Roof support.....

What to wake up to in the morning! The team of builders we employed had to dig and build the pozo negro (cesspit) and also make safe the ceilings in three rooms which involved some wall building aswell. The price that we were quoted was the price we paid and it was very reasonable too (around 1800 euros below our forecasted budget for the job)

One bedroom in the early stages, steel rsj,s have been placed to support the ceiling. The wall on the right in natural cave rock so later on we had to disguise the man made wall. This was done in 3 stages, firstly the block wall was "splatted" with a loose cement mix then again with a thicker mix and then plastered with our hands covering all the lumps and bumps. This creates the effect of natural cave rock - the messier you make it the more effective it becomes. Although the earth floor looked level it wasnt at all! 14 inches had to be dug out at one end, the only real way to do this is with a pick and shovel, not the best job in the world but the floor had to level ready for concrete

The room itself is 19 square meters so quite sizeable, we think many years ago it was used for livestock housing as there was a hole in the ceiling from which you could see daylight - apparently this was used to drop hay down from the roof for the animals. In a more modern age we have used this hole (now capped) for leading our satellite and internet cables into the cave.

Next up... a kitchen built for 75 euros