Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Crete House

I recently tried to send some pictures of our Cretan house to Julie Crisp and Chloe Healy at Macmillan, but got blocked by their email security. So, for when someone asks me about that place, I'm putting a few here to direct them to. The dates on these vary so, for example, the shot below of the spare room is from when we first went to look at the place.


1) The front of the house. Pergola yet to be put up.



2) The front of the house, repointed and pergola and grape arbour now visible.




3) Front garden, looking towards the front terrace.




4) View from the front terrace.


5) Side gate.


6) View from the roof.


7) Ruin around the back -- at some point to be turned into a guest room with double bed, shower and a little kitchen.


8) Central heating system.


9) Main room.




10) Main room (other direction).



12) Main bedroom.


13) Spare room.

16 comments:

LarryS said...

Looks fabulous Neal, love the central heating system! ;)
Nice native brickwork too. Probably too hot for me tho,b ut great to visit!

Neal Asher said...

The walls are two feet thick (limestone), which means cool in the summer and bloody cold in the winter. That stove is pretty good (and doing chestnuts and baked potatoes on it is a treat) but since wood there is 100 Euros a tonne I really need to put up some ceiling insulation.

LarryS said...

Ooh chestnuts! Haven't had them in ages!!

Kirby Uber said...

fantastic, really coming along.

well played sir. 8)

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

i think you are actually getting photos of your house in...Italy. i can tell it's southern Italy from the fauna. better consult a map and do some soil tests, i think someone's pulled a hoodwink on ya.

how many spiders are we not seeing?

Neal Asher said...

Chestnuts are good, Larry.

Kirby, of course the pictures that are not here are the ones of water running down the walls, or a flood coming through the back wall of the bedroom, and the hundreds of hours I spent repairing that stuff.

Vaude, only seen one big spider (thought it was a gecko it landed with such a thump). I think the scorpions ate them.

LarryS said...

Spiders, somebody say spiders?? Let me see, I love spiders! ;)

Anonymous said...

No. 7, now there's a project that will keep you busy!

Maybe some underfloor heating, would work best, with some decent insulation in the floor as well.

The pointing looks nice from the photo.

Neal Asher said...

Skar, no way am I going to pull up a tiled floor over concrete to put in underfloor heating. Anyway, the floor isn't the problem, the heat disappearing through a four inch thick concrete roof is.

Thud said...

I renovate period houses for my living and work in stone myself so I love to see anything formed from my favourite material...nice work!

Unknown said...

Incredible view! That must be just amazing, sitting there with that view in front of you and typing on a new book or just laying there on the roof, a beer in hand and enjoying life.

Jebel Krong said...

wow looks really nice. hate spiders though... brazillian wandering spider creeped the f*ck out of me one day when i was walking up a riverbed in the amazon - almost as scary as the killer bees over there... >.<

Tony B said...

What are the starry nights like?

Neal Asher said...

Thud, limestone is all very well, but the bloody stuff is like a sponge. Of course you have to remember that concrete is a relatively new thing in Eastern Crete (50s to 60s). These houses were built with stone stuck together with mud, and it's still there in the walls.

Nikola, yes, a superb view which the photos don't do justice. It is like standing on the top of the world. However, I can't work outside with a laptop since the sun is too bright, and paperwork would end up a few miles away. There's a book I read there a little while ago whose titles is apt: The Winds of Crete.

Mainly scorpions, Jebel (no larger than an inch long), but they're creepy enough since they're usually on the logs I bring in for the fire.

TJ, the village has lights burning all night, so not so good. If you go out into the wilds, however, that's a different matter.

Unknown said...

Neal, I think I read somewhere that with Scorpions its the smaller they are, the more deadlier they are?

Neal Asher said...

I read that too, but we're told the Cretan ones deliver no more of a sting than a bee. Of course that's something I don't feel inclined to check.