Arty farty

 Our westerly wall now has a nice, colourful feature, in the form of a fan of bottles.  The light coming in adds a touch more brightness to the stairwell.  As lovely as it is, we think we'll leave the bottle installations at that, as it took Hector over a week to do it.  

We were also inspired by a trip to Frida Kahlo's Casa Azul last week, where we were very taken by an interior wall/cactus pot.  The top of the stariwell seemed like an ideal place for it, as not only is it very hot and dry, but we also needed something bannister-like on the top landing... it might not be so good for puting your hand on though!  

Covering the cistern

The back of the house is looking nice as it is now mostly painted, and Leborio is currently in the process of painting more of the front - perhaps it will look less imposing soon.

The empty triangle above the living room arch has now been filled with a

window. Manuel the glazier has finished a few other windows, too.

The study upstairs was looking particularly nice

this morning with the sun coming in on the tiled floor. It gets pretty hot up there in this sunny, spring weather!

Hector and Chalino have been finishing off the roof above the water tanks/the veranda. You can see this new section in the first photo. The third photo here is from the main bedroom window, looking towards the back of the neighbour's land. It's all so green at the moment!

New accessories

We collected our stove from Las Vigas this morning - a very good use of two truck wheels! We asked for there to be a thicker than usual hot-plate on the top of it, so it can be used for cooking when it's lit.

The bath arrived a few days ago, after a lot of phone calls and running about trying to chase it up.

Saúl is installing the door that opens onto the upstairs balcony.

1,2,3... floor

Saúl has been meticulously piecing together the floor in the study.

Purchases and another roof

The view from the front door has now changed as the structure for the roof above the water tank/veranda is in place.

After months of trying to get hold of a dry toilet, we managed to buy one. Just waiting for the bath and the eco-urinals now!

Some of the sockets are in place, (there is a reason for the otherwise-boring photo...)

The Garden in Spring

The end of February brought us some very welcome warm sunshine, and the plants thought so too. The compost bin has been in full-swing; the mandarin trees are covered in buds, and everything is growing quickly.

In the details

January seems to have been a slow month, but there has been a lot of progress when you step back and look at it.

With the exception of the porch, all of the roofing has been done and the drainpipes are in place. Time for the house to dry our properly now.

I spent a day painting the study recently, and now all that is left to do in there is to put down the floor... and as our road is now open, we splashed out last week on a load of fired terracotta floor tiles which will be used throughout most of the house.

Celso and Rosalino have been busy fitting the windows in the main bedroom, and the clear roof over the living room is finished.

And most excitingly... we have a (yet to be painted) front door!

A new road

After many, many months of waiting the new road has finally been finished and is now open to (both canine and vehicular) traffic.

December

What with moving house and having visitors, we didn't get a chance to upload these photos from December.

Here you can see the biiiiiiig window in the living/dining room. It lets in an amazing amount of light.

The arch leads from said living/dining room to the downstairs bathroom, bedroom and stairs.

And lastly, guest starring Mum & Dad, a photo from the street, showing Don Fernando's house in front of ours.

Light = Luz

The electrician has got a few cable guides in position in the wall, so the top of the stairwell is almost finished as you can see here. Even though it's been really cold recently, the sun coming in through the roof helps cheer things up and stop the house from being too cold too!

Work has started on the small roof above the balcony in the main bedroom. It'll be nice to see that finished, as at the moment every time it rains, the bedroom gets flooded!

We quite enjoyed noticing a couple of details that happen to have appeared in the photos - such as the smoke from the builders' cooking and the wads of money on the floor as it was Friday (i.e. pay-day!)

Far too civilised (almost)...

Road works are now progressing faster than we expected... it looks like we might actually have fully-functioning road and pavement access to the house by Christmas. We still had to treck through a quagmire of mud in yesterday's rain, though...

On another note, our peach tree seems to have been confused by the sunny weather we've had recently. Beautiful as it is, I can't help but think it really shouldn't be blossoming in November!

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!