Poco a poco we are getting there. People keep asking us when we think we’ll be done, honestly, we don’t know. We keep thinking the end is nearing, and then it’s “just a few more weeks”. Let’s just say that it’s been “a few more weeks” for many weeks now. It’s a weird mix of not holding our breath but still being hopeful. That and we keep adding projects to the list, a pumphouse, a garage, etc.
But progress is being made nonetheless and that is always exciting.
We can’t put the delays solely on the contractors either. Eben and I have made decisions that add work to their list. Like we decided that we wanted all the walls in the house to be Pulido (polish concrete). It’s time-consuming, but man does it ever look cool.
The Physical
Eben has been up at the worksite with the team every single day. Most days I wake up at 7:30 and he’s already gone! He is putting all his skills to use and learning new ones from the guys up there. He comes home absolutely exhausted.
He’s fallen asleep in the middle of movies a ton lately! He never does that. Just goes to show.
He is digging trenches for the water and power. He is concreting the walls. He’s sealing and painting window ledges. He is doing the plumbing and electrical. He’s tampered and leveled the floors, help concrete them, and sealed them. And so much more. He has had his hands in every inch of this house build. You should see his hands, worker’s hands, they are mangled.
The biggest changes we’ve had as of late are:
-the walls and floors being finished up.
-all the windows going in (minus the huge front living room windows since the window company had to special order that glass for us).
-we have the entrance door and the system’s room door installed
-they dug out where our garage is going to go, laid the rebar and the floor (that was a new project we decided to start).
-they’ve done the outside walkway concrete
-sealing the concrete floors in the bedrooms and bathrooms
While he has been getting his hands dirty, I have been at the computer, A LOT.
The Online Puzzle
My job of ordering the “pieces” of the house has been so time-consuming because it is such a puzzle to do here. I have said countless times, “If only we were in the States or Canada and I could walk into 1 store and buy everything I needed at once”. Instead, I find myself online, cross-checking multiple websites, both Mexican and US, to find all the pieces we need.
I have to find the perfect balance between the design we have in our heads, our budget, and what we can buy within Mexico (from Mercadolibre, Amazon.MX, or physical stores) or even more specifically in Baja California Sur because not all companies in MX ship here. If we can’t find it here, such as, for example, the Black Rocker Light Switches we wanted, then I have to see if it’s worth ordering from the States and paying a 3rd party shipping company to bring it down (with a 30% import fee), or if we have any dear friends travelling our way that can bring pieces. THANK YOU BRIDGET! I also need to keep it all on budget.
I have Trello boards to keep me on track and a dozen tabs open on the computer.
Going up to the site though, and seeing the progress, big or small, brings me so much joy.
I love the simplicity of the built in shelving. Can’t wait to see more!