BUILDING A HOUSE
IN MEXICO
FOR ALL YOU GRINGOS UP IN THE U.S.A. AND CANADA WHO WONDER HOW IT'S DONE: BUYING LAND IN MEXICO AND BUILDING YOUR HOME.

LATEST UPDATES ADDED MAY, 2010

El Nogalito, Puerto Vallarta,
Jalisco, Mexico

November, 2006 I've been looking for a piece of land for the last few months, or a house or condo. My friend and landlord Marco has offered to sell me the condo in which I've been living for the past couple of years, and while it's a very nice place and right in the heart of town, it's a bit small and lacking a pool (a requirement for spending the steamy summer months in Puerto Vallarta).

I've looked at tear-downs and raw lots on the south side of the Rio Cuale (the "old town" section of PV), but prices are going nuts. Too damned many gringos with too much money to throw around, screwing it up for the rest of us. Out in Paso Ancho, along the river east of town, the lots are small and the roads terrible. I found a really nice lot about 1/2 hour south of town at Las Juntas, right across the street from a beautiful river and next to my friend Mike's house, but after spending a few hours there scouting it out and returning home covered with bug bites, I decided it wasn't for me.

I stopped down to Brian and Sue's house in Nogalito for a couple beers, and was recapping my search to Brian. He said "Hey, there's a nice lot right across the street there, and I met the guy who owns it and he wants to sell". Nogalito ("little oak" in Spanish) is just 5 kilometers (about 10 minutes) south of town, inland from the ocean about a kilometer or so. It's a nice little village, and CLOSE to Puerto Vallarta.

He dug up the guy's name (Eloy) and number, and we start to talk about it.

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 Eloy and I come to an agreement on price, about 10% less than his original asking price. My lawyer draws up the papers, we sign and transfer money, and a few days later, it's mine!

300 square meters, 10 meters wide, and 30 meters long, spanning the distance between two streets, so I can have entrances on either or both ends. There's a big tree right on the lot line that's going to have to come down, but also a couple nice palm trees already several years old. There are houses on both sides of the lot, so I won't have to build garden walls if I don't want to. There's room for a big house at the "front" of the lot, a pool in the middle, and a bodega or small casita at the back. The river is a half-block away...I should be able to hear it from a second-story window.

Friday, Jan. 12, 2007 Bario Bob and I have spent a few afternoons at the lot this week, clearing weeds, raking up trash, and making fires. The property was a neighborhood dumping ground for years...mostly palm fronds and weeds and yard trash, but also lots of plastic Coke bottles and other misc. trash. We also drank a lot of beer, but it's hot and dirty work, ya know?

Saturday, Jan 13, 2007 Antonio from the neighborhood has offered to cut down the big tree for a reasonable fee. Most of the branches less than 3 inches in diameter come off with a machete...he just climbs up barefoot and whacks them all off until the tree is nothing but trunk. The chainsaw takes off the rest, and they slice it into chunks.

Monday, Jan. 15, 2007 CONSTRUCTION BEGINS!!! I've hired Manuel as my "maestro", and he's brought along his grandson as a helper. Manuel did a lot of the building for Brian and Sue, and brings a reputation for hard work, honesty, and creativity. Today they finish cleaning the lot, burn the twigs and leaves from the tree, stack the larger wood for future use as firewood, and mark excavation lines for the foundation. There are a couple piles of construction trash that I thought I was going to have to pay to have hauled away (old bricks, tiles, rocks, etc.), but Manuel says it's a treasure trove of free building material, so he's already saving me money! He lines up a back-hoe to come out the following day (a miracle, considering how much construction is going on here in PV and the resulting shortage of equipment).

Tuesday, Jan 16, 2007 The machine gets here about 9:30 and gets right to work. First order is to move one of the palm trees that is right at the edge of where the back of the house will be. He digs around it, then ties a rope to the base of the tree and lifts it out of it's old home and plants it on the other side of the lot. We soak it with water all day and cross our fingers that it will survive.

He spends the next few hours digging out the foundation, but the roots of the tree can not be budged, even after beating it and tugging at it for half an hour with his bucket...it will have to come out by hand. He also scrapes and levels the new gravel that's been laid on the street as a cooperative effort between the neighbors, and does a little bit of digging on a small proiect for Brian.

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007 Manuel has ordered rebar, gravel, sand, and rock for the foundation and columns, and it all comes today. Manuel as also brought along a nephew today to join the crew, and they start cutting and bending rebar and steel to make columns.

The town water guy drops buy and asks if we'd like a hook-up. For my 2500 pesos he digs a few inches into the ground and locates my feed. I am also compelled to donate 300 pesos for the town festival next month, and also to pay for SIX YEARS of water service in advance, at $350 pesos per year. Actually a pretty good deal, but it's nearly $500 dollars all at once.

Later in the day Manuel and I venture out to the edge of Puerto Vallarta to find brick. I had told him he can go without me, that I trust his judgement, but he insists I drive. I find out later that despite being almost 60 years old, he's only been driving for a couple of months and is still not comfortable driving through the busy traffic in town. Manuel tests the bricks for strength and uniformity, and drives a hard bargain for 7000 pieces at 2400 pesos per thousand. An hour after we get back to Nogalito, the first load is being delivered.

Thursday, Jan. 18. 2007 I've installed a temporary water hook up with a hose, and Manuel has brought an old barrel along to use as a cistern, which they keep filled. Sometimes the water service just shuts off here in town for a day or two at a time, so it's good to have a back-up supply for mixing concrete.

Rene is still beating the stump of the tree we removed with a combination of machete, axe, crowbar, pick-axe, and dull chain-saw.

The rest of the crew is busy cutting and bending wire and rebar and making the supports for the various columns in the foundation.

Friday, Jan. 19, 2007 I arrive in the morning to find the crew already at work on the column at the back of the property which will support a back gate and, more importantly, the electricity pole. So I dash into town to the Centro Electrico store for a "mufa"...the pole, weatherhead, and meter base. I have to get right back to Nogalito and install this inside the column before he gets too far done, or else I'll have to install in on the outside...not nearly as pretty. Manuel has integrated rocks, stones, and broken tile to make an awesome column...the design of which will be carried on throughout the rest of the construction.

Today, Rene has finally beaten his foe, the fresh green stump of the tree on the property line.

Saturday, 20, 2007 It's Saturday...the crew cuts work at 1pm..I bring out a few celebratory beers and the payroll, then give the two crew members a ride back to town. Manuel keeps working....he's not hapy unless he's busy. Gotta love a guy like that..

