Page 5 Week 7 Week 6 Week 5 Week 4 Week 3 Week 2 Week 1 Weeks Eight, Nine & Ten: While We Were Gone... ...for 3 weeks in the States taking care of business, the crew was moving steadily ahead with construction. As you can see in the photos below, the first floor ceiling got poured. On this day a special crew showed up with a cement mixer to expedite the action. It's quite a scene when the pour gets started. The mixer goes constantly. The 5 gal. buckets of cement are manhandled up by the ladder brigade and dumped into the forms, then spread and floated. What a job! At the end of the day, when it's all done, the crew is provided with cases of cold beer. We'll take some pictures of the party when we get to the second floor ceiling. While the pour cured, the crew moved into the back yard and began digging (as usual, by hand) the space for our pool. The excavated dirt will be used as fill for the back yard after the pool is formed up. Once the pool was dug, the crew went back to work on the house. Walls for the upstairs bedrooms and baths are just about done now and the process of preparing for the ceiling pour (which you see in this weeks photos) will be repeated. Meanwhile, plastering has begun downstairs. Coming back after our time away, we were once again made aware of how grateful we feel to have the people we do helping us on this project. Particularly Kriss Poulson, our builder, and Maximiliano ("Chemino") our maestro. We want to say "muchas gracias" to them and the crew for all their hard work. Weeks 8, 9 & 10 Photos Hundreds of thin tree trunks are brought in to be used as support for the boards for the first floor ceiling/second floor concrete pour. The boards have been laid down and the rebar reenforcement is set in place. The trunks are under these boards. Styrofoam squares are set in between the rebar and a thick gauge wire is placed over them. This material is lighter and has a better "R" factor which will keep the house cooler. The floors of the bathrooms will be solid cement to allow for easier and accurate placement of the plumbing.The orange tubing will house the electrical wiring. Extra workers are brought in for the "pour". This cement mixer is the first piece of electrical equipment used on the building site! Materials are everywhere. Some of the men mix the cement. In the bottom right hand corner you can see the curved form for the front overhang. The workers form a brigade. Some are mixing the cement while others line up and pass up the heavy buckets of cement. The pour must be done in one day to allow it to set as one piece avoiding cracks and leaks. Angel is spreading and leveling the cement over the styrofoam. The second floor walls are going up. We are using lava bricks to lighten the load. This is the view from the back of the house toward the street. The second floor also gets dalas and castillos. Chemino is checking the intersections before the bonding beams are poured. Max is working on the side wall of the terraza off the master bedroom. Cement is applied to the ceiling of the first floor. It will receive a finish coat before painting. The pool was dug out by hand. This is the framework for the pool. And we don't know what happens next! except the drain will be dug. return to top Week Seven: Movin' On, Up & Out Moving on meant nearing the moment when the first floor ceiling will be poured. Moving up meant that both interior and exterior stairways appeared. The second floor will have the master and guest bedrooms and baths, a lanai for the guest bedroom and both a lanai and large upstairs patio for the master bedroom. Moving out means that we are getting ready to drive north. Hopefully this will be the only time we will be away from our construction project. The trip to the States is necessary because we sold the last property we owned in our old home town of Taos, N.M. The lady who bought the house was nice enough to allow us a month to come up and empty out the bodega on the property. It is full of our personal possessions (among them, choice Taos art work that we collected over almost three decades of living there). We plan to leave at dawn this Thursday, June 2, and be back on Wednesday, June 22. There will be no additions to the diary until our return. But the next addition (covering Weeks 8-11) will hopefully go up on the 26th or 27th, so stay tuned. And just in case it is not really obvious, we both want to say that we are having a really great time doing this this project. Something we never planned on but have truly embraced! P.S. We have received our permit to build. We are LEGAL! Week 7 Photos Here is our "permiso". We are now legal to begin building! Please note the Mexicanization of our names! The lower, larger pipe is the brown water or sewer pipe. The upper, smaller, broken (oops!) pipe is for "gray" water and rain water. This pipe has since been replaced. You can also see the footings being laid for the front gates. The footings have been dug, the rock foundtion laid, the castillos constructed, the dalas poured, and the bricks are going up for the front gates. We now have steps to the second floor. We were thought they were going to be cement. What else? and were very surprised to find the bricks. They will be tiled over, but that is weeks away. Sharon loves the stairwell and being able to go up to the second floor for the view. The boards are placed over the top of the walls. They are supported with tree limbs and then the cement is poured. The entire ceiling of the house will be done this way in one solid pour to avoid cracks and leaks! The view through the house from the very front gate. we are looking at the front door, down the hallway, into the living room and out to the patio and backyard. The boards are nailed together and propped up, with limbs at the appropriate angle. The rebar grid is laid for strength and the cement will be poured. Carl climbed the ramp of the future steps to the future second floor. He is standing on top of the laundry room. Week Six: Bonding With Beams Just a few weeks ago we poured the "dalas" on top of the rock footings and painted them with an impemeable white sealer so the ground water couldn't "wick up" into the brick walls. This week we poured the bond