Page 2 Week 30 Week 29 Week 28 Week 27 Week 26 Week 25 Week 24 Week Thirty One+ (or 31-41) Surprise! Surprise! Did you quit checking to see when we'd post again, O Ye of Little Faith? Here tis, just a few months later and we are posting pictures from the first week of December. We've been moving in, finishing up details. Actually this coming week the last of the screen doors will be going in. And there's still a small punch list for Kriss to complete. It was a good project. It all ended well. We have a great house in a great place. We hope to live here a long time, healthy and happy as we are now. Next week, we will post The Finished Product. Week 31 Photos We used the same terra cotta tiles in the front for the drive as we used in the back for the patio. The "second" car or the BOAT will live here. This is the front sidewalk. The concrete is poured and brushed with a broom to create the texture. Then the river stones are placed by hand. This repeats the finish around the pool. This dump truck came filled with clean (not sterile) soil to fill the front yard.  Clean means we will have weeds! . The guys carried the soil from the field across the street by wheelbarrow. Then they shoveled it into the empty spaces. The St. Augustine sod comes next! The propane gas tank and the water filter. Our subdivision water is quite muddy so we need this filter. It gets cleaned every week. Chemino is putting the final touches on the pool steps. We decided to use a darker tile on the steps for safety. Moving into the kitchen. Moving into the dining room. The living room is shaping up. Remember that ugly old sofa? return to top Week Thirty: VIRTUE OR NECESSITY (PATIENCE, THAT IS) The headline for last week could also have been a play on Jeoprady with a clue like "Takes longer and costs more than you anticipate." (The answer can only be "What Is Home Construction?") Or, we could have called it "The Really-For-Sure Next-To-Last Week". But that might have been tempting the Fates with a tad much hubris. Whatever the lead, it's been a thirty week journey with just this one to go. And we're sure enough of the finish line to be asking friends to help us make the move at the end of this week. Wish you were all here to help and celebrate. As we post this, Kriss is finishing the cabinetry, Chemino is on the last stages of pool tile, Miguel is just about done connecting gas, electricity and water, and Fernando is applying the final coats of paint. Appliances are being delivered on Thursday and the furniture Sharon bought in Ajijic is being reupholstered. Next week, when we post "Week Thrity-One," we'll include some pictures of the move. And sometime in the not too distant future, as a kind of "appendix" to this project, we'll put together a summary with selected pictures from all along the way and our commentary on the process from a more leisurely and perhaps thoughtfull perspective. Hasta la proxima vez! Week 30 Photos The garage door company came from Guadalajara and installed the door and electronic opener. The remote is proudly displayed on the Explorer visor waiting for its initiation. As promised, the cabinet doors are on the guest vanity. The master bath and powder room doors have also been installed. Kriss is hanging the front door. You last saw it in his workshop. He has done a fabulous job on the woodworking. This is the left side of the downstairs hallway when you walk in the front door. (Sharon's favorite color.) The paper has been removed from the right side of the pool tiles. The pool floor is laid. The steps and curves are being laid. The equipment is being installed Monday. All we lack is H2O. The balcony support pole is painted green. The view into the house from the back patio. Sharon went to many stores to find the perfect range for Carl's incredible cooking. This is the living room sofa Sharon brought back from Ajijic. UGH! It goes to the upholsterer next week and you can see his magic when it is done. return to top Week Twenty Nine: CLOSE AND CLOSER Sharon went back up to Ajijic on her (for the moment) last shopping trip to score furniture, fixtures and incidentals for the new house. She did good. Carl stayed home and did his best answering design and detail questions for Chemino and Kriss. All the furniture that Sharon bought on previous trips came down in a huge truck and is now stored upstairs in our future master bedroom. Back yard tiles got finished. Pool tiles got started. Painting and cabinetry continues. Hot water heater installed. Pressure system (almost) in place. Bathrooms plumbed. Lots, too many to list them all, of other work complete. And it still looks like a construction site. And the target date is still the end of this coming week. And we still think the end of the following week. Vamos a ver, verdad? But at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel clearly enough to know that it's not a freight train. AND....the biggest delight for us this week is that Carl's step daughter, Daniella, and her husband, John, in Fairfax, VA. brought a new baby boy into the world. Welcome, Elijah Herron Dale and congratulations! Week 29 Photos Kriss has hung the bedroom doors. This is the door to the guest room. He made the doors from primavera wood. A view into