Tueaday, Jan. 23, 2007 The crew is joined by Adrian, another of Manuel's family, though I'm not sure of the relationship. Manuel only hires people in his family or others that he totally trusts. (Brian and Sue tell me that he once fired a guy for pocketing TWO NAILS.)

It's raining, but only lightly, so doesn't slow the project down. They've made all the footings and iron column supports, so they're putting them in the ground and pouring the footings. The concrete is poured just on the footing...the rest of the column will be filled once they have foundation set on either side of each column.

Brian has graciously lent me the use of his cement mixer, so the work goes pretty fast. Beats mixing it on the ground by a mile.

The pink rock on the left side of the picture is what, with more concrete and mortar, will make up the foundation.

Friday, Jan. 26, 2007 I went out to Punta Mita today to visit some old friends, and found Larry and Marcia from California doing some work on their place. A few years back they had a break-in, so Maria gave them the first steel door we had from the place she and I built there several years ago. That door has since been replaced by another, so it's going to come back to me and be the front door on the Nogalito house. Full Circle!

Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 The crew has spent the week wrestling those big pink chunks of rock into the excavation and mortaring them into foundation. It's quite a piece of art, watching them work. There are generally two guys in the trench building the foundation walls, plus one guy mixing and delivering mortar, and another moving rock or finding exactly the right shaped piece to fit. In the end, it's a shame that the whole thing will be covered by dirt and the house.

This foundation is built up to about 1/2-foot of the floor level...they'll lay rebar and conctete on top of all this to bring it to grade.

Pay-day again, so everybody goes home happy and with full pockets. We can precict that at least one of the guys will show up Monday morning with empty pockets and a killer hangover.

Monday, January 29, 2007 Every day I go to the bank for money, and every day Manuel manages to spend it. Today we need 20 more bags of cement, 10 bags of mortar, and some more steel for finishing off the foundation.

On the other hand, I've heard him haggling on the phone over a few pesos on the material prices, and I've seen him send a truck load of cement back when they tried to jack the price up on us. The town water guys came by to inform Manuel and I that they needed more money than they previously requested...Manuel used some very strong language to inform them that they could go perform an anatomically impossible act upon themselves. NOBODY screws with Manuel!

Thursday, February 1, 2007 Back on Tuesday, Manuel tells me it will be at least Saturday (and probably more likely Monday) that they will be pouring the 'crown' of the foundation. That gives me a bit of time to buy and install the conduit that will carry the electrical wires underneath the doorways, right? WRONG. Today I show up and Manuel is screaming about the conduit, so I go and order it, and it will show up tomorrow morning. Before today is done, they have already poured half the crown and are waiting for the conduit before finishing.

Friday, February 2, 2007 9am comes and goes and the crew is ready to work and the conduit has not arrived yet, so I drive into town, get the conduit off the truck that is loading with all the other stuff I've ordered, and dash back to Nogalito. They've got concrete mixed and ready and waiting for me to install the conduit. I do it, they do their thing, and then the crew takes the rest of the day off, there's nothing else to do for the moment. It's also the final day of the annual town festival, so they go off to the cock-fights. Manuel takes a "shower" with the hose and a bar of soap, and goes to join the festivites.

Saturday, February 3, 2007 Manuel and I leave the crew to clean up, pull forms off the foundation, and move some brick in prep for next week's wall-building. We go to Punta Mita to pick up the afore-mentioned steel door. Manuel's truck is an older Ford Ranger that Brian and Sue gave him as a gift when he finished building an apartment and shop-space for them, and it would have been nice if they had given him a truck with brakes and a navigable transmission.

Anyway, we make it to Punta Mita, get the door, (sorry no pix), see some friends of mine and some of his, and get back to Nogalito in one piece. Manuel has been nipping at his bottle of "medecina" (tequila) the whole way, so it's especially good that I'm driving the rough, brake-less truck.

We spend the rest of the afternoon drinking (me beer and he tequila) and talking about the next step...how and where to run the electrical, what about the plumbing...etc. We decide to hire a "peone" next week (yes, it's a peon...sometimes also known as a burro...in general, a low-wage worker to do grunt work) to clean the lot, fill the empty spaces of the foundation, and slowly tamp it down, so the floor will not crack.

Negrita loves to keep watch over the whole place sitting in the shade of the palm tree on top of the sand pile. She furiously digs a spot then takes her throne.

Sunday, February 4, 2007 I spend the day at the site drawing out plans for water, drain, and electricty lines, then go watch the SuperBowl back in Puerto Vallarta. My numbers on the pool are Bears 8, Colts 0, and my friend Rob has Colts 8 and Bears 0, so we decide to split if either of us win. Obviously we are, like the Bears, both losers this year.

Monday, February 5, 2007 Today is Constitution Day (triple pay for labor!), so no workers today. Nonetheless, Manuel moves a hundred bricks, mixes a couple of half-bags of mortar, and lays 3 rows of bricks for the east wall. I've started cutting electrical conduit and marking the placement of outlet boxes so when they get going in earnest tomorrow I'll be ready. Based on Manuel's calculations we should have the east wall nearly finished by the end of the week!

Tuesday, February 6, 2007 Just Manuel and one helper today, Adrian, the best of the previous crew. By best, I mean in Manuel's opinion. He doesn't complain, does what he's asked, doesn't dawdle, etc. He's also a genuinely nice kid, maybe 18 or 19 years old, and Manuel's grandson..

Manuel is ready for the conduit and outlet placements, on the fourth row of bricks, so I get them settled in between his bricks and mortars, then go to the electical supply store for wire. Price of copper has risen drastically since I last bought wire, so a 100-meters box of number-12 wire is now almost 50 bucks (and I need 6 boxes of the stuff!), plus a hundred meters of number-8 which is twice that, plus a big circuit-breaker box which is outrageuous, etc. In all, an expensive day of supply shopping.

End of the day sees the east wall built up to almost a meter above floor level. Manuel will be able to go 3 or 4 more brick levels before we start to fill in around the foundation, enabling him to work higher with some scaffold. In the meantime, he'll build up the west walls.

The orange window at the right in the photo above is in the wall of the neighbor's house. It will, of course, be covered over by my wall. A friend has suggested hanging a mirror there, and another says to hang a picure of a big eyeball. Either would be kind of fun, but I think I'll just brick it up.

Wednesday, 7 February, 2007 Manuel has a problem getting "peones" to fill around the foundation, and he likes to tackle one part of a project and finish it, so he builds his own Mexican scaffolding to finish the east wall. If you work for OSHA, please do not continue reading.