beams (also called "dalas") on top of those same brick walls. Here's how it's done. First the steel (rebar) is laid out. Then the forms are wired in around them. Finally the concrete is mixed and hauled up by bucket to be poured into the forms. Once again, the whole thing is being DONE BY HAND. The pictures don't look as dramatic as last week but we're getting close to setting up for the first "big pour," which will be the first floor roof (also the floor for the second story). We'll be leaving for the States a week from this coming Thursday so we may not be here to post any pictures of that moment but we'll catch the process when we do the roof of the second story. Week 6 Photos The castillos are surrounded by treated wooden boards and pressure ia applied to hold the boards tight against the castillos. The concrete is then poured and left to harden. This is a support column wrapped with boards. It is part of a narrow wall in the hallway between the kitchen and dining room. This is the dala over the sliding glass doors from the living room to the patio. You can see how the pool pump house and laundry room have grown. The rebar has been wrapped with wood, poured and the wood removed. This is the door from the dining room to the patio. The bond beam around the perimeter of the backyard. This was shot from the second landing of the stairwell. The view from across the street. The garrage is on the left. To the right is the front yard and the opening is for the kitchen window. return to top Week 5: Abracadabra Wham, bam, boom, zam and here they are folks...WALLS! This week reminded us of the moment years ago when the sheet rockers did their magic in our barn remodel at the Stewart House B&B. The project is going along at a good pace. You can see the progress each week. Then all of a sudden the switch is pushed into warp speed and the acceleration just boggles your expectations. And feeling very pleased, exhilirated and excited, you say to the Maestro in your best spanish: "Wow!" or "Uau!". Yes, we are feeling very satisfied and pleased to have Kriss Poulson, our builder, directing and overseeing the process and his choice of Chemino as maestro, the foreman of the project. We made a number of decisions this past week that you won't see in these pictures: the height of the walls around the back yard, the kinds of tile we'll use for the staircase, the location for the "nicho" for a piece of sculpture that's sitting in the bodega at Sharon's old house (the sale of which will be finalized this week) in Taos, vents for the outside pool pump house, size of our water heater, etc. We even bought a cell phone so that Kriss could reach us quickly in case of necessity. Oh...and we still didn't get a permit. But maybe this coming week. Eventually, we'll be legal. Now have you heard that before? Week 5 Photos Suddenly, the bricks are being laid. We can see the floor plan again which disappeared when the dump trucks brought the fill. The walls started to grow very quickly. It is beginning to feel like a house! All the work is done by hand including mixing the concrete. Max, Chemino's son is laying the bricks for the pool pump house. Angel, is working on the back wall with his assistant, Rico. The pool will go in this corner. Sharon is standing in the downstairs bathroom (el bano). The slope is the base for the stairwell (la escalera). The view from the back yard. The dining room (el comedor) is on the left; the living room (la sala) on the right. return to top Week Four: Four & 1/2 Days The most important news? They didn't shut us down. Nobody got fined nor locked up. But there was a moment when we thought construction had been stopped. On Tuesday morning we went over to see how work was progressing. We were shocked. Nobody was there! Then we saw the floral cross that had been hung high on the rebar for a "castillo" (support column). "Uh oh" we thought, one of the crew must have died. Or worse yet, gotten killed on the job site. We headed home to call Kriss and find out what happened. But on the way home, as we passed nine job sites, all with floral crosses, there were no workers anywhere. We decided there was no need to call Kriss, who was in Guadalajara anyway. Ask a Mexican we figured, anybody but another clueless gringo. Tuesday, it turned out, was May 3rd, El Dia de la Santa Cruz, The Day of the Cross. And also the day that construction workers have chosen as their special or honorary day. And it's a holiday for them. On Wednesday Chemino also let us know that we "owed" the crew a party. Which we took care of on Saturday, a 1/2 day of work. We gave them cash to have a blast after work: beer, soda, ceviche and birria (goat). So this was our first short work week. But probably not the last. And it was still a big week. The foundation (the dalas) was sealed to prevent water from wicking up into the walls, the basic sewage plumbing went in, the laundry room and pool equipment room were started, and fill was brought in and packed down to bring the whole area (except the back yard, which will use dirt from when the pool is excavated) up to level. All in Four & 1/2 Days! Week 4 Photos Tuesday, May 1st the site was empty. It was El Dia de Santa Cruz, a holiday dedicated to constuction workers. The dalas are sealed and waterproofed. This will prevent water seeping up into the plaster walls. This is the foundation for the laundry room. It is located outside in the back of the house, beneath the rear staircase. The foundation for the pool equipment room. Our friend, Wolfgang, designed the system for us on his recent visit. The pipes are ready to be laid for the brown and gray water. We are on a community sewer system. We thought the house level would come up to the dalas using the soil from the pool! We had to get 6 truck loads delivered! return to top Week Three: The Paper Trail We knew from the gitgo there were "cosas de burocracia" to deal with. Our house is being built in an area like a subdivision. It has a home owners' set of rules and regulations that are monitored by employees from the offices of the subdivision. And we're also part of a political entity called a "municipalidad" (the size of a county) which has an "Obras Publicas" or Public Works