August Wrap Up, Responses Encouraged, Opportunity!

Hi everyone.

At the beginning of the August posts we started with the exterior as it looks right now. The color on the walls is just the "Repimax" texture coat. Color still needs to be applied. The roof is a cool green - think more like blue spruce. The teak is, well, teak. And the metal work is or will be black.

You've seen the inside colors for the upstairs. Admittedly, the kitchen tile is still not up. Go back to the Kitchen post to see a new photo added of that tile.

We've also added a photo of the color chip we created when we were painting so that we could match or compliment colors once back in the states.

So we are struggling to decide what to do for our outside colors? We certainly don't need to use the colors from inside upstairs. So at this stage in the project, we are ASKING FOR COMMENTS. Please help us choose the color for Casa Torrente de Agua's exterior.

Finally, while we know over the next two months Rob will have occasion to make some posts as a few things get done; those are being done while other projects are in various stages. So they won't be fast as they were in early development.

If you subscribe to "follow blog", you'll get an email when we post an update. Otherwise, most likely except for what we hope is a lively discussion about outside colors, there won't be much activity until October 2009.

Futures? In high level detail; the next steps are:

1. Complete the laundry on the middle level (what we call level 2) - October?

2. Complete bedroom/bathroom 2 and furnish (bedroom on the right on level 2) - January?

3. Create better parking and access to the bodega (level 3 down below) - April 2010?

4. Complete bedroom/bathroom 3 and furnish (bedroom on left on level 2) - July 2010?

After our October trip, we would like some volunteers to stay at Casa Torrente de Agua for at least part of their Costa Rican adventure for very low cost. We're finding fares out of Ohare to run around $300 if you're flexible on travel times. We encourage you to discuss with us your travel plans before you book flights. We can help you with contacts on where to stay when coming in and leaving (Casa Bellarita in San Jose). Where to rent a car (Economy). There is a LOT to see and do in Costa Rica.

Recall that our purpose in building our casa was to use it in a large part for vacationers. But for the November, December and January (except the last week), our offer is that you rent from us covering our costs; as long as you provide feedback to us on what worked, what was problematic. We're doing this so that in our January trip we can adjust some things if needed. You'll also be asked to carry a suitcase of supplies for your trip to leave at Casa Torrente de Agua. But international travel allows for four checked bags, so one should be tolerable.

The only rentable space is the main floor upstairs. All the rest is still in development. So this is suitable for one or two people for now. But this is as inexpensive lodging as you'll ever get in Costa Rica that is also a modern, comfortable place. Work with either Dick and Jim on arrangements.

So two big things in summary. First, please give us feedback on EXTERIOR COLOR. Second, if you wish to travel in Nov 2009, Dec 2009 or Jan 2010; please let us know if you will take us up on our low cost, high feedback offer. Some of that time has already been booked.

Warmest regards,

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Views....

We began to open up the view from the living room this trip. Well, ok, when we say we, we mean the crew.

Alverro is actually the guy up in the tree slicing off limbs with his machette. He was the guy who more than a year ago showed Dick and Jim how to use a machette properly.

As you can see, we have a lot more to open up. The trick is to preserve the trees while thinning the folliage. To the right is a lot of bejuco vine, so once that is out we can make other choices of limbs to remove. We figure this process will take the better part of the next year, removing a little more each trip.

You've seen this before in one of the other posts. This is looking out at the partially cleared view where now you can see the banana plantation, along with the illegal airfield in the middle for the illegal crop sprayer.

That plane takes off every morning at 5:11am. As you can see, that strip isn't far, and the plane noise is loud.

Alazan community along with our neighbors are actively working to stop this illegal activity.

In this last photo, now that we can see further out, Dick noticed this bee hive in the tree in the distance. Look carefully at the center. Then scroll down to see the zoomed in view.

Note that limb over the top. That is an old mature Gianazzo limb that is at least a foot thick. So this hive is pretty doggone big!

No worries, it is a good long way off from our living room so no bees headed our way. But interesting to see this in nature. In many more populated areas these would be removed. We'll leave it be, and see how it evolves.

Thanks for reading our post!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Work on the upper main level nearly done - Exterior

Opening commentary about our posts. We have set up our blog posts to be in small units. So when you navigate to this blog site, note that there are several posts each month which have been made since the start of our construction in May 2008. To see different posts, simply navigate to them on the LEFT side of the window.

We encourage you to set up an account with blogger.com. When you view our blog while logged into your account, you'll get a "follow blog" button top center. If you subscribe by using that; you'll get emails whenever we post.

We returned to Costa Rica on July 25th, this time flying the Costa Rican airline TACA. While the flights were red-eye, the service was great and overall flight time about one hour less than other options.

Anyway, we were very pleased with the progress. Our electrician, Javier, did a fantastic job wrapping up all the live power upstairs, and redoing the first floor prep. Plus he installed the water heater, fans, switches, outlets and lights which made this visit highly productive! He and I worked together to put in the track lighting, and a few other details.

I'll try to make a future post showing the inside of the service panel, which is nearly a work of art!

These views show the entry. The photo is taken from ground level, so you can get some idea just how steep our drive is. A couple of concrete blocks acting as wheel chocks made parking quite tolerable. We have not yet chosen an outside color. We've tossed around some ideas, but haven't settled on one yet.

In the posts to follow you'll see that we painted the upper level. So each day or so this week I'll make another post showing all that.

We would very much appreciate you giving us some feedback on potential outside colors!