The scaffolding is just rigged-up boards, wired together, against the wall. There are a couple of cross-supports temporarily nailed in, but in any case it's a safety inspector's worst nightmare. On the other hand, it works...and this is the way stuff like this is done down here.

The wall will run to 2.8 meters, and the finish beam of .2 meters will bring the walls up to 3 meters. From the pictures here, you can see the floor will be just about where the brick wall starts, and will finish approx. where the top bracket of the columns are.

Thursday, 8 February, 2007 Manuel has found one peone, Miguel, to shovel and tamp earth, sand, and gravel around the foundation. In the meantime, we also have another "peon", Cheyenne, the 11-year-old from next door. His job is to stay away from the other workers, sift sand for the mortar mix, load bricks into a wheel-barrow, and in general help out where it's not dangerous for a kid to be. His Canadian father and Mexican mother fully approve, by the way, for you child-labor activists out there, and he gets paid fairly well for the dismal labor he performs...and it helps everybody move faster, as long as Cheyenne is not running his motor-mouth.

Manuel, as always, has under-estimated his progress...the east wall should be finished mid-day Friday, and the half-day of work on Saturday should see 15 or 20 rows of bricks laid on the west wall.

Friday, 9 February, 2007 As predeicted, the east wall is finished, and work begun on the west wall. Starting tomorrow, they will also pour the concrete to fill one column every day.

Every day Manuel makes a fire and cooks beans or rice or something for lunch. Today there's a chicken and potatoes in the pot.

Saturday, 10 February, 2007 We've got a backhoe coming in tomorrow (Sunday) to excavate the pool and the septic, push all the dirt into the house site, start tamping it down, and clear the front of the lot and the future driveway. In general, it will clean the site up, which Manuel has been nagging me to do for over a week. I didn't want to do it until we could find a machine that didn't have to come from over an hour away, because we have to pay work rates for the transit time both ways. It's less than $35.00 U.S. Dollars an hour for a machine, WAY cheaper than in the U.S., but it's the principal. Anyway, he lines one up to work on SUNDAY, and Manuel is happy.

The big news of the day is that Laughing Bob is celebrating his 60th birthday. With that many years, I've re-christened him "Wise Bob", but I don't think the nickname is going to stick.

Bob is the wise laughing guy in the foreground, Dawn is the sweet woman in the middle holding Barbi (Bob's date), and Brian is in the back trying to nibble Dawn's ear.

Sunday 11 February, 2007 The back-hoe / front-loader gets here right at 9:00, and starts digging the pool. It's a long day digging and moving over 100 cubic meters of earth. About 40 meters go inside the foundation to "fill it up", and the other 60 meters "go away"...I don't want to know where or how or why. One load (5 meters) did go to a neighbor who wanted some of this top-quality soil (old river silt...really awesome soil for anything that grows). Any construction job in the village draws attention...Lorenzo and Ken are among the "supervisors" who show up to pull up a chair, bucket, or tree trunk to settle down and watch and comment on the project.

Found a couple of pretty big rocks down at the bottom in the old river bed...here the machine falls back under the weight of one...he had to dump it and just drag it into the street with the back-hoe, then barely got it into his front-loader and up into a dump truck without tipping his rig over forward.

It took two dump trucks working in tandem to carry/move the dirt along with the machine about 7 hours to do the whole deal. Another expensive day, but hey, I've got a pool, or at least a mudhole if the rains come early. They also dug a septic tank right behind the pool...I hope that one doesn't leak into the other.

Alaska Bob stands in the middle of the new pool. Overall, the pool will be about waist-deep at the shallow end and about neck-deep at the deep end, and about 4-meters by 8-meters, plus a "cove" at the right of the photo. Not a huge pool, but from June through October any size pool is a blessing.

Manuel salutes the day with a frosty cold Corona. He's happy to have the interior of the foundation filled in so it is easier for him to work, but notice that the "cove" of the pool is between him and his bricks. He'll lay a couple of planks across the cove and call it good for the "burro" who has to move the bricks in a wheel-barrow.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007 Manuel finshed the West wall on Monday, and today will finish the walls of the septic tank, and tomorrow will poor concrete in the 4 corner pillars that hold it all together. In the meantime the other guys have been working at the bottom of the pool, getting the levels right and the walls straight.

I've got most of the wiring installed inside conduit at the house site, so it's ready to go when we get back to building walls. I think I found a good iron guy today to make the window protections, which ideally will be done before we build the walls, so we can build them right in.

Saturday, 17 February, 2007 The septic tank is done, ready to be used, as soon as we use up the pile of sand on the West side of the lot so we can excavate for the drain pipes. Today the crew is putting down a thin 'base' layer of concrete on the pool floor. Next week they'll start building up the walls with brick and rebar, with small columns every 2 meters. The whole thing will be surrounded twice with a rebar 'belt' to hold it all together. Monday I'll be shopping for swimming pool equipment to install as the walls go up.

So at this point It looks like I'm going to have a finished pool before having a livable house...not my ideal situation, but this is the way Manuel wants to do it, and whatever makes him happy will (eventually) make me happy.

Monday, 19 February, 2007. Today was the first serious case of "San Lunes" we've had here. "San Lunes" means "Saint. Monday", which is the Monday after you've gotten totally drunk on the Sunday previous. Happens a lot around here, since Saturday is a half-day of work, followed by getting paid - in cash, followed by a Sunday of drinking tequila and beer all day. We're missing Eric, who is seriously "crudo", and Miguel and Adrian are moving pretty slow. Manuel is in a bit better shape, but by the end of the day they're working on a case of beer as a little "hair of the dog" and spending more time telling jokes than working. I jump in to help tie rebar together with wire on the floor of the pool and encourage some actual "working", but I'm drinking beer too, so by the time 6-o'clock comes around, we're all just standing around yacking and talking about 'manana'.

Tuesday, 20 February, 2007. The floor of the pool is ready to be poured with a few inches of concrete. The steel for the columns is in place, but won't be poured until after the walls have been built up with brick. Got a new load of sand and another of gravel today, plus more concrete and steel. My wallet is thin again. My father in the Phoenix area informs me that a load of sand like this is $235.00 USDollars delivered...here, it's 850 pesos...about $80.00 US Dollars. Guess my wallet is thicker here than in the US, after all!

Friday, 23 February, 2007. The pool floor has been poured, then top-coated with colored-cement, as a temporary measure until I can afford the expensive tile I want. It will have a red-tile-colored "rustic" look for now, which in any case beats all those blue pools I've seen...doesn't anybody think of any color other than blue for a pool? They've spread out a couple of tarps to protect the floor, but I don't know why...they throw bricks and tools and rebar down on it like it doesn't matter...so I guess it doesn't. Mainly the tarps seem to be used to hide the tools at night.

