Barbacue area

Family is growing.

New projects are in the air.

We love receiving friends at home.

Conclusion: the barbacue area HAS TO be rebuilt.

A month before C moved from the UK, I did some works on this area, repainted walls in bright colours and improved the condition of the garden.

The first picture you can see here, is the original barbacue and the following two, are the barbacue after the painting. It took me about a week to get used to the bright orange, but I was very happy with the final result. I usually say that the area looks like a "mexican patio", bright, stunning, cheerful. I like colours in my life, I imagine Frida Khalo's home was painted in similar colours.

However, we need to rebuild this area to use it for new different purposes.

On one hand, I would like to have a closed space where we can receive friends for barbacues, children can also have their own parties and why not, use this area for studying when they are older.

Secondly, we thought of moving C's studio there. The area is big enough as to "divide" the space into two different areas, one where the proper barbacue is, would function as a big dinning room and the other half as an art studio, a cozy living room with an open fire where we could relax, read, paint, etc..

We both believe that we could be able to run our own business teaching music, art, painting, literature, and eventually, this is what we plan to do, and this space would be essential to create an area that we could use for these purposes.

Moving the studio to this space would also would also allow us to have another bedroom in the house. If we move B's (my 6 years-old daughter) bedroom to the studio, it would be possible to organize there a working area for the kids as well, as the studio is a big room. By doing this, we could have B's bedroom, which is the smaller in the house, free and we could prepare the baby's bedroom there. We wouldn't make changes in G's (my 9 years-old son) bedroom then.

The works for rebuilding the barbacue would include (briefly):

- building of the second half of the roof. From the outside would look the same as the other half already built. From the inside, works for roof insulation has to be done and the final aspect would be a wood covering.

- the tiles of the floor have to be changed. I like the rustic style, but some tiles are broken and the floor was not built properly, so it has to be done again. Probably I would choose the same tiles, or at least, same colour.

- would be perfect to build a small toilette with a shower. So that guests/students/friends don't have to go inside the house to use the toilette. Also this area could be very useful for receiving C's family when they come over and a bathroom here would be very practical.

- building of an open fire. We have central heating inside the house and a small open fire in the living room. But it is not worth it (and very expensive too) to build an extension of the heating to the barbacue. However, this one would be a big area and as we are planning to use it during the whole year, even in winter, we need to decide about warming it up. We love open fires, so this would be a good option.

- finally the front of the whole area has to be closed with glass sliding windows. Then it would be a very bright and sunny area.

All those works would probably take a month more or less, and I hoped we could start before the baby is born.

BUT the cost of all this is american dollars 8.000.-, and we only have american dollars 4.000.-

At the moment I can not see how we could possibly make it unless I win the lottery (but I don't bet anyway).

Any idea?????