Feliz Año Nuevo!
It seems like our lives have revolved for years around house construction, riding horses and racing SUPs. Actually, we are in month 22 of actual construction and we are still not done. I will not get into the whole story about what's been going on in this post and frankly we do not want to hear "It's Mexico" any longer since the Mexican construction crew on our project even says this is beyond normal to finish a job up. Hopefully we have put some players in place that will finish things and we can feel like this marathon is behind us.
The new news is that we moved upstairs two days ago! With Ashley home for an extended stay we really started to dig into things to finish up that we could do outside of using a construction crew. On top of that a friend of Ashleys from Utah is coming for a visit today and it provided some much needed pressure to get some things done and us moved out of the first level apartment so her friend could stay there.
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| Trace's room. A bit sad looking at the moment. |
With Ashley leading the charge to Home Depot, Walmart and some other home related department stores the house is really starting to look like a home. Again, once she sets her mind to something the rest of either step back or wait to receive our orders since only she understands the plan and what she wants to accomplish. Good to have a quarterback with things like this. The kids are set up in their rooms. Alex has done a lot of painting and planning and I have done some simple built ins to make use of the space she has. It really looks nice and over time we will get her more organized since her art supplies tend to take over inevitably. Trace could literally sleep in a cardboard box and be totally fine. As long as he has a surfboard and the internet he is content to be wherever so his new space is not one he cares to decorate much or hang out in but that will change over time.
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| Alex' room in progress. |
The living room is lacking sofa cushions so Ashley has used a bunch of old throw pillows to make the space usable. The kitchen is fully functional now and the dishwasher is a great addition. The dining area will need a dinner table at some point and the need for artwork of some sort in every room in the house is obvious as we continually stare at large blank white walls. We have put some temporary countertops in the kitchen and all the bathrooms to bring them up to being usable with a few concrete sinks that I have been making. All in all the temporary fixes will be great for the months to come as we finally decide on what we want and how it should look and feel.
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| Master bedroom |
It is really becoming clear just how big this place is. It was never supposed to be like this. It just sort of happened with the elevation error early on by the contractor's planning stage of the project. Lots of stairs and lots of square footage. Much different than what we were accustomed to in the places we owned, rented or even in the 600 square feet we were living in for the last 11 months.
So what his happening around the house? Now that the new road and sidewalk is complete, we have began construction on finishing the driveway and adding a cistern. The cistern will store 5000 liters of water which will more that double the capacity of the 2 smaller tanks on the roof currently. It will be located in a pit in the driveway. With the driveway finish the crew was able to use the extra dirt that needed to be removed to fill the planters in the front of the house. Unfortunately we had to abandon the grey water system planned in these areas with the plumbing piping errors that occurred during the project. So, the planters will be normal gardens and we will try to come up with a design for those soon too. Iron work has been designed to provide needed railings, handrails, window security, doors, interior garden stairs and a support structure for a polycarbonate roof system that will keep the weather out of the interior garden yet provide light and secure the space as well.
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| Front planters filled |
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| Driveway work. Cistern rough excavation. |
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| Planters, stairs, driveway and cistern |
Whew...and so it continues. Lots going on here in January and school starts again Monday. More updates and photos along the way.
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| The future rooftop hangout spot. |
Front room and kitchen look great! It will all come together soon and be fantastic. Love the rooftop hangout area. I would spend a lot of time up there. It has been interesting watching it all going up.
ReplyDeleteHola Michael. Thanks for the comment. Glad you like it. Big month ahead with more finishes and polishing some things to make the house more of a home. Yes, as soon as we have stairs up to the rooftop we will spend a lot of time there for sure.
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