The crew is now Manuel, Adrian, and Lupe...Lupe replaces Miguel who has been a no-show for unknown reasons. Over the last couple days they built up the walls of the pool with brick, and today poured concrete into the support columns up to the height they are at. Then they build a "chain" of rebar around the perimiter, into which they will pour concrete on Saturday, then start with another 4 levels of so of brick, then another rebar chain, followed finally by another couple levels of bricks to top it off.

Negrita has a new friend...a male puppy given to Manuel by a friend, named "Riki" or "Kiki" or "Niki" or sometimes "Stinky". Seems the "K" part of the name is the only thing that's really important, although Manuel calls him "El Stupido" mostly (which, being a puppy, he is). He's a great little dog and Negrita and Rikki fight playfully over places on the sand pile, bones and coconut husks to chew on, etc. He's also a great friend to Manuel, who lost his wife this past year, and so can use a loyal comapnion like Riki.

Monday, 26 February, 2007. I've gotten Manuel back to work on the walls of the house by telling him it will take me at least a couple days to lay the plumbing for the pool (and it's true, but I'm not gonna hurry). He'll get re-involved with the walls of the house and forget about the pool for a while. This will be nice, because I'd really like to see some "visible" progress on the house...right now, there are just brick walls against the neighbor's brick walls, which doesn't actually allow much in the way of pretty pictures to suggest progress on the actual "house" part of this whole project.

The pool walls are now built up to almost where the second "surround beam" will be. There will be some gaps for the plumbing, plus a pool-light where you can see in the picture a bucket inserted into the wall. The "cove" of the pool will be the most difficult to plumb, as the plan is to have a seating area with jets and bubblers installed.

Manuel decided he didn't like Lupe, so replacing him this week is Chuy, (say "Chew-ee", a nickname for the proper name Jesus, which is pronounced "Hay-Soos"). He's a friend of Adrian's (Manuel's grandson), and seems like a good guy. We'll find out, I guess, if he meets Manuel's standards. That's Adrian on the right, Chuy on the left, cleaning up and storing tools on Monday evening. Beers were opened shortly thereafter, and neighbors came to visit and comment on the project, as well as a new arrival who is trying to get Manuel to run his building project. It was made clear by Manuel and Myself that he can have him only after he's done working for me.

Thursday, 01 March, 2007: Walls going up! Here's Manuel with the two "short walls" at the front of the house (the space 'inside' the two walls is a short driveway). Stay tuned...today they are building the wall which holds the front door, and by the end of the work week, they might have most of the front walls complete!

SUNDAY, 04 MARCH, 2007: HOLY BRICKS, BATMAN, IT'S ACTUALLY STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A HOUSE!!!! The crew stayed late on Saturday ('till about 4pm) to finish the brickwork on the front of the house. They used wood forms for all the arches except the big kitchen window, which is formed by a "reverse arch" on a supported board. Monday, they'll remove the board and the form bricks, and the arch will be free-standing. Here's a look at the exterior:


And here's a look at it from inside the house:

There's rebar in the windows as temporary ironwork protections. Later, when the iron-bender makes real iron protections, we'll just cut the rebar off at the edge of the windows, leaving a point at which he can weld the protections in. Don't think I'll be getting glass windows right away...as it warms up, I'm going to just install screens since the windows would be open all the time anyway. (Actually, my neighbor Larry across the street has NEVER had windows...he doesn't see the point of installing them in a climate where they are open 99% of the time anyway.)

Wednesday, 07 March, 2007: The columns at the front of the house have been poured, so no unseasonal strong wind is going to blow them over. Back walls are starting to go up. They'll be a window in the wall on the right, and a huge arched opening in the middle. The roof guys will come out tomorrow morning to take measurments and give a quote for a system of pre-cast and pre-cut beams and styrofoam inserts that is then covered with 5mm of concrete to make a fast, strong, and insulated roof.

Sunday, 10 March, 2007: Interior view of the back wall of the house:

Wednesday, 14 March, 2007: An interior wall that divides the stairway from the (temporary) bedroom, and is also a wall of the under-stairs bathroom, is up. All the exterior walls have been built up another two brick levels to guarantee a 3.2-meter ceiling, and the crew is working on the steel for beams that will span the walls to support the ceiling system, which amazingly is scheduled to arrive Thursday (I ordered it on Tuesday). Gonna start getting real busy here again!

Thursday, 15 March, 2007: Yo tengo electricidad (I have electricity)!!! The CFE guys came out yesterday and hooked me up and installed a brand new meter, all 'zeroed out'. It's 220-volt service so I can run an efficient pump for the pool and have plenty of power for eventual air-conditioning. I've run a line for Manuel to use for occasional power tools that he borrows from Brian across the street, and I've got a total of 120 amps at my disposal.

Monday, 19 March, 2007: Still no ceiling system...could have some of it today and the rest on Wednesday, or possibly all of it on Wednesday... depends on somebody in Gudalajara's schedule. We're not going to be ready for it till Wednesday at the earliest anyway, so no worries. The crew is placing rebar for the 'crown' of the walls, and also the big beams that will support the ceiling. Here's a view of their OSHA-approved scaffolding on the East wall. All of the columns have now been poured.

Wednesday, 21 March, 2007: The "big" beams are up and enclosed with wood, ready to have concrete poured into them. The picture here shows one before they put wood forms on the side. There is a variety of 5/8", 1/2", and 3/8" (inch-diameter) rebar in each of these, probably an excess, but you don't want to cut corners on something like this. Still waiting on the roof system, but again, we're not quite ready for it anyway.

Thursday, 22 March, 2007: A furious day of activity here. The roof system, a combination of pre-stressed reinforced concrete "I-beams" and styrofoam fillers has arrived. It's grunted off the truck, and stacked along one side of the pool, and the styrofoam goes in the pool. Unfortunately, nobody thought to move the cement mixer inside the house until AFTER the beams have blocked easy access to the house, so my crew of 4 plus the 2 guys from the truck literally CARRY it over to the house entrance.

In the afternoon there's a furious couple of hours of work as the concrete for the beams is mixed, poured onto the ground, scooped into buckets, carried to the beam, lifted to Manuel on the scaffolding, and then poured into the form. Adrian is mixing, and Chuy and Miguel are scooping and carrying. Those buckets are NOT full, by the way...a half-bucket of concrete is plenty heavy enough.

Afterwards, the neighborhood drops by to share in a case of beer and deep analysis of the project.

Front row, L-R: Laughing Bob, Manuel, Susie, and Rocky.

