For at least a year, and probably a couple, the main entrance has been at the north-west corner of the house, with a few steps going up to the entrance on the skip floor. On the skip floor is a room known as the Este room, although on the plans it is just down as a western-style room, so that our house is not categorised as a business. We've been talking about tiles in front of both doors, and on the steps for the same period.
Above this tiled space is a roof, sloping down from east to west, and for the past year, or perhaps two, it has been planned as glass, or some such suitably transparent substance through which light can pass to illuminate the rooms via the windows carefully positioned on the north wall.
We had assumed that the construction of these was all taken care of, and planned well in advance. And if we hadn't started seriously poking our noses into our own house and demanding that we be involved in discussions between the architect and builder, we would have still assumed that.
Had we not insisted upon our own involvement in our own house, no doubt around this time the builders would have been looking at the drawings, scratching their heads, and the architect would have been saying, "oh, could you just fix this somehow." A few weeks, or months, later, we would have been moving into the house and looking with curiosity, perhaps perplexion, and probably anger, wondering where our ideas had gone.
As it stands now, according to drawings handed over today, the tiled steps are on a steel frame, the back of which will be visible between each step, and the rust from which may seep into all kinds of places. The glass roof will have an aluminum frame, which will match not at all with the white walls, the dark wood of the doors, and the white wooden frames of the windows.
These drawings are not final. The builder was suggesting using fibreglass, which is used for upstairs bathrooms where tiles are used. So there should be no problem with water, although there may be more stresses on it from people climbing up the steps.
Details too trivial to worry about, or stylistic decisions far from the sensibility of the customers, which two years into the project, a professional architect should be fully aware of.
