Swimming pool and roof terrace renovation!

By Spring the renovation at the villa was full steam ahead. Our first winter in Corfu had been a bit tough at times with no heating apart from the open fireplace in the annexe lounge and water pouring in from the roof terrace, which sits directly above the annexe bedrooms! It was pretty miserable and very damp but we survived and as soon as the weather began to improve we set to tackling the huge issue of the leaking roof terrace.

We knew it would be expensive enough just to make it water tight so decide to try and save a little on the labour by doing some of the 'less technical' work ourselves. We removed all the floor tiles on the roof terrace which I hated anyway!

They weren't even straight and were far too small for such a large space, despite being a neutral colour the small tiles made the terrace look old fashioned and busy.

Query the previous owner had done the tiling himself as the tiles were all wonky with big gaps in between the tiles, where pebbles from the beach had been artfully placed to hide the gaps. The small blue pool tiles had seen better days, again wonky and with plants growing in between the grout, they just had to go!

Not surprisingly, the floor tiles came right up and we could quickly see where all the water had been getting in. After the tiles we had to remove the broken and wet cement. After a week of taking up the 12 inch thick cement using only a crowbar and a small SDS drill the lovely greek plumber who's was sorting out the pipes in the main villa took pity on us and let us borrow his big Jackhammer drill, which he later would refer to by accident as his 'big dicker' much to our juvenile amusement!

We broke all the cement up until it was down to the intact concrete sub level. There aren't local tips here, for building waste, like there are in the UK and 'skip hire' doesn't seem to be a thing?! So we just chucked all the rubble into our bottom garden which in hindsight was a stupid idea as it looks awful. It also means we can't safely get into the garden anymore because of this the huge pipe of rubble. Plus, we are going to have to move it again in the winter when we rev up to tackle hard landscaping the garden.

Hey ho you live and you learn, at least we'll save money on rubble for back filling any walls #silverlining

Once down to the sub level it was ready for fresh new cement and reenforcing!

We did not do this ourselves!

The guys pumped the cement onto the roof terrace from a big truck then hand levelled it creating areas of fall at each corner of the roof terrace to facilitate easy water drainage for the rain water.

Whilst working on the roof terrace Joe and I also started to remove the render from the side of the villa. Stripping the blown render and exposing the beautiful Corfiot stone underneath. I've always dreamed of owning a stone villa and it was slowly becoming a reality! Also we love to do more than one job at once!

With the fresh new cement on the roof terrace and the majority of the demolishing out of the way we could begin the best part, designing the layout of the roof terrace and swimming pool.

We instructed Yiannis Dervisis from Corfu Contracting, who worked with us on the design and oversaw the cement application and redesign of the swimming pool.

We decided to get rid of the old metal steps and opted for in pool wedding cake steps instead.

Yiannis had the great idea of adding in an integrated seating area, which has been fabulous and has utilised a poxy space to the right of the swimming steps. We opted for a smooth concrete finish which was then waterproofed using spray on polyurethane and later painted. This was because I really wanted the minimalistic 'Santorini vibe' look with crystal turquoise water and no tile grout lines.

After the pool tiles were removed the new steps and seating area were created. Two coats of concrete render were applied, the first was rough followed by a smooth final coat. After the final coat it was sprayed waterproof polyurethane and finally painted by John at Insane Creations based in Corfu town. From start to finish the job took approximately 7 weeks but this was mainly due to public holidays and rain getting in the way! Insane creations mixed the roof terrace and pool colour to my exact colour choice, School House white, Farrow & Ball (copy). I love it!

We went for a pebble pool overflow drain instead of the classic grate look. I love the pebbles but you do have to clean in between the pebbles and the light colour of everything means every bit of dirt is visible! Sadly, unlike at a 5 star hotel in Santorini, we don't have a pool maintenance person or gardener on site so it is a bit of a chore keeping it looking tip top but that's very much a first world problem and I won't complain!

Snagging / pool design errors that need rectify:

The pool and terrace may look amazing but it hasn't been all smooth sailing in reality, we had weeks where the pool overflow was leaking because the "fabulous impenetrable" polyurethane spray had missed a few hairline crack inside the pool overflow channel, which actually let a heck of a lot of water escape from the pool. We ended up having to reskin the whole channel but it took a few weeks before we worked out where the water was coming from which was such a stress because the water was coming out and down into the newly decorated annexe bedroom!

The second issue has been that the roof terrace and overflow channel have been made too low which has meant the pool water spills over out of the pool and onto the roof terrace when you swim! Not really ideal! The overflow channel hasn't been made deep enough to take the excess water when someone is in the pool (apparently it should be around 15cm ours is 5cm deep)! This is a real design flaw and something that should have been flagged earlier by the contractors.

The third issue is the painted roof terrace needs another coat and is a buggar to clean. It's also started to chip as the paint coverage isn't good enough. Thankfully both contractors have been great and agreed to come back to rectify these issue after the summer is out of the way!

Now the roof terrace is done-ish with just the snagging left we turned our attention to getting the annexe ready to rent out for the summer. We managed to go li in July and welcomed our first guests a few weeks after to 'The Little Bakery Annexe'!

Stay tuned for how we got on with our first Corfu rental and more Reno updates!

Thanks for reading! x