Back row: Chuy, Miguel the Tijuana Tiger, Lorena, Alaska Bob, Adrian, and Lorenzo.

Tuesday, 27 March,2007: I'm close to getting "closed-in". The wall at the back of the property has been built, a little more than 2-meters high, with a column to match the first stone/rock/tile column that was the first thing built. Nothing special about the wall, but it will be covered on the outside by bouganvilla, which is beautiful and thorny as all get out (an excellent deterent to potential intruders). Until the bouganvilla gets going, the top will have the traditional Mexican "broken glass bottles" security measure. The inside will be covered with vines and plants.

Also today, TELMEX paid a visit to install my phone line, so I'm almost a real person in Nogalito now.

Thursday, 29 March, 2007: The roof starts to go on! I'm sorry I can't provide "action" photos of this, but I was in the thick of it helping to lift 6-meter concrete beams up 3+ meters of wall. These suckers are HEAVY. We finally found a rhythm by about the 5th beam, and it went very well, but my shoulders are SORE tonight. Most of the remaining beams are less than half as long and heavy, so we should complete placing them tomorrow. Concrete won't be poured on top for another 10 days or so, but in the meantime the place is feeling like a whole house more and more.

Friday, 30 March, 2007: Here's an "Action Shot" of raising the beams. In this case, it's the smallest of the beams, only ( ! ! ! ) 3 meters long, but still plenty heavy, dense concrete with steel inside. By lunchtime the entire roof is covered, including the styrofoam panels.

The afternoon is spent grading the interior down to level, in preparation for pouring floors starting Monday. Next week is Semana Pasada (Easter Week), so they will only work Monday through Wednesday...but they are planning on having the entire floor in by the time they leave for a long holiday weekend.

Saturday, 31 March, 2007: NEW look to the house, from the back! Candelario started installing the back door of the house at abour 7:30am...WAY early by Mexican standards, but he's a quality-service kind of guy.

This is the biggest of the iron-works...a few of the small ones went in up front, and all the rest will be installed early on Monday.

We also got all the interior drain runs installed, and the floor is now ready to begin pouring concrete. Got another load of sand to supply this...it's blocking entrance from the back, and it's a fresh pile of play-area for the dogs.

Monday, 02 April, 2007:
Here's a fresh look at the front of the house, with the kitchen window installed:

Thursday, 05 April, 2007: The interior concrete floor has been poured, and the crew has the rest of the week off for the Easter holiday. There are still a couple beam supports in place, but the rest is wide-open space. I'll start moving boxes and crates of stuff inside today so I can give my current apartment a good cleaning before Marco moves back into it Monday. I bought 150 square meters of plastic sheeting to cover the floor and all my stuff while they pour the roof, hopefully sometime next week.

Tuesday, 10 April, 2007: I moved into the place yesterday, and spent my first night here. I was exhausted from all the stress of cleaning the old place and packing everything out, so I slept well on a borrowed bed-frame and air mattress (Thanks, Lori!). Negrita must have been a little stressed by the move as well...she pissed on the floor a couple times...I quicky taught here that just because she used to pee there BEFORE there was a concrete floor doesn't mean she can do it now. It's amazingly QUIET here compared to being in the heart of Vallarta...just crickets and occasional dogs barking. Roosters crow in the morning of course, but not very close by, and their racket is replaced by tropical bird songs when the sky starts to lighten. Another bonus is the lack of city light...the night sky is incredibly filled with stars!

Thursday, 12 April, 2007: We poured concrete on the roof today! The pumper and cement were scheduled to arrive at 3pm, but they showed up around 11am, and by the time we hit Noon it was all done...about 8 cubic meters of concrete spread out over roughly 100+ square meters. The interior walls and floor were covered with plastic to prevent damage by dripping concrete in the cracks of the system, but turned out to not be required...the few places that leaked were stopped up quickly by the thickness of the concrete. Negrita has adjusted nicely...she has some new friends in the neighborhood who come by to visit and play. The view below is provided by Susie...it's the view from her balcony.

Sunday, 22 April, 2007: Been a busy 10 days, moving everything in and around and getting organized, plus visitors and neighborhood parties and so on and so forth. Since the last update, the roof has been sealed with a final cap of concrete mixed with latex. My neighbor Lorenzo and his son Cheyenne spent Sunday the 15th giving my house-warming present...a day of labor cleaning and outfitting the house. I've got nice dorm-style brick-and-board shelves in the living room, and brick-and-old closet door kitchen counters, plus a kitchen sink, a mini-fridge, two-burner gas stove, and lots of other good stuff. We also strung "Mexican-style" wiring across the ceiling so I have a few lights and power outlets where needed...I'll worry about the real wiring a little later. The wicker chairs, by the way, came from the former home of John Huston's personal secretary...It's likely John himself sat in them, and also quite likely they have served the rumps of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton. Here's a view of my rustic, camp-style living room.

Tuesday, 24 April, 2007: Okay, the kitchen is pretty clean now...clean enough for a picture, anyway. Crates and bricks and boards and old mirrored closet doors for counters. The table also came from John Huston's secretary's house...presumably the green felt hosted a number of rowdy poker games including John, Richard Burton, and ?????. Who knows if it's true or not, but makes for great imagination, eh?

The hose supplies the sink (it's 'plumbed' to the faucet); I haven't yet run copper up to the roof and over to the kitchen, but the drain is plumbed.

Everything I need is in place for sophisticated camping until I replenish the bank account! (Except the swimming pool...work resumes next week or so on that.)

Monday, 30 April, 2007: After taking a week off so I could concentrate on getting my life inside together (and for Manuel to do some work for Brian and Sue), work resumes on the pool. It's just Manuel today...he wanted to bring one worker, but all of the usual gang were celebrating some holiday or another, or maybe just warming up for Cinco de Mayo (which, honestly, is not nearly as big a deal down here as it is up in the USA...it's mainly an opportunity for the Mexican beer breweries to push the markets north of the border). So Manuel is having a solitary day of work, but I think he gets just as much done as if he had a helper.

Thursday, 03 May, 2007: Today is the "saint day" for Santa Cruz, the builder. If you've got a building project in motion, you put a cross up on the project in honor of Santa Cruz. Well, it was just Manuel and me again today, and we kinda forgot about it, so maybe we'll do it tomorrow. In any case, Manuel took off a couple hours early to spend some time with Lourdes, his new girlfriend, but we should be pouring the final crown level of the pool on Friday.