office in the town of Cihuatlan that oversees construction in this area. We need approved building permits from both of these offices. A lot of our time and energy this past week was spent in dealing with the fact that we are out of the ground with our construction and still don't have the finished paper work. What? you ask, are y'all crazy? You started without the permits? Yeah, we know.... If this was anywhere in the U.S. they shut us down and maybe slap a fine on us. And we still might get shut down while the paper work is finalized. Our problem has been to get the paper work back from Guadalajara (which has final approval of subdivision plans). We need that before we can get Obras Publicas to sign off and issue their permit. Que sera, sera, verdad? In the meantime, the concrete beams (called "dalas") that are the real foundation of the house have all been poured. The first load of bricks (4000) arrived. In the pictures for this week you'll see the bricks in the background and the dalas (some finished and some with the crank case oiled boards still on them) on top of the rock foundation. When the boards come off the dalas you can really see the shape and size of the rooms. This week, as the walls will start to go up, it'll be even clearer. Week 3 Photos This week, the men began digging and constructing the interior footings and foundation. Looking on top of the foundation, the rebar framework can be seen for the "dalas". More rebar has been laid out and now the layout of the house can start to be seen. Next, the rebar is framed with treated wooden boards and concrete is poured around them. Now they are "dalas". A close up of the poured concrete dalas. The framing will be removed after the concrete sets up. The dalas tie the house to the foundation. A view of the lot from the street: Calle San Lucas. Some of the bricks have been delivered. return to top Week Two: And Besides... Oatmeal, and the need for a stable home, and having our own phone (thank you, Cort, Christina, Ani and David, yes, they're probably all true to some extent) it's also a FACT: we've been gypsies for five years now. That's right, five years since we sold the Stewart House B&B and left our life's longtime home base, Taos, N.M. And while it has been an absoultely interesting, exciting and enjoyable experience living in all the various tropical paradises we've been gifted to enjoy and take care of, well, after awhile it does start to seem like a good idea to have a space with your own art, furniture, books, dishes, towels and color scheme around you. So we listed our last piece of Taos property (Sharon's house) with Kathy Hall from Century 21 earlier this month and it sold in 8 days. In a kind of wonderful transmutation of space, architecture, and finance, the adobe style, passive solar dwelling from Las Colonias will become the tropical casita with pool in Barra de Navidad. Nice spiritual geography, verdad? And y'all know what? We are having a really good time with this. If that changes along the way, so be it. We'll deal with whatever and whenever. But neither of us have ever designed and had a home built from scratch and so far we are truly enjoying the details, the planning, the changes, the creativity, the now and again hassles, the whole bangout deal. And coming up with some new pics for you to check out each week is part of that. We're at the construction site once or twice a day and the guys have kinda gotten nonplussed about being documented visually. And they all seem to prefer talking with Sara (Sharon) rather than Carlos. Ni modo! Enjoy the results! Week 2 Photos The lot has been cleared and the first delivery arrived. Piedras (rocks) for the foundation. The trenches for the footings are laid out and dug by hand. The "castillos" are constructed by hand with rebar and metal wire. Their placement is decided by the engineer. The castillos are set deep in the ground and concrete is poured around them. Now begins the construction of the footings. Our footings are deep, wide and high. This will aid in heavy rain and earthquakes and allow for 2 steps up into the house. Taking a well deserved break are Nino, Francisco, Jose and Rico. The guys are doing some serious work. return to top Week One: Here We Go.... Don't ask us how this happened because we have no real answer for you. Carl's son, Cort, says "Oatmeal" did it. Oatmeal is an orange tabby with a white belly that we found in the empty lot next door. Our friend, Christina, says Oatmeal needed a stable home. More about him later. Ani & David think it's because we got a phone in the house. Whatever it is, we decided to look at property for sale in the area. We went out with the first realtor, then a second realtor. We didn't find much we liked and went out with the first realtor again. He said we could build exactly what we wanted for less than the houses we were looking at. We sat with that for a while and talked and thought about it. We decided to look at lots and saw some we liked. We kept driving around. Six weeks later we bought a lot. Next, we interviewed builders and architects. Heard many pros and cons and to the best of our abilities, dove in. Two architects submitted beginning plans. We chose Alejandro Lazareno. Kriss Poulson will be our builder and liason with the maestro, Chemino, who is a master brick layer. So, we have done all the footwork and broke ground April 9th. On Monday, April 11, they will clean the lot of plants and debris. Tuesday, the crew will begin digging the footings. We are very excited and will use this space to keep you posted on the progress of the building. We are learning very quickly. As we update the blog, we will send out a short email to let you know there's been an addition. You can choose to visit or not. We tried sending individual emails with photos, but without DSL, it is impossible. So, here we go.....wish us luck! Week 1 Photos This is our lot. It measures 8.5 X 24.5 meters which translates into 28.33 X 81.66 feet. (This is a great way to learn the metric system!) We have homes built on both sides of our lot. View from the back, (Future swimming pool.) return to top home.............. page 2.............. page 3.............. page 4.............. e-mail