the guest bath. The sink, faucet and light fixture are installed. Next come the cabinet doors and handles. The shelves and uprights are in the closet. One more upper shelf around the perimeter and the rods go in next. The uprights are open to allow for air circulation. The pressure tank arrived this week and is on the roof. It will be connected this coming week. The dining room floor is laid and grouted. A pathway has been left from the front door to the patio to allow for traffic. It will be the last of the tiles to be laid. Here is the kitchen counter with the terra cotta colored grout. The exterior gates are now installed. Hector is painting the new gates with rust protection paint. They will be repainted black. Chemino is tiling the pool. A thick "goop" is applied to the wall and the carpets of tile are pushed into the goop. It is an adhesive and grout in one step. When set, the paper is peeled away. The square brick tiles are laid in the back of the house. return to top Week Twenty Eight: WHO'S GETTING EXCITED? We are, that's who's getting excited. Us, Sharon and Carl. We cleared out all the ceiling fans, faucets, sinks and light fixtures (and a lot of other small stuff) that were sitting in Chuck and Sharon's guest bedroom (in the house where we've spent the last six months) and took it all over to our new (almost finished) home. Miguel, our great electrician, started putting them in place right away. The ornamental iron front door and gates arrived and will be installed in the next few days. They started the last stage of pool construction which will continue this coming week. Saturday morning we met with Kriss and Chemino and went over the calendar for completion. They both feel it'll be complete in two weeks. We will be here at Chuck and Sharon's until they return on the 8th or 9th. When they're back we've arranged with our friend and former landlady, Jacque, to take Oatmeal back to his place of origin in Melaque for a few days in the Melaque house where we spent so many wonderful winters since we left Taos in 2000. We'll be there until we're ready to actually move into 36 Calle San Lucas, our new and permanent address. That would be on (or about) the 14th of November. If this all works like it looks as if it's going to, the project will have lasted thirty (30) weeks. We were shooting for 25 but we'll happily taken 30! But we need to bring all this to completion 'cause Oatmeal is (as you'll see in his photo this week) getting really antsy to make the move to his new home that has his own private door for coming and going. He's a teenager for heaven's sake and feels he needs a little independence. Pues, andele! Week 28 Photos These welded puertas will be cemented into the front wall of the house. The holes have already been chiseled out. This is the iron door that will go in the doorway of the exterior wall. The boards are laid in place for the concrete side walk and bullnose finish around the pool. All the sidewalk has been poured. The boards are removed. Small stones were set into the concrete for texture and the prevention of slipping. The rear stairway has been tiled, grouted and bullnosed. Next each riser will be painted. The backsplash of the kitchen counters are cemented into place. Next they will be grouted with "naranja oxido" (rust colored) grout. The counter in the master bathroom. We carried over all the lights this week. The light fixture over the master bath sink. A shot from the roof looking down on the now tiled terraza! Oatmeal is getting more and more anxious about the move. return to top Week Twenty Seven: PAINT IS YOUR FRIEND Long ago and faraway (in what to us now seems like a different galaxy) Kriss said "Paint is your friend." He was talking about the atmospheric effects of ocean air on wood and metal. Now we have a parallel and complimentary interpretation of the dictum, i.e. "If you like color, you will love this house and if you don't, well, forget about it." At the end of this past week, the outside walls had at least one coat of that light, buttery yellow (most of them had two or three) accented by a light olive green. The inside walls all had 1-3 coats of a peachy cream with each room having one wall painted an "accent" color. Here the friendship Kriss was suggesting to us turned (with Sharon's artistic sensibility revealing itself) into a love affair. She has really been the impetus behind the creation of this gem of space and color. This coming week, Chemino will be moving downstairs to finish grouting the floors. The kitchen cabinets (part of Kriss' beautifull woodwork) will be going in. Ceiling fans and light fixtures should get hung and very possibly doors will be installed. When that happens we can begin to make plans on which day to bring down furniture from Ajijic, probably week after next. Sharon will have to make one more trip upcountry and take advantage of our friends' (los dos Estabans) hospitality. All in all, as you can probably tell, we are starting to get excited about the possibility of (dare we say it?) MOVING IN. Week 27 Photos The entire second floor has been tiled. This is the floor in the master bedroom. The wall in the master bedroom is now painted "Mermaid Green". It will receive 2 more coats of