Monday, 07 May, 2007: Today Manuel is putting on the first of three "plaster" coats on the interior pool walls. This is a mix of concrete, fine sand, and a latex sealer. The first coat goes on rather rough. The second coat will get smoothed out, and the third will be mixed with super-fine sand and the red terra-cota coloring we used on the pool floor. Within a few hours of the final coat being smoothed on, I can turn on the garden hose and begin to fill it up. Wednesday, maybe? Probably not.

Tuesday, 08 May, 2007: Just a funny pic today...here's a little fellow that showed up in the toilet at Brian and Sue's house last night:

Brian grabbed him with a set of bar-b-que tongs and put him in a bucket, then grilled him with a nice honey-mustard glaze. Tasty! No, really, he just took him out back and let him loose in the wood pile. My own iguana, "Hector (the Protector)" lives in between the walls of my house and the neighbor's, and he spends many hours on the roof sunning himself. Hopefully he'll stay out of the pipes.

Thursday, 10 May, 2007: Happy Mother's Day (if you're in Mexico). Manuel said he wouldn't be in until a little late today, but he's not shown up at all. Must be 'muy crudo' (very hungover). The pool is ready for the final smooth, colored coat...in the meantime, it looks like the Flintstone's pool, or Jed Clampett's "cement pond" for those of you old enough to remember such trivia.

The last couple of days have seen hard plumbing come into the house...there's a tinaco (plastic storage tank) on the roof which will hold 600 liters...enough to last a week, easily, should the water be off that long, and I plumbed copper pipe to the kitchen and bathroom. No more one-handed showers while holding a garden sprayer, or using a bucket to fill the toilet tank!

Monday, 14 May, 2007: Here's a view of the pool with the walls all done and the steps in. Tomorrow Manuel will take about 175 bricks and round off one end of each to make the pool deck, and also clean up the floor a bit with some muriatic acid. As soon as the pool deck is done, we can start adding water. Looks like maybe Friday, which will be just in time, because the days are starting to get pretty damn hot here.

Manuel first whacks off the corners of a brick with a machete, then uses a hand-held electric grinder with a concrete blade to round off one end.

Wednesday, 16 May, 2007: My "barrio-style" back gate has arrived and been installed. I found this relic inside the parking area at one of my favorite hardware stores, and they were willing to part with it cheap. My welder picked it up, replaced a good part of the rusted frame with new steel, and had it installed within an hour of arriving. Yeah, I know it's kinda ugly, but it will someday get scraped and painted. In the meantime it lets Negrita have full run of the place. Here Manuel and friend Chendo chat while Manuel whacks at bricks in a shady spot away from the late-afternoon heat.

Saturday, 18 May, 2007: WATER IN THE POOL!!! I figure it will take 3 or 4 days to fill, depending on the consistency of the water supply (which isn't very good here). I've already waded in it so I can claim I was first one in the pool, but I have the feeling I'm going to want to let the sun warm it up a bit before I'm throwing any pool parties. Drains and returns are plumbed, and the pump and valves are sitting on the kitchen table awaiting installation, which I guess I need to get working on pretty quick!

Tuesday, 29 May, 2007: Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been busy swimming in my pool! I wake up every morning, shoveling some dirt and moving some bricks before the sun gets too high, and suddenly I'm ready to cool off. It's amazing what a dip in the pool will do for your body temp... WAY better than sitting under a fan with an iced tea...

Here's what the patio is looking like at the moment.

SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 2007: AN UPDATE REGARDING THE LACK OF UPDATES: Sorry for keeping y'all in a state of suspended suspense...I know your lives revolve around checking this website daily to see what I've been up to.

However, there's actually been little additional progress since the last posting... In trying to hold to some traditional Mexican building techniques and traditions, I did what many Mexicans (and Gringos) do: I ran out of money. So I've been spending the last month making money and re-plenishing the bank account, in between swims in the pool, of course.

TUESDAY, 25 MARCH, 2008: CONSTRUCTION RESUMES!!! Been living "luxury-camping-style" for almost a year now, and it's time to do some more work on the place. During the past couple of weeks I've been building a bodega to store all the stuff that is in the "tool room". The front door of the house came off and will be installed on the bodgea...in the meantime, Candelario has made and installed a new iron door which matches the design of the windows.

The contents of the tool room are spread all over the dining room floor, because Manuel has returned to build stairs in that space and over the bathroom to the roof. He's building forms out of last year's wood, most of which has avoided termite infestation and general rot.

Bodega...needs a roof, a floor, and a door	Tools and supplies cover the floor awaiting a finished bodega
Manuel building stairway forms	The Brick Man and his kids delivering bricks to the roof
The garden and potted plants have been doing well, for the most part. Far left is our Pineapple plant, complete with new ripening pineapple.	Got a good deal on tile at the new Home Depot a few weeks ago...here it's hanging out by the pool hoping to get laid by Manuel in a few weeks.

WEDNESDAY, 26 MARCH, 2008: Manuel has finished creating the wood forms for the stairway, and will spend tomorrow cutting, bending, and chris-crossing rebar across it to support the structure. Again, a typical Mexican piece of ingenuity, lacking any respect to OSHA.

FRIDAY, 28 MARCH, 2008: Any day the cement mixer is in play is a day that's going to result in some significant and visible progress. Manuel has brought along Omar, a good helper on previous jobs of his, and hired local character Chiapa. (Not his real name...it's just what everybody calls him because that's the name of the state where he's from.) The guys load half-buckets of concrete and carry them in and up to Manuel, who spreads the stuff on the 'ramp', the first and main-supporting structure of the staircase.

Monday, 31 March, 2008: Stairs are roughed-in to the roof! The wooden forms will have to remain for another week until the base concrete and steel foundation cures, so our bathroom is totally lacking in privacy, but we're not too shy. Negrita has a new place to run around upstairs, but we're going to build a one-meter wall around the front and back of the roof so she doesn't chase an iguana right off the edge of the roof and (splat!). (We don't love her for her brains, because she hasn't got much in that department.)

Tuesday, 01 April, 2008: Manuel building the one-meter wall on the upper-front of the house.

Monday 07 April, 2008: Another fine example of Mexican Ingenuity in the absense of OSHA regulations. Manuel is about 12 feet above the ground, and that combination of planks, bricks, and buckets is pretty bouncy. I tried to put the kabosh on this rig in the interest of safety, but Manuel insisted he does this all the time, and as he is still healthy as a horse at 60+ years, I had to let him do it.

We're taking a week off to visit the States, shop and gather housewares and other stuff that's either difficult or expensive to get here, and enjoy the refreshingly frigid spring rains of the Great Northwest. Manuel will take the week off as well.

