Colour!

After having spent so long with the house being that delightful colour called "cement", it seems to be springing to life now that the paint is starting to go on.

We're also loving the amount of daylight upstairs, something that we notice even more now that the walls have got their first coat of white paint.

Hector and Rosalino are now dedicating themselves to the 'tapanco' (the wooden mezzanine above the living room), and with the beams in place you can now get a better picture of what it'll be like.

Los lavabos

Other people in Xalapa go shopping at "Liverpool" but we decided to do our bit of impulse-buying when we saw a massive collection of ceramic washbasins for sale. These are the two we chose. Pretty chuffed with them, particularly for 450 pesos each!

We're now planning colour schemes for the bathrooms. There are even tiles matching the design on the left.

Windows

With (most) of a roof now over our heads, the next step is putting in the windows. At the moment they're just frames, but even so, seeing them in their places makes the house look a lot more housey.

We spent a couple of hours this afternoon painting the drainpipes brick red, which will not only keep the rust off, but should also look rather jolly against the yellow we plan to paint the house.

Monday's task: meet with the plumber/electrician. Getting there now!

Milky Way

The policarbonate transparent sheets are now in place over the stairwell; (in progress in the shot here).

A bit of the "Onduline" roof has gone in over the upper balcony, too.

The weather has been fairly dry for a few days which is lucky as they've been stapling the milk cartons into place! All these months washing and collecting are finally paying off!

A couple of window frames have arrived, so it's all go!

A roof over our heads

It's all quite exciting at the moment: we're starting to see the results of there being five builders on the job. The wooden bases of the roofs are now in place (90% done in the photos), and we've now bought some of the policarbonate and a few sheets of Onduline, ready for when Horacio gives the maestros the thumbs up.

Saúl has been working on the north-facing balcony at the top of the house, which gets some lovely afternoon sunshine.

October brought with it a bunch of workers and some diggers. We hadn't realised how wide the track (road-to-be) is. Hopefully it won't look like a motorway anytime soon!

A belated late-September post

Plenty going on at the moment - the beans and peas seem very happy, Daisy has sorted out some plants to edge part of the path at the back, all the roof beams are in place and we've started planning bottle arrangements for some of the walls.

The upstairs back bedroom is going to end up having a rather nice high ceiling. Steve was particularly happy with the photo of Leborio's foot.

The Pre-Columnas Age

We've planted eight trees so far, four of which are on our land - the others are on the land next door.

We managed to get my granddad up to the garage, but he wasn't too up for walking up to the house and from what he saw he wasn't too impressed anyway!

Celso is the new member of the team and has been working on preparing the columns on the water tank/veranda. They've been working seven days a week recently and tomorrow are planning on filling the cardboard pillars with cement.

The others are still working on the roof, which is going fine. Daisy and I measured up our milk carton sheets today, as we were told that we'll need a total of 43 square metres or so. Only fifteen to go...

Beam me up, Hector

So as not to let the roof beams be exposed to too much rain, the builders are doing their best to move swiftly. A drill purchase later and after 3 hours scouring Xalapa for the right drill bits, Hector and co could start securing the beams into place.

We think it looks great!

It looks like the road will be getting tarmacked soon; we went to a meeting about it this evening and found out that together with the rest of the neighbours on the street we'll have to pay 10% of the job...

Tomorrow's job: plant four trees! A guava, a peach, a lime and an avocado.

Last post before the roof

It might seem like not a lot has been done over the past month, but it has been rainy season and the guys have been plastering quite a lot inside the house. It's gone up in height a bit too, ready for the roof. The room at the top (the study) is going to be stunning - it might be worth considering as a bedroom as views are great and you can almost see 360 degrees around you!

The garden is looking lovely and green. Ferns, beans, strawberries and a couple of young trees that we planted next door are all enjoying the sun and rain.

There's a shot here from the East angle - so that's the front door in the middle with the living/dining room on the left and the kitchen on the right, below the main bedroom and its balcony. You can perhaps appreciate just how much light (or how many windows) there's going to be, particularly up in the study.

The roof timber was delivered today so the next installment should be exciting!

Gardening

We've also been taking advantage of the sunny days between the rains to do a bit of work in the garden.

Saturdays have been spent working on the path and filling in a horizontal terrace - in the long-run there should be at least two, if not three terraces, but it's hard work wheelbarrowing earth uphill!

I've also been relocating ferns - it's not to clear in the picture, but the sloping beds nearest the house are now covered in ferns. I'm hoping this will help to hold all the soil in place, as well as looking rather luscious.

There are so many pretty plants growing already, like this purple flower, that it almost feels a shame to bring in new plants. I think I'll try to reach a balance between what grows naturally and what would be useful and nice to look at. And first of all, trees and the like...

The current plan includes lemon/lime, guava, peach, avocado, macadamia nut, and black pepper... yummmmm.

In the Dog House

The neighbourhood dogs certainly seem to feel very at home in the house! Canica (the black dog) and her pal are testing out the kitchen, and have become very good at showing us the way up the stairs... Speaking of which, we now have stairs all the way up to the top of the house.

The builders are now just finishing off the walls at the top of the house - the stairwell, a study and a balcony that will look down the street.

On the garden side of the house, Hector is getting things ready to put the roof on.

You can also see the big arch in the living/dining room area. It's going to be a rather nice room with views up into the garden and plenty of light.

This week we've also been discussing kitchen fittings and a fitted closet for one of the bedrooms, which makes moving in feel that little bit closer.

Pretty things

Second post today, but I was quite camera-happy.

The view out of our bedroom window is going to be pretty nice, as you can see here!

The water filters have been in place quite some time now and the plants are now looking very happy; we're looking forward to them flowering.

We often find ourselves parking at our favourite neighbour's (Hugo's!) and today we happened to notice his beautiful orchids.

How do you translate "colado", anyway?

Things are looking lovely at the moment - you can almost see the smiles on the plants when they get loads of rain and loads of sunshine in the same day. Yesterday the 4 builders and 4 helpers did the "colado" of the second floor (i.e. they put in the the second floor), as well as the reinforcing struts and arch - should look nice when those blocks are removed!

The view from the very top is great, although Daisy finds it too scary to walk to the edge! Fortunately Hector doesn't seem to get vertigo so he's been doing a lot of work perched metres up in the air as you can see in one of these photos.

There's a shot of the back of the house too; Daisy and I have been adding some earth to widen a flat space, ready for planting.

Word has it that the council is coming this coming week to start on the pavements in the street, and when they've done that they're supposed to be starting on the road... Fingers crossed!