rox
Veteran Member
My husband and I ahve been quite busy on a project of laying, I don't know the right word they are brick like things that interlock, I think it might be called pavers, as a floor in a stone Borie (stone shepherd houses that look like igloos built in the late 17 & early 18 centuries).
Little background. We won a new customer an exclusive 4 star hotel in our city, they are now serving only Mas Des Bories Olive Oil. They had a customer who loved the oil so much he wanted to come to the farm. The hotel called us and we said, sure come on over. The next day we got a phone call from a German couple, apparently we are in some German magazines, "Can we come and tour the olive farm?" After 2 days in a row and both of them bought a lot of olive oil we thought, hmmm tourists Light Bulb goes off.
I never wanted a boutique to sell direct, I dont' want to open and close and staff it but I thought that if we gave tours say once in the morning and once in the evening, I wouldn't be tied up all day. For the first two guests we gave an olive oil tasting on our front patio. So my husband and I are sitting under the cherry tree discussing tourists and giving tours. My hsuband is not that thrilled with giving the tastings up at our house. I suggest the barn because we have a full bathroom in the barn, he doesn't like that idea so he says, "You know we should clean out this Borie and give the tasting in there"
I think that is a pretty good idea but he says that nobody will like the dirt floor. He wants to put in a cement floor. I hate that idea as it disturbs the archeological aspects of the building. I want to use pea gravel, we have a big pile of pea gravel, he doesn't like that idea. So I say, "Hey why don't we use these? We are sitting on a pallet of these paving bricks which has been sitting under the cherry tree since we bought the farm. So we both decide to use the paving bricks. Only problem is neither one of us had ever done that before nor seen it done, and TBN was down.
My husband says that we need to set them in sand, so we fire up the tractor with the wagon in the back and go dig a wagon full of sand. Bring it back to the Borie and shovel it in buckets and pour a couple buckets on the ground inside the Borie. We bring in a few of the pavers and lay them in the sand.
Doesn't work, they don't stay level and it just isn't right. My husband gets the idea that he thinks we need to build a frame. Okay that sound like a good idea, so we go in the barn and hunt around and find 6 planks probably 1" thick by 4 inches wide by 8ft long. Plus they are brand new and were banded ans they seem real straight.
So we bring the planks in and build a frame, not actually built we just laid them out, and start dumping our buckets of sand into the frame. Something doesn't look right to me. I figure out, that I think we need to make the frame level and then fill in sand inside the frame. I find the highest point and lay down the end of the plank and give it just a little bit of sand under it. I go to the other end of the plank and shovel in sand until that board is level.
Okay now we have this figured out we make our frame and make each of the boards level and I used a square to make it well... square. Groan.. hey we are going to have to put in a lot of sand
We quit for the night. The first day we took all the junk out of the Borie and built a frame, shoveled a wagon full of sand and had some inside the frame.
The next morning we are still trying to figure out how to get the paving bricks to lay down nice, they just are bumpy and don't lay out level next to each other even though we have the sand level. While we are trying to figure this out our neighbor from up the hill comes over and brings us some produce from his garden. He said that so far we did everything right but next you have to water the sand and get it wet. Then using the wet sand you have to grade off the sand to the tops of the frame boards. Hey that makes a lot of sense! After you hae an area of bricks laid out then take a plank and lay it on top of the bricks and with a wooden mallet, pound on the plank. This settles the bricks in and they level out to eiach other. This was the missing piece of information we needed.
We have deadline because the Mayor of our city was coming for a visit on Friday afternoon and this was Thursday. But we figure we can get it done in time. So Thursday morning we got the system down, my husband God Bless him did all the heavy work. He shoveled 6 of those wagon loads of sand, transferred it into buckets and carried it into the Borie. He also carried in all the paving bricks a pallet of bricks. I did all the inside work of making the frame, moving the frame, making it level and laying all the paving bricks.