Thursday 17 April, 2008: Back from "vacation" now. All the upstairs walls around the stairway are up, and the temporary ceiling has been replaced. Given the amount of light that flooded down the stairwell and into the middle of the house, we're planning on glass block when we install a permanent ceiling.

Manuel is now building the wall that will enclose the bathroom. (In the meantime, we have to ask Manuel to take a little break when we need to use the facilities.) He's expressing his inner creative child with a rock left over from the foundation work, and putting it into the wall. If we don't like it in the end, we can always cover it, but we think it's going to look cool.

Saturday 19 April, 2008: The bathroom is fully enclosed now, with a temporary curtain for a door to provide at least the impression of "privacy". Manuel is working alone, so work proceeds at a slow, steady pace. I prefer it this way, because it gives us time to plan ahead to the next part of the project and be prepared to move furnishings as needed, cut in electrical and plumbing lines, etc.

The bathroom now has a sense of privacy.	View from the roof of the stairway enclosure.	Manuel's new puppy, "Gitano", dances a jig.

Monday 21 April, 2008: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN! A brushfire in the jungle has been adding a haze to the sky for the past 5 days or so, and now it's getting ready to creep over the 2nd ridge from us. 'Defense Civil' has been monitoring it, and while it's out of control, they're letting it run it's natural course, as it's primarily dry undergrowth that's burning. There haven't been any structures lost (the very few that are in the burn zone are concrete, after all), so there's not a big safety concern. We may have to leave the village for a day if it burns to close, though, to avoid the smoke. At night you can see small patches of flame from the roof.

Friday 25 April, 2008: The front of the house is looking very nice now, despite the construction materials cluttering the view. Manuel applied a finish coat to the columns and beams with white cement, marmolina (a very fine, white-crystal sand), and a sealant. We're going to wait a while before deciding whether or not to paint... we may decide to leave it as it is and never have to paint (and re-paint, etc.).

Monday 28 April, 2008: Remember Adrian from the early days of construction? He's back with Manuel this week to apply the finish coat to the interior ceiling. Here they are shaving down some of the low-haning spots of the styrofoam before applying the first "rough" coat. No wire-rigged contraption of bricks and boards to stand on...they've got a real scaffold this time (thanks to neighbor Brian for lending us this!). We're going to have to continually shuffle furniture and stuff around to keep out from underneath them, and to avoid the occasional plop of cement.

Tuesday 06 May,2008: The columns, beams, and ceiling have been textured in the dining room, living room, and bedroom. Also sporting finish coats are the interior stairway walls and the face of the wall above the bathroom doorway. Manuel and Adrian are working in the bathroom today, on the ceiling and South interior wall. In another day or so, we'll start dismantling the kitchen so they can finish the ceiling there.

Tuesday, 13 May,2008: My sweetheart has been inspired by some of the bright Mexican colors found in houses and gardens around here, and has started hand-coating the plain (some might say 'ugly') West garden wall with blue concrete. Here the wall closest to the house is complete, with vines and plants re-hung.

Thursday, 15 May, 2008: All the interior ceilings, beams, and columns have been coated, and 19 liters (about 5 gallons) of paint wasn't enough to cover it all, so the kitchen remains to be painted. The stairway has been finished with pebble-textured treads, and someday we'll find the right interesting tile to put on the faces of the risers. There are still a few clean-up spots to deal with, but we're anxious to get the tile down so we can move everything back to "normal" and discontinue life in a construction zone.

Saturday, 17 May, 2008: TILE!!! Manuel has the first few courses of tile down, stretching the longest diagonal line from the corner of the bedroom to the kitchen. Working without a helper, he can get about 16 or 17 tiles down per hour, a few less if he's working at a wall and needs to cut pieces. The end of dusty construction-zone living is in sight!

In the meantime we've finished all the painting of ceilings, beams, and columns, so we're just staying out of Manuel's way while he gets on with the tile work.

Monday, 26 May, 2008: FINALLY, we can start putting our home back together. Manuel and Adrian were motivated to work a few extra hours on Saturday to finish the tile work (motivation = extra $$$ and a bottle of tequila each). Somehow I managed to calculate the tile use correctly...we ended up with exactly one box of tile left over. We spent Saturday night sweeping the entire house, and Sunday unpacking everything, dusting it off, and putting it back in place. Just like moving into a new home, there are still lots of boxes to empty and stuff to move, but every box holds something we thought we had lost or some other thing we had totally forgotten about ever having. Here's a view from the front of the house through the "dining room" to the living room. All that finished tile and ceiling makes the place seem even bigger...we're going to need bigger furniture to fill it up. A trip into Puerto Vallarta to buy a nice sofa is first on the list, to replace the folding camp chairs we've been using for the last year or so.

Sunday, 01 June, 2008: Here's how the back steps to the patio are looking at the moment. All the bricks have been removed to outside the back gate where a friend of ours is going to harvest them for work on his project a few kilometers south of us...recycling, as it were. (Actually, he's trading us home-smoked bacon and beef jerky, so we're coming out of it pretty good.) Manuel will then cover the steps and patios with the same type of granulated coating that he used on the interior stairs, plus some concrete coloring. Note that we've added some color by painting the upstairs balcony wall a golden yellow.

Thursday, 05 June, 2008: One of the loyal readers of this on-going report has asked me what ever happened with the bodega, and all the crap that was in the living room waiting to get stored there. Actually Manuel and I put the roof on about a month ago, and I put everything in there. Then the rainy season started threatening to moisten the concrete and mortar, so I pulled a bunch of the stuff back out to make a dry space for those building materials. Yesterday Candelario came out to install the door (which was formerly the house's front door), so now I'm just waiting for Manuel to deplete the stock of building materials before I can move some things back in. In the meantime, here's a view from the South edge of the pool.

Jan.-Feb, 2009: We didn't do any real brick-and-mortar construction this "building season". (We call it "building season" because there isn't much chance of rain, and the bricks are better quality when made during the dry season. It's also a lot cooler - easier to get more work done.)

What we did do is begin to replace our "dorm room" kitchen. Got a new fridge and matching 6-burner range. We also got to work on a set of kitchen cabinets (lowers only, for now). We originally ordered a set from Home Depot that would be imported from Canada, but when it came time for delivery, they called us up and told us the design we chose had been discontinued. The graciously offered us any other line at the same price we were originally quoted (even if the new design was more expensive), but they just didn't have anything we liked. SOOooooo, we contracted with a local "carpentario" (carpenter shop) who would custom make our design for us, and it ended up being about the same price as Home Depot. They estimated it would be done in about 45 days.

