint a bit of the poolhouse. This is quite an eternal project, as rather than the painting itself, going around with ladder and scaffolding to reach the different parts to paint is quite time consuming.

One layer more...

Not a good week

Progresses are currently made by Mattias who is trying to fix a lot of stuff that breaks now or that has been broken forever. 

In all of this, since I am working, I try to come home and hope that the weather is merciful enough for me to pain the pool house or work with the stones behind it.
Of course, I could also paint indoor some parts, but there are also other things I want to do...

We have been having the carpenter showing up, trying to adjust our garage doors, which unfortunately, as they are heavy, have a tendency to tilt slightly.

In a previous attempt, the carpenter had put some washer to tilt back the doors and it did help at the time.

We had asked the blacksmith to fix some metal bars to apply on the back of the doors, to stabilize. The carpenter's hope was that that would also tilt them back, but that of course didn't happen.

The metal bars are mounted on the doors

Mattias managed also to put the handle buckler but we had some issues with the one for the key, as the holes are too big and the buckler wouldn't be attached to anything.

The mismatch with the key buckler

The garage doors. When looking at them one can see the uneven gaps due to the tilting

In an imperceptible manner, I have now geared up a bit towards the pool house painting. The main problem is that when I have the time, the weather is unstable. If I can't paint, it is sunny and shiny.

It is also imperceptible because first I have been oiling everything and now I am putting the first base layer, which though is almost on the transparent look.

This is under the roof. Do you see any form of painting?

Maybe seen from the other direction?

When preparing for the base painting an accident happen. I misplaced a paint jar on the edge of the table, thinking it was longer than it was in reality and the opened jar fell straight upside down.

I used kitchen tool toys for picking up as much paint as I could.

I have almost picked up all the paint here

That was not the only accident of the week. 

I had noticed that one of the downpipes around the veranda was hanging a bit too much, due to the vine that is pulling it out.

Well, the other night it was probably a bit more windy than normal and (together with Isabella's sunflower which had been grown beautifully) the downpipe fell on the ground (and the vine too).

The downpipe is waiting to be put back

With the output, of course, of having an additional task to have to fix.