paint. We finally got the tiles for the master bathroom. It's a long story....Chemino is adhering them to the shower walls. By week's end, all the grout was in place on the second floor. Choosing grout colors was one of the more difficult decisions! The tiles are laid and grouted on the stairwell. The edges receive a "bullnose" or rounded finish. They achieved this by using pvc pipe cut in half. The back of the house has its first coat of paint and the handrails are painted black. We have chosen "jalapeno red" as the wall color for the dining area. The front wall and garage receive their first coat of paint. return to top Week Twenty Six: Here A Tile, There A Tile Tile, tile, tile. Tile going in everywhere. And not just tile. Architectural details being completed. And sinks and counters and skylights and windows. The feeling is of running in the stretch. Even if we don't really know what pole, marker or point we just passed. Lots of you wrote us to say you thought that the guest room had your name on it (because we showed our friend Ani in there last week). Don't you freakout now. We didn't build it for any one or two friends. We built it so we can invite people we love to come stay with us. People are beginning to return for their winter stay aqui en Jalisco. Many are amazed at how far we've gotten with the construction. And some think it'll be sometime in December before we're living there. For our part, we're sticking with Kriss and Chemino, both of whom assure us it'll only be 3 or 4 more weeks. Not to forgot, of course, that the only things we're sure of are death and taxes. But right now...things are looking pretty good! Week 26 Photos The pool has been drained of all the rainwater and cleaned out ready to be finished. Angel is applying the final coat of cement to the pool steps. Next comes the tile. The turquoise pool tiles in their boxes. This is the wrong side. The adhesive will be applied to the pool walls, these tapetas (carpets) are added and the paper is removed. The skylight has been finish plastered and painted. The edge will be green. Plywood is used for the counterbase and an edge is nailed on to hold in the poured concrete counter top. The teal azulejos (tiles) are in place waiting for grout. The railing in the upstairs hallway. It will be painted black. The windows with real glass! are being installed on the second floor. Sharon has a hands on experience. She is washing the tumbled marble tiles for the shower floors. Now that the tiles are cleaned, Josuay is painting sealer on them. The marble tiles are laid on the shower floor and the wall tiles have been grouted. The arch and exterior entrance are plastered and ready for paint, light covers and the metal door. Chemino has planned the layout for the floor tiles and has begun laying the guide tiles. The tiles in the powder room are in place and grouted. The opening is cut and the sink is set in. return to top Week Twenty Five: Muchas Cosas En Una Semana The week started with Sharon's trip to Guadalajara. Carl stayed home and took care of Oatmeal, our cat. Wednesday, Sharon returned with some of our new furniture and fixtures and Ani arrived from Santa Rosa for a visit and inspection of her and David's future guest room. By the end of the week we could see that the construction site was getting cleaned up for tile and the stretch run of construction. Cabinets were going in both bathrooms upstairs and downstairs in the kitchen and powder room. Details like the compound lights around the pool were finished in back along with coats of rust prevention paint on the railings. The front courtyard got a finish coat of plaster and the skylight over the staircase and the enclosure for our water pressure and filter systems were built on the roof. And it was a week when the weather shifted from summer to autumn with cloudy days, drizzly rain, and cool water moving into the bay from offshore storms. And, finally, it was also a week of major turtle magic. Nests on a Villa Obregon beach went off at least three nights in a row with babies hatching and being helped by concerned locals to make it down to the water and thus assure the future generations of the green and leatherback populations. Yes! There are indeed important events taking place que tiene nada hacer con neustra casa neuva. As the week came to an end, Kriss gave us a 3 (optimistic) to 6 (pessimistic) time line for completion. "Completion" meaning when we actually MOVE IN and don't have workers around cleaning up and unfinished "details". Vamos a ver, verdad? Week 25 Photos The roof has been constructed on the skylight. Some of the openings will have glass block and the others will have screens for ventillation. This is the skylight as seen from the roof. These 3 walls are constructed on the roof to house the pressure tank and the water purification system. The tenaco will be seated on the round pad to the left. The squares over the outer wall have been plastered and prepared for painting. This is the base for the guest room bathroom vanity. Our friend, Ani, is visiting from Santa Rosa, CA. Here she is in the guest room wishing it was ready for her now! return to top home.............. page 3.............. page 4.............. page 5.............. e-mail