Look Ma! No pictures!

A quick update on our project.

Much has come together in the past week or so. Our windows will begin going in fairly soon, probably starting between April 1 and April 6.

Dada Cucine, our kitchen contractor will begin installing the kitchen on April 1. Either along with the cabinets, or soon thereafter, the appliances will be delivered. So we've a lot going on!

Rob and Kent have been on their mandatory 90 day sabatical but will be back at Alazan Monday March 30.

Meanwhile, Dick and Jim have been busily organizing the major transfer of goods that will occur in late April. During this trip, Dick's sister/bro-in-law/mom will fly down for a couple of days. Since their needs are light, we've asked them to take bags down for us as well. We'll take four checked bags, they'll take five. But we'll be accomplishing a lot with that trip.

The things we're transporting are light fixtures, tools, plumbing fittings, etc, so that we can get started (and, regrettably only started), making the place habitable. We rehabbed our older Dewalt Cordless drill and so that will get its new home in CR. Dick bought an electric chain saw last Summer which we thoroughly cleaned up for transport, and are checking that as well.

Dick's family will largely have pots/pans; linens; dishes; flatware; towels and other items we don't need quite so quickly this trip.

Our goals are to get the upper toilet functioning, and upper shower; get our initial furniture delivered, and install many of the light fixtures. Ideally, we'll pick up a tank of propane, and set that up in the generator room - and if we're fortunate will get the stove running. We also plan to get the kitchen sink connected. Finally, we hope to work with Gerardo to get our upper bath vanity table built so we can start tiling that, and hook up a sink.

It is unlikely we'll be able to stay there this trip however. We land April 25th right around noon. We need to get to Sarchi - the furniture making town first so that we can settle on our furniture, and arrange transport to the coast early the following week. Then we'll return to San Jose, stay overnight at Casa Bella Rita; pick up our stowed items there and drive to the coast Sunday morning.

On Wednesday April 29th Dick's family will arrive. We'll head back to San Jose, pick them up; stay overnight at Casa Bella Rita and return to the coast Thursday. We should have two days of enjoying Costa Rica before heading back to SJO Saturday (May 2) afternoon. It will be a whirlwind week.

So April, the 12th month of construction, seems like most will come together. Ideally we'll have a septic system by the time we get there, and a local and more talented electrician will ensure the power is ready to our box.

Tentatively thinking of a July trip where we would actually stay at our casa, and jump in finishing all things upstairs, and perhaps start on the lower right bedroom finishing work. We would no doubt get back to Sarchi to arrange to get our upper storage closet built, and probably a few more things as well. If it seems like that trip won't happen, we'll have a design in hand for that cabinet for this April trip.

All for now!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

When the heck will this project be done already???

Hola!

Thank you all for following this blog for now close to 11 months. As predicted the time from getting the place undercover to finish appears to go very slow, even though many things are happening.

We have contracted for creation and installation of our windows and hope they will go in before March ends.

We have also been in touch with Dada Cocine, our kitchen place, and the GE Appliance store in San Jose. The kitchen is ready to go in and so is now in Dada's expediters hands. With tile and roof in place, even if windows are not done, they can install the kitchen cabinets. We are hoping that will be done yet in March as well.

What we hope will also occur before April 25th is installation of our septic tank/field. But the crews are very hard at work on other needs at Alazan, and that detail might not be finished by then. Since we've many, many things to do before plumbing will be online and fully ready for use, not having a septic will not be the worst thing.

Our friends Rob and Kent are hard at work with the crew down at the base of the mountain building the Guard House, and absent any photos from our project, please enjoy these views. Rob, Kent and Jim spent some time in concept about what sort of look that building might have. It has to serve multiple purposes. The upper floor is a residence for our new Alazan Concierge and his family. So that is a simple two bedroom, one bath home.

The lower portion is actually divided into two main sections. The portion behind the corrugated panels in the photo will be the new home for our SIX water entry tanks. Water comes from the water line along the road, and slowly fills the tanks below. Water is then pumped up to the top of the mountain to another six holding tanks, and is then gravity fed to the home sites. Managing it this way means we're not drawing high volume water from the main water line, so it can fill up slowly and not cause a hardship to others enjoying the water supply. The tanks ensure that if water supply is disrupted, we will still have water to Alazan. In the absolute worst case scenario, we might have to pay to have water trucked in to our tanks - but this beefy system should handle our needs.

The other half of the lower part is to hold future Alazan vehicles when we finally get them. It would be lovely to have our own back hoe down there. So if any of you are in a gifting mood, by all means, consider that to our little community. :-)

These final two photos are showing the great progress on the inside of the gate house. The white tile are the walls of the shower area, the red clay tiles the floor of one of the bedrooms.

Thanks for reading!

Ricardo y Jeeeem