About 2pm on Thursday I get a call form the Director of the Tourism Office for our city, they have a reporter from Lonely Planet Travel Guide can they bring her over at 7pm for a tour?
Side note I was ticked off at the Tourism Office becasue I went with my borchure the previous Thursday to tell them about us giving tours and then they never sent anybody! I went back the following Monday with a gift box of our olive oil to place in their display window along with other local products they display. On Monday instead of being nice like I was on Thursday I gave them a piece of my mind for not sending us anybody. Different crew than on my last visit and they didn't know anything about it. Made them open the desk drawer and pull out the red folder with our brochures inside. I let the gal know that the Mayor is coming on Friday I I sure would liek to be able to say to the Mayor that the Tourism Office is offering us good support. I ahve to admit my threat was not so veiled. So we were quite surprised when the Director of the Tourism Office called and wanted to bring this travel guide reporter over.
So now we have a new deadline, instead of having he floor done and the Borie stocked with our products and the tasting table for tomorrow, we need to get it all done by 7pm tonight. I mean it was hot, we worked like banchees. But at the same time I wanted that floor to be level and I was not going to compromise on that.
Some how we got it all done, the floor was laid and we had an hour before they arrived. Man did we run to fill it with the few things we needed to put in there plus put all our tools away, spruce it up and take a shower.
The Director of Tourism showed up with the reporter and a woman from the Mayors Office. Honestly they were blown away, they loved the property and the tasting room inside the Borie. My husband was right, it really did need a floor. The next day, today, the Mayor visited and took down my 3 requests. Put in a street sign at the end of the small road, we now have to tell people to turn by the electic tower, pave the road, and we would like to be listed on their toursits sites sign posts. Oh AND we got our first Tourists today after the Mayors visit, that is a result of the Tourist Office telling them about our property.
Yippie! Mission Accomplished!
Oh and the first tourists who were British by the way, bought olive oil and a gift box, and the Mayors secretary also bought a gift box. Cha-Ching.
I will post a few pics - First Picture is the Stone Borie, you can see on the lintle over the door that it was built in 1822.
Little background. We won a new customer an exclusive 4 star hotel in our city, they are now serving only Mas Des Bories Olive Oil. They had a customer who loved the oil so much he wanted to come to the farm. The hotel called us and we said, sure come on over. The next day we got a phone call from a German couple, apparently we are in some German magazines, "Can we come and tour the olive farm?" After 2 days in a row and both of them bought a lot of olive oil we thought, hmmm tourists Light Bulb goes off.
I never wanted a boutique to sell direct, I dont' want to open and close and staff it but I thought that if we gave tours say once in the morning and once in the evening, I wouldn't be tied up all day. For the first two guests we gave an olive oil tasting on our front patio. So my husband and I are sitting under the cherry tree discussing tourists and giving tours. My hsuband is not that thrilled with giving the tastings up at our house. I suggest the barn because we have a full bathroom in the barn, he doesn't like that idea so he says, "You know we should clean out this Borie and give the tasting in there"
I think that is a pretty good idea but he says that nobody will like the dirt floor. He wants to put in a cement floor. I hate that idea as it disturbs the archeological aspects of the building. I want to use pea gravel, we have a big pile of pea gravel, he doesn't like that idea. So I say, "Hey why don't we use these? We are sitting on a pallet of these paving bricks which has been sitting under the cherry tree since we bought the farm. So we both decide to use the paving bricks. Only problem is neither one of us had ever done that before nor seen it done, and TBN was down.
My husband says that we need to set them in sand, so we fire up the tractor with the wagon in the back and go dig a wagon full of sand. Bring it back to the Borie and shovel it in buckets and pour a couple buckets on the ground inside the Borie. We bring in a few of the pavers and lay them in the sand.
