More Stairs

All a bit confused really. The landing stage at the top, when it was taken out of its mold (or mould, if you prefer) a piece broke off. Have made the immensely complicated helical spine to the stairs with no incidents, they then get a flat piece wrong. So they left it for a few days and then started on the bottom.

Some fairly complicated shuttering was involved and millimetre accuracy to ensure that there was enough slope for water to run off, but avoiding the stairs which continued down. The use of lasers has become standard practice. You can see theirs on the bottom step of the picture above.

Then all filled with hardcore ready for the concrete which they mixed and poured this morning.

The table

Many moons ago, whilst admiring a beautiful oak table that John had made an idea was starting to hatch. I had seen a table in Roche Bobois that gave me the start. I wanted something simple, with an almost utilitarian look about it, but made in a lovely wood such as wild cherry.
Not very easy to find, various visits to woodyards provided us with the necessary. Thickness was always a problem. So John decided to laminate boards to get sufficient thickness for the legs.

 Once this step had been made we were still struggling to work out a way to incorporate my idea of stainless steel stretchers.

Whilst discussing this with Kieran he came up withe words star-fangled nut. Although this sounded like a description of George W Bush by a dyslexic, I allowed him to take me into the weird world of bicycle headsets (I think that's what he said). Anyway, this is what one looks like. It's a grippy little thing that once it has been stuffed up a pipe it won't come out.

This meant that we could use long, neat bolts to hold the bars in place. However, the stainless steel tube was pricey, and it was still only an idea which were hoping might work so we bought a short bit of steel and Kieran showed that it could be done.

The next problem for John was that the top was subject to the dramatic temperature and humidity changes that can happen in SW France. The top was changing shape. One day it would be marginally bowed, a couple of days later dished. It might be flat an one diagonal and dished (or bowed on another). So we brought it over here where the variations would be less than in John's outside workshop.
Final construction took place here.

and, boy, does it look good? Even with the boxes that will eventually be part of the kitchen, it looks good, and the chairs look fabulous with it, too. You may have noticed in the photo above that the chair seats are different colours. Each one is different. 

The stairs arrived today - great excitement

Now there maybe some of you thinking "Hang on they're a bit narrow, even for Steve", so I'll explain.

The stairs are a descending quadrant, for which there is no doubt a proper name. They have a central spine and then the steps are centred on this spine. The casting of the concrete was an enormous challenge but so was lifting it into position so that the piece at the end neatly fitted into the square socket cut in the front of the house.

No more big gaps!

These pictures are reasonably self-evident. The seating for the outside staircase needed to go down to bedrock as the soil round here is puddle clay, rock hard when dry but almost liquid when soaked through. We are having a supporting wall to raise the garden bed at the front so it is flatter. Quite why the pictures are all over the place I've no idea. Anyway click on them to get a decent view.

   

  

   

First shot of the table

John has made this table for us in wild cherry wood. The first coat of varnish has been applied, and it looks scrumptious, It just needs stroking all the time! The legs are still with John but we wanted the wood for the top to settle down in its environment.

Holes

September has arrived and work has restarted. The VMC has been installed. VMC, Ventilation Mécanique Contrôlée, has been all started up.
The kitchen one has a booster switch, the loo one, like the bathroom downstairs revs up when someone is detected. All go to a heat exchanger in the roof so that in the winter we don't lose heat when humid air is being cleared.  So far we have been extraordinarily well served by the hot water from the roof, but the small gas boiler that serves as backup will get its gas supply next week.
We had a very good site meeting this morning, The landscaping will take place in a couple of weeks; by landscaping I mean levelling out the ground and putting in the drive. 
We will also be putting in a 4000l tank for surface water recuperation which will take place at the same time.

The most important thing is that at last we will have a front entrance. These holes are to secure the bottom of the custom-designed front stairs. As the ground is clay they have gone down to bedrock to ensure security.