Our house in the Caribbean

Frustrated at his lack of being able to help with the actual building, Steve dabbled in detailed sand "castle" making, instead! Where better to do it than a deserted beach in the Mexican Caribbean.

Here are the results. Giant tree reserve at back and tsunamis - optional.

Looking forward to moving in!

Time's the issue!

In an attempt to be good neighbours we agreed to let the builders work on Hugo's house on his request, which is two houses down. All good and well and it was easier on our pocket of course, but we have been pretty concerned about time recently and feel that everything possible should be done to make sure that by the time rainy season starts, (come mid-May or so), that the builders are able to work under the roof - so there's a lot to do!

Anyway, the retaining wall has been started, and we've decided to make it fairly high so that the hillside isn't too steep. Hopefully the wall will become mossy, green and covered in climbing plants as we're not keen on the idea of being surrounded by red brick.

On a good note - sub-zero temperatures don't seem to have done any damage; it's the first time we've seen things freeze in Xalapa. Is this what is to come!?

More retaining walls...

Before the guys go ahead and start with the ground floor, we all realised that the retention walls around the back of the house and to the left of the house should be finished first.

As well as being handy to keep the earth back, it'll also let air circulate round the back of the house.

The idea is that they'll be no higher than the windowsills, and in that way we should look out to see greenery rather than brick wall.

There's also a ramp from the front door up to the steep bit of the garden behind the house. At this point only the ditches for the foundations of the wall at the side have been dug; this will also be where some drainage pipes will be put in.

The first 'roof'!

It's already been a month since we last posted, and true to our word here's a shot of the water tanks, with a roof! That'll be the first 'finished' part of the house then.

There's a shot taken from just in front of what will hopefully be one of the nicest parts of the house - the alcove with two-storey-high windows pointing pretty much south east for maximum sun-intake!

The other shot shows how the place is looking from the other side - the earth is packed in nicely in each room, ready for a layer of sand and its plastic damp-proof covering. The big earth wall you can see is the next problem on our hands: we've got to figure out how to contain the earth while allowing for a view of greenery from the windows as well as a path which will hopefully lead up the hill from the front door.

Sunshine!

Rainy season finally seems to have come to some kind of an end, or at least a break! Sadly things aren't the same everywhere in Mexico and thousands are still homeless after Hurricanes Karl and Matthew caused havoc over the past couple of weeks.

The water tanks are done for the time being! Hopefully in about a month they'll even be roofed. The other shot shows the view from just below the top of our plot, with the water tanks on the right, Daisy in what will be the living/dining room, and Hector in the kitchen. We've been pretty pleased to notice that the house will get more sunlight than we'd originally thought.

Pablo's Pig Tails

A shot of our current favourite shop - "Pigtel" managed by the ever-friendly and helpful Pablo. It'll be interesting to see how much we'll have spent there by the end of this whole process.

Rosalino is rigorously rubbing down the right-hand-side tank and Leborio's labouring lovingly in the left!

Doing their best despite the rain

Rainy season got into its full flow just as the builders wanted to start lining the water tanks with concrete... Not good timing as it made the job impossible at least with their original method. So, as you can appreciate in the photos, planks were positioned and the concrete was poured down. There's also a photo of the whole plot taken from one side of the garage.

These photos are 10 days old or so now, and the tanks are fully lined. The next job is to add a think layer of concrete and polish it, to seal them. This week was a slow one, firstly due to 'bicentenario' celebrations and then Hurricane Karl threatened to do some damage so we gave the builders an extra day off.

It's already a year since we got planning permission which means we have to go and renew that on Monday.

Finished Foundations!

Getting exciting now - the foundations are now done and you can actually tell it's going to be a house! The water tanks are their full size and although they're yet to be finished they're already doing their job.

The guys needed some more wood so we decided it was best to take down one of the trees that would have been hanging dodgily over the house.

The spaces between the foundations are filled in too meaning that we can now walk around at the actual height that the ground floor will be at. There's a photo here taken from what will be the kitchen window, obviously the current cement mixing patch will turn into a vegetable patch, and flowers should line the path down towards the garage.

Water!

It shouldn't be too long before we can actually let the rain start filling up the water tank(s) now. We're soon to confirm what our water pump will be; the current plan is to use a conventional electic pump when necessary but more often than not, a bike-pedal pump!

There's also a pic of Steve standing exactly where the composting toilet heap will be... "Where he belongs!" says Daisy!

Finished curves

This was done a little while back now but it's nice to have left behind the front section and to be concentrating on the house... Well, almost.

We'd say Hector has done a great job of creating lovely smooth curves. From some angles it looks like a work of art!

Once the plants or flowers are in it should look nice, and nice and easy to walk (or ride?) up and down.

The swimming pool...?

The water tank now has its full depth, (a max of 3.3 metres below the level of the ground floor of the house) which seems perfect for diving into for us! No can do though. Shame. Over the next few days we have to decide whether the water pump is going to be solar powered or electric. The former... right? Even though it is three times the price or so.

Here's a snap of José and his brother taking the last few barrowloads of earth out.

And here's the windy path leading up from the garage, now that it has walls, yet to be finished and we're hoping it'll look much friendlier when we put some greenery in.

The House stage has begun!

It's been a while since we last updated this, but things are moving on well, thanks in part to much better weather and we've now got three great builders on the job.

As you can see in the photos, the winding path which we showed earlier isn't yet finished but now leads into a path that heads straight up to the house. The house's layout and position is now finalised and perhaps you can make out in the photos the strings which mark the level of the (ground) floor. It's nice and high so that we get a great view from all parts of the house and hopefully it'll poke out into the sunshine too...

The big dug out section is going to be the water tank for all the lovely Xalapeño rain water!

Up, up and away

Now we're out of the garage, it's time to find a way out of the hole and up into the world above. Not an easy task considering how steep the slope is, but Horacio has managed, with the help of his 'A-level' (nothing to do with secondary school qualifications), to mark out a path which as well as getting us out of the hole, looks nice!

Ok, it might just look like layers of mud at the moment, but one day (and hopefully not too far off), we should have a nice winding path up to where the house will be.

(You can see our latest purchase of 4,000 bricks peeping out from the garage, as well).

And we´re out of the garage!

Early March 2010

Phew! After five months we seem to have finally reached the stage where work can be done outside the garage, even though the garage is by no means finished; (the idea, if there´s any money left, is to use the space above the garage as a gorgeous sun-trapping patio).

The garage walls are now more or less done, space is left for a window, and you might just make out the first signs of the place being owned in part by a mountain biker - six hooks to hang up the bikes in what will be a secure part of the garage, (back right wall).

The garage feels pretty huge - even Steve´s new non-too-subtle truck only seems to take up about a third of the space. Should be nice for gatherings!

The architect (Horacio Albalat) joined us today to make sure the tyre steps idea came together nicely, and to start plotting the route that the winding path will take up to the house. Between five of us a good bit got done: digging, string placement, tyre cutting, positioning and filling!

We´re still very interested to find out how Horacio is planning to maintain a shallow (sub 10%) incline up the whole winding path... I guess that will be one of the next installments.

Clever walls

Mid February 2010

The garage walls as you can see are

almost there now. The drilled tubes

under the gravel ´filters´are already

doing their job nicely too.

The weather has been so

miserable recently hence the plastic sheet helping the wall to dry out and protect Hector and José a bit.

Not far off being a useable garage!