Unfortunately Felipe, our carpenter, ended up getting drunk and did something stupid and got thrown in the local pokey for 6 months. His cousins continued the job, but slowly. It wasn't until May that they were finally done and delivered, but they're nice and solid. They're built of "primavera", a light-colored but dense (termite proof) wood. Now we gotta get countertops...

So back to Home Depot for formica tops. Only one piece is in stock, so the other two will arrive in "about a week". Two weeks later...still not in. Three weeks...ONE of the two pieces is here, and it's delivered. Two weeks later we drive all the way to the store to inquire with Ceasar, our trusty kitchen specialist at Home Depot, who taps a few keys on the computer and says "No, Senor, no aqui" (No, sir, it's not here). Still, being the skeptic that I am, I go behind the department to look at the stock and find not one, but THREE of the required pieces in stock. I make an angry face, Ceasar shrugs, we all laugh, and the piece is on the truck and arrives at the house about a half hour after we get home.

So now it's June, 2009, but it's all done, and looks pretty nice. A huge improvement over the bricks/crates/boards situation we previously had.

We also decided to drain and paint the pool. The colorant in the concrete began to leach a bit, and it was no longer a "terra cotta red" color but more like a "mud" color, and it was difficult to keep clean. Off to the professional paint store for some DuPont epoxy marine paint. We drained the pool, pressure-washed it, let it dry a couple days, then with our friend Rocky's help, spent two consecutive mornings whiffing fumes and painting. Seven days to completely cure, then filled it back up (only took two-and-a-half days this time). Now it looks like a 1960's Palm Springs motor lodge pool, and really shines with the light on at night.

August, 2009: Words like "winter" and "summer" have little meaning here. Instead, there's rainy season, dry season, tourist season, etc. For us, there is also "Frog Season", that is, the first month or so after the very first rain, when the frogs awaken from their hibernation and come out looking for water and potential mates. If you can't learn to live with their LOUD droning croaking, you go out in the evening after dark, stun them with a flashlight in the eyes, pick 'em up, drop them in a bucket, and walk a block or so to the river to set them free again. If you're not fast enough, they leap into the pool and you get to go swimming after them (actually it's a lot of fun). It's not uncommon to find one in the water in the morning who hasn't figured out how to get out of the pool, so you lift them out with the pool net and set them loose in the garden to eat some bugs. Here's a beauty of a specimen (about 3 inches long):

We also get the occasional GIANT toad in the garden...some as big as a salad plate. They stay out of the pool, are very quiet, and just hang out eating whatever giant toads eat.

August, 2009: Our neighbors Ken and Sharon also have a condo a bit south down the highway, and they and some of their neighbors have been updating their units, which has resulted in us being gifted the old louvered closet doors that were taken out. We've got 5 sets (2 per set), and it's time to get some real closets for the bedroom area. Nothing fancy, but a couple days with some paint and power tools is a real improvement over the previous situation of having most of our clothes in plastic boxes under the bed and a few hanging clothes on a one of those zippered canvas-over-tubing contraptions the stores sell as "closets".

October, 2009: Our lead carpenter, Felipe, has done his time in the clink, vowed to sober up and fly right, and is looking for work, so we decide it's time to quit trying to hide our farts behind the curtain that has served as a "door" for the bathroom. "10 days" he says, and in 10 days it is installed. It also hides the fact that we still haven't gotten around to tiling the bathroom, but we'll get around to that, okay?

November, 2009: Welcome to Rudy and his wife Gina from Southern California, who were motivated by this blog to come to El Nogalito, buy some land, and build their own dream house! They found a nice 330 square-meter lot up the hill a bit, and perhaps we'll start a new page to document their building process.

December, 2009: We are blessed with butterflies and dragonflies of every color who visit and take nectar from the flowers and get a drink from the pool. Here's a nice example.

March, 2010: We are back in "building season". (This winter was spent building a pool for our neighbor's place, you can see the story by clicking HERE.) So now Nailo has turned his attention back to our place. We had considered starting construction on an upstairs master bed & bath, with a possible guest room, but instead have decided to absolutely, completely, TOTALLY finish all that is downstairs before moving up. First on the list is to clean up the front with a paved driveway and front steps. Here Nailo is perched atop another fine example of Mexican scaffolding technique, putting a concrete coating on the exposed wall of our neighbor's house.

And here is Izzy, sponging off the top bit of concrete on the driveway to exose the aggregate underneath.

April 5, 2010: Felipe has FINALLY delivered the upper kitchen cabinets, only about 3 weeks later than promissed, and still not quite complete (note the lack of apron on top and bottom of corner unit). Still, it finishes off the look of the kitchen and gives us some more dust-free storage space. Also installed a water purifying system under the sink, so no more buying (questionable) bottled water, and we can also run the ice-maker in the fridge.

April 10, 2010: Next on the list is a partial, arched wall to give the bedroom a little privacy. Not that we really need it, being just the two of us here, but when guests stay on the couch there's literally NO privacy for either guests or us. So we're putting in an arched wall which we will fill with sliding wood doors. This way it can still be relatively 'open' to the rest of the open-floorplan, but close-able when needed. It also means we can get a little air conditioner just for the bedroom for more comfortable sleeping this summer. Before leaving Saturday afternoon, Nailo has the side walls and the form for the arch in place. Note, again, the OSHA-quality scaffold.

April 13, 2010: The Arch is done. The newer, wet bricks will take a little time to more closely match the older bricks. We'll get Felipe out sometime over the next couple of days to get an estimate for folding/sliding wood doors.

April 20, 2010: The scaffolding and supports are up for the ceiling over the stairwell. The cracks between the boards will get stuffed with wet paper (old concrete bags) before pouring cement.

April 25, 2010: Looking over the project from above, four wood boxes provide the forms for the skylights, and enough steel to build a small bridge will hold the concrete roof up.

April 27, 2010: There's an extra 5 guys to pour the roof today (including Rene, one of our favorite hard-workers), for a total of 7 workers. 2 are continually mixing concrete and filling buckets, 3 are continually taking filled buckets up to the roof.

Nailo and one more are on the roof spreading the stuff. It's only about 8 square meters, so it's all over and done with by a little past Noon. There's nothing left they can do until the concrete sets, so I pay off the extra crew, buy them a couple roasted chickens with rice and beans and tortillas, and they spend the next few hours down by the river demolishing a couple cases of beer and a bottle of tequila.

May 4, 2010: There's another set of Non-OSHA-approved scaffolding put together out of ladders, bricks, wires, and boards, and Nailo is putting the "enjara" (concrete coating) on the walls. The skylights are on and he's already done the enjara on the ceiling and around the skylight frames.

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