House Update

It's been a hot minute since we announced that we're building a house, and I'm sure you're just dyyying for an update, right?  Yeah, I didn't think so. 

The construction officially started in late August, but the progress has been slower than we'd hoped...but not slower than we expected.  Normally, September is the wettest month in Vallarta, but it seemed relatively tame this year in comparison to previous years... Instead, October turned into a doozy of a sog-fest with back-to-back tropical storms coming through and the crew wasn't able to work for half the month.  But November has been productive...the second floor and interior walls are built and they poured the rooftop a few days ago.  It's starting to look like a house!  

Pouring the foundation a couple months ago... 

Everything is made out of cinderblock and concrete and stucco... Wood studs and drywall and plywood subfloors are not a thing here...they wouldn't survive the humidity.  (The wood in all these photos is just used for temporary framing to pour concrete.) 

Building the interior walls of the ground floor...

Starting the framing to pour the second floor... They essentially build the whole floor out of wood (propping it up from underneath with hundreds of 2x4s), and then pour concrete on top of it.  

After the whole second floor was built out of wood, we had to go over and mark with a sharpie where we wanted lights, ceiling fans and A/Cs for the first floor below so they could pour the conduits into the floor.  Sounds official, right?  Haha.  

Then they lay rebar cages, electrical and plumbing conduit, and add blocks of styrofoam to displace the amount of concrete needed, reducing the weight of the floor (and it also helps reduce noise, supposedly.) 

Then they bring in a big concrete truck and pump it over the wall and pour the floor.  After it's fully-cured, they remove the wood framing.  Fun stuff! 

The house is far along enough that we're to the point where we need to start ordering finish materials, so it's all finally sinking in that we're going to have our own house soon!  Last week, we ordered 260 square meters (2800 square feet) of floor tile and Monday we're meeting with the door and window people to take measurements... We're going to have a large, custom sliding glass door off the kitchen that completely disappears into a "pocket" in the wall so the kitchen and patio will feel like one huge indoor-outdoor space when it's open and I'm just a *tad* excited about it.  When it averages 85 degrees (30 C) year-round, you gotta have an outdoor "dining room!" 

We decided to go with all PVC windows and doors in a (faux) natural wood look.  They were spendy, but they're gonna last forever with very little maintenance...which is hard to do in a tropical climate, so we feel it's worth the investment.  The glass we chose is also sound-reducing...and considering we're only 3 blocks from the town plaza where big parties and holiday festivities are often going down, we're happy with our choice.  

Part of the kitchen...Ty is 6'-3" for scale... 

Looking out of the kitchen... There will be a large patio, barbecue nook under the stairs and a small pool.... Pardon the mess.  Haha.

The front of the house and entry...the doorway on the right will be a "bodega" (utility room/garage storage) to house pool equipment, hot water heaters, tools, etc.  Upstairs is the spare bedroom... There will be a pergola to the right of the door for covered parking. 

Our 11-foot entry (3.3 meters...I'm determined to master the metric system during this process!) is going to be floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the front door to let in lots of light... again all in PVC/faux wood.  

Standing in the living room looking down the entry hallway...a half bathroom and laundry room are on the left and the staircase is on the right.  

In my last post, I explained what the layout would entail, but a lot has changed since then... The biggest change being that we decided not to build the garage and rental apartment above it.  The lot is small and the height and footprint of the house was beginning to make the already-tiny yard feel really claustrophobic.  One day we visited the lot to check on the progress when only the first floor of the main house was built, and I couldn't possibly imagine the exterior space shrinking any more than it already had....and the house was still going to double in height and the 500-square foot garage still needed to be built.  On our walk back home, we scrapped the plan for the garage and apartment and called our contractor the same day to make the changes and we're happy with our decision.   

I was really excited to have my own vacation rental to have total control of (rather than working as a property manager for someone else); but the pros versus cons became too lopsided.  And, in reality, it would sit empty for most of the year and we couldn't justify the minimal rental income it would generate versus the cost to build and furnish it.  Oh well.  Besides.... Now we'll have complete and total privacy for the first time in years, which is fine with us!!  

Our contractor still thinks he's going to be done with all of the concrete work by mid-December, but there is still SO much to do, that we're probably not moving until February or March.  But we're in no hurry....