Doesn't work, they don't stay level and it just isn't right. My husband gets the idea that he thinks we need to build a frame. Okay that sound like a good idea, so we go in the barn and hunt around and find 6 planks probably 1" thick by 4 inches wide by 8ft long. Plus they are brand new and were banded ans they seem real straight.
So we bring the planks in and build a frame, not actually built we just laid them out, and start dumping our buckets of sand into the frame. Something doesn't look right to me. I figure out, that I think we need to make the frame level and then fill in sand inside the frame. I find the highest point and lay down the end of the plank and give it just a little bit of sand under it. I go to the other end of the plank and shovel in sand until that board is level.
Okay now we have this figured out we make our frame and make each of the boards level and I used a square to make it well... square. Groan.. hey we are going to have to put in a lot of sand
We quit for the night. The first day we took all the junk out of the Borie and built a frame, shoveled a wagon full of sand and had some inside the frame.
The next morning we are still trying to figure out how to get the paving bricks to lay down nice, they just are bumpy and don't lay out level next to each other even though we have the sand level. While we are trying to figure this out our neighbor from up the hill comes over and brings us some produce from his garden. He said that so far we did everything right but next you have to water the sand and get it wet. Then using the wet sand you have to grade off the sand to the tops of the frame boards. Hey that makes a lot of sense!
After you hae an area of bricks laid out then take a plank and lay it on top of the bricks and with a wooden mallet, pound on the plank. This settles the bricks in and they level out to eiach other. This was the missing piece of information we needed.We have deadline because the Mayor of our city was coming for a visit on Friday afternoon and this was Thursday. But we figure we can get it done in time. So Thursday morning we got the system down, my husband God Bless him did all the heavy work. He shoveled 6 of those wagon loads of sand, transferred it into buckets and carried it into the Borie. He also carried in all the paving bricks a pallet of bricks. I did all the inside work of making the frame, moving the frame, making it level and laying all the paving bricks.
About 2pm on Thursday I get a call form the Director of the Tourism Office for our city, they have a reporter from Lonely Planet Travel Guide can they bring her over at 7pm for a tour?
Side note I was ticked off at the Tourism Office becasue I went with my borchure the previous Thursday to tell them about us giving tours and then they never sent anybody! I went back the following Monday with a gift box of our olive oil to place in their display window along with other local products they display. On Monday instead of being nice like I was on Thursday I gave them a piece of my mind for not sending us anybody. Different crew than on my last visit and they didn't know anything about it. Made them open the desk drawer and pull out the red folder with our brochures inside. I let the gal know that the Mayor is coming on Friday I I sure would liek to be able to say to the Mayor that the Tourism Office is offering us good support. I ahve to admit my threat was not so veiled. So we were quite surprised when the Director of the Tourism Office called and wanted to bring this travel guide reporter over.
So now we have a new deadline, instead of having he floor done and the Borie stocked with our products and the tasting table for tomorrow, we need to get it all done by 7pm tonight. I mean it was hot, we worked like banchees. But at the same time I wanted that floor to be level and I was not going to compromise on that.
Some how we got it all done, the floor was laid and we had an hour before they arrived. Man did we run to fill it with the few things we needed to put in there plus put all our tools away, spruce it up and take a shower.
The Director of Tourism showed up with the reporter and a woman from the Mayors Office. Honestly they were blown away, they loved the property and the tasting room inside the Borie. My husband was right, it really did need a floor. The next day, today, the Mayor visited and took down my 3 requests. Put in a street sign at the end of the small road, we now have to tell people to turn by the electic tower, pave the road, and we would like to be listed on their toursits sites sign posts. Oh AND we got our first Tourists today after the Mayors visit, that is a result of the Tourist Office telling them about our property.
Yippie! Mission Accomplished!
Oh and the first tourists who were British by the way, bought olive oil and a gift box, and the Mayors secretary also bought a gift box. Cha-Ching.
I will post a few pics - First Picture is the Stone Borie, you can see on the lintle over the door that it was built in 1822.
