Wooden floor in progress

My husband and Karim, who is on internship with us, has been doing a good job, measuring and having sawed all planks for the future oval floor. Since the whole house is “organic” there are almost no “regular” measures, no straight angles and very little of symmetry. 

Then we carried all the numbered and marked pieces of planks into a workshop and Eric, who is also on an internship with us, and I started to sand all the planks.

Then we mixed the egg oil tempera…

… and applied it:

 

The first layer dried quite all right so after less than a week we could apply the second layer:

We so did, but then the temperature fell. Expected, of course, since we are in the middle of January and it has been a rather unusual winter with not so much of snow so far. So now, finally the snow that has been missing since november started to fall. It is beautiful, and nice in many ways:

 

The photo above is taken after just the beginning of snowfalls. But the falling temperature makes some tasks harder, for example now it is too cold in the workshop barrack for the paint to dry…  we have a fan and some warmth there. But it dries very badly, the flax seed oil does not “sink into” the wooden planks… today I got the advice from my “egg-oil-tempera mentor “Nillan”, to move the planks to a warmer place in order for them to dry. So tomorrow we will try to “transfer” all the sticky planks into another location. They have to dry well, and it might be that we will paint them even once more before putting them in place.

Of course we awaited the “green light” from his Eminence Metropolitan Cyprian before finishing the construction of beams to carry the floor. We thankfully received answer from him about the measurements in the tiny chapel. The Sanctuarium will become minimal. But it will have room enough for a priest to (with some problems maybe, but still) be able to prepare everything during a Divine Liturgy. We also got the blessing for the measurements of the future iconostasis. So now that we have got clearance we can go on and lay the floor – as soon as it is dry and totally prepared – and after that slowly but steadily we hope to move on to building the iconostasis. 

Oh, I long for the day when the chapel is ready, but already now, I love the little chapel that helps me in my everyday life: We are so happy to be able to bring thanks to St. Joseph who was a righteous man, a lowly carpenter that was entrusted to be betrothed to Theotokos Maria, the Mother of God. St Joseph that during the upbringing of Jesus Christ was the caretaker and provider of his needs. This Saint, Joseph, we venerate of many reasons. And it brings us joy in our hearts to be able to thank him in this way, building a chapel to express our thankfulness and our wish to be as close to our Lord Jesus Christ as St. Joseph was for many years… being family with Jesus Christ.