![\"Room](\"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/april-9.jpg\")
<\/a>Room two in close-to-final form.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Another view.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Room two kitchen area done.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Bathroom now has a vanity mirror.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>More welding: towel hooks for the bathroom.<\/p><\/div>\n
With actual guests coming, we need to make sure the place is accessible. On a rainy day you would struggle to get a typical rental car up the hill, so we knew that the time had come to concrete the driveway. The preparation work takes the longest: compacting gravel in the problematic low-lying sections, building borders and formwork to hold the concrete in, laying and wiring up lots of steel reinforcement, etc. Then two very tough days of actual concrete pouring and it was done. (I am currently trying to block out the memories.)<\/p>\n
<\/a>Sirem checking out the reinforcement the day before the first concrete went in.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Lots of work went into this shot. (And yes, the hillside is a mess: one more thing on the to-do list.)<\/p><\/div>\n
The really urgent priority is getting room one into shape, but we also have to do some landscaping work so the place doesn’t look so much like the building site it still is. That means more garden beds and lots of plants, but we also need a path to get to the rooms, the pool, and beyond. Concrete was a good solution for the steep driveway, but obviously we didn’t want to lay it everywhere. So the path is going to be built with paving stones.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Compacted river gravel to support the paving.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Paving stones going in, drainage canal taking shape.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Koray and Berrin working on a garden wall. Those steel structures will become concrete posts to support the entrance gate, giving the accommodation area \u00a0a bit of privacy.<\/p><\/div>\n
For two guest rooms and the cafe, we need a lot of furniture. Tables, beds, sofas, chairs, wardrobes, and all the rest. Given that we already have a lot of woodworking tools, and that the budget is running low, it was an easy decision to make most of the stuff ourselves. (The one exception: we’re buying chairs for the cafe. Chairs are fiddly and take too long.) There’s some work in it, but it’s great to be able to build pieces in the exact size and style you want.<\/p>\n
<\/a>One of the beds being made.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>Front to back: an angle grinder used as a brutally efficient sander, a very hardworking router, a table, and a sofa.<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/a>A finished bed with two little bedside tables: we definitely have a chunky country aesthetic going.<\/p><\/div>\n
A new friend came to visit a few weeks back, and we used that as an excuse to do a practice run of the breakfasts we want to serve to our guests. Hopefully the photo below helps to convince someone out there to make a booking. Speaking of which: we’re going to start by listing the place on Airbnb, but we’re just holding off on one or two little details first, like our final inspection from the council. We’ll definitely make a post when that happens though.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Breakfast on the veranda.<\/p><\/div>\n
Very soon we will have to get out of the way and move back down to the old farmhouse. We’re going to miss the new room, of course. But the weather is much warmer now and the leaves are back on the fig trees and the grape vines, so the old house is a much more cheerful prospect than it was in mid-winter.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Spring morning in the neighbours’ olive grove.<\/p><\/div>\n
The dogs and cats are being their usual helpful, dirty, lazy, beautiful selves, and they’re clearly as happy as we are to see the return of warmer weather. Here are some dog photos to fulfill our prescribed animal content quota.<\/p>\n