La casa – things that worked out, Part 2
When planning what changes to make to the house, the first thing we wanted to do was to raise the ceilings. The place had the poky, claustrophobic 7-foot low ceilings endemic to the area, and we couldn’t wait to get rid of them. The point advanced by some locals that they make heating easier in winter was lost on us. We’d both spent our childhood years in old, high-ceilinged houses and have always felt better with some space overhead.
low ceiling
The process involved removing the metal roofing, and then the low ceiling material, which was some kind of thin, nasty-looking board. This, to our surprise, revealed another ceiling higher up (an almost acceptable distance higher up) of carrizo, a local material which resembles bamboo. It was beautiful — in some of the rooms it was painted a beautifully weathered turquoise — but in bad condition and possibly full of termites, and anyway we were putting on a cement roof which could hold a second story. The carrizo ceiling was covered with sheets of cardboard, and had 4-6 inches of dirt over it as insulation. This traditional method of roofing is extremely efficient, by the way — the part of the house we didn’t redo still has the original roofs, and the rooms are cozy in winter and cool in the summer. And we haven’t had any problems with leaks.
Once all the layers of roofing were gone, we (I use the royal “we” — the construction crew consisted of the Mexigringo, one mason, and one helper) added two to three rows of adobe bricks to the top of the walls to increase the height, and installed a cement roof with styrofoam insulation.
Et voila! — well, five months of back-breaking labor later — 12-foot ceilings!
high ceiling