Ciao!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Work on the upper main level nearly done - Bedroom

If you've been following the few dozen posts of this blog, you'll know that the bedroom on the main (top) level is an open concept place with four rooms. The middle room is the bedroom which, as you can see from these photos is finally done! Our first night staying in our place was Tuesday, July 28th.

I also want to mention again that our design concept is upside down. The main level is the top level for the view, second level is "ground" level for the two bed/bath suites; plus the laundry. Third level is the bottom level, storage (or 'bodega').

You may recall the controversy of getting power to Alazan. At end we were required to have streetlights at every other power pole. This was quite a source of controversy amongst us owners of lots at Alazan. One thing we all hoped for were the dark nights without a lot of superflous light. But at end, we do appreciate the road lighting when driving in at night. As luck would have it, the pole closest to our casita has a light.

Now, for our bedroom on the main level, that light comes in fairly well even though there are leaves filtering it. When we return on our next trip, we will be putting curtains on the window in this first photo. We'll also add privacy curtains across the foot of the bed, and also at the bath entry so that guests can have a bit more privacy in what is otherwise a huge open room.

The redundancy of this second photo isn't lost on me. But we wanted to show the 68" fan that is over the top. This fan is totally silent, but can really move a lot of air, even at lowest speed. The second photo is a daytime photo. With the jungle out the window, you can see that we aren't flooded with daylight (save for the streetlight).


If one turns 180 degrees; and is looking towards the foot of the bed, you can see the opposite wall, door to the living room and view to the Pacific ocean to the SOUTH. My apology, my camera just isn't capable of resolving the bright distant view compared to the much darker jungle canopy.

You can also see that we drove around the color wheel in selecting the color of the common wall shared by the three "inside" rooms. That nice cool blue really adds a nice contrast the the sunrise, sunset and sun colors used on the other walls. Plus we felt that it tended to pick up more of the sky and ocean color when looking this way. That man in the bottom right is our FANTASTIC electrician Javier.

For perspective, if one walked left they would be going towards the main floor bathroom. To the right is the kitchen/dining.

So that is today's post. Thank you for reading!

Ciao!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Work on the upper main level nearly done - Living Room

Greetings. IMPORTANT NOTE. If you click on Follow Blog at the top center of this page, you can enter information so that you are automatically notified of updates. With construction changing we'll be keeping this blog going for another year or so; but the updates will be separated sometimes by a couple of months. I'll be reminding you of the FOLLOW BLOG feature; and be posting a rap up when this current set is done.



This is mostly a photo blog. This first photo was our friend the green frog who every morning was on the wall right next to the bigger slider by the kitchen/dining room. I finally decided he was going to be a regular, and too this photo (and a couple others which didn't turn out so well).

This next photo is the messy living room. Note that this is "outside" in what will be the non-cooled area. Overhead though are three ceiling fans which really make the space comfortable. And the broad overhangs protect it from rain.

In this photo we decided to have the lights on so you can see them. Since we were short the bamboo up/down lights, that center one between the doors is decidedly different. We purchased an indian mask made of wood when driving the "road of death" in January. With the curved shape and eye holes, we thought that putting it over a simple wall fixture with CF bulbs behind it would be a good way to add a decorative element to the living room; and also add that fifth light.

Now, the backstory of the fifth light. Our specification to the bad electrician was FOUR lights on this wall. He wired for five. While the light is nice, it presented us with the dilemma since we had already purchased the four lights for the wall.

The nature of the light at night is soft. One would not read a book though. I might need to get a floor lamp I can use for that. All in good time...

These next two photos are showing the living room looking each way on the morning we left. As you can see, the jungle is right there! At the moment we have limited furniture there. Over time we'll need some extra chairs, tables and possibly one or two simple dining tables out there as well. But we expect that will occur over a period of years. Right now we have what is needed for four people both inside, and outside.

We were, at one time, a little concerned that the living space would not be large enough. But we think it is about the right size. Dick is already thinking about an interesting addition in a couple of years that would add more bedrooms, probably some small bathrooms as well, and a bridge to this living room with some open-top decks.

Finally, we had to post the newly opened up view we took one morning while enjoying coffee on the living room. I'll have a separate blog post on views which will repeat this photo.

If you were able to view larger, the horizon is visible on this morning, even though there is very humid/hazy air over the ocean.

In older posts I've described the agricultural coastal plain from the foot of our mountain to the waters edge. This is fairly unique along the south Pacific coast. While having crashing waves very close is lovely to view, this protects us from the majority of the heavy salt air while giving us a nice view. We hope you'll enjoy that as well when you visit.

As always, thanks for reading our blog.

Ciao!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Work on the upper main level nearly done - Bathroom

It may seem like an unimportant room... But a working bathroom (san's vanity sink) was essential for us to start out. Our challenge was that in Tico tradition, one has the rough soil pipe through the floor with tile right around it. Then to set the toilet one has to chip out tile with a cold chisel; cut the pipe to a proper height, and then set the toilet. This was a two tripper to Maxi Ferriteria (hardware store).



One might not think of toilets as cool. The defacto standard in low water use, high efficiency toilets is Japanese made Toto. But our American Standard built in USA uses .2 liters more water and acts like a pressure toilet. So functionally is an amazing device. We should see these on the US market more readily soon...



We reused one of the ladders the workers left behind. It is a home crafted wood one we washed with bleach and made into a temporary towel rack.



Since returning to the states, we've purchased proper ones we'll be installing during our next trip. Our friends Kent and Rob suggested Ikea which was near the airport when we returned. So we took advantage of our proximity to shop - and found great devices at even better prices.





Early in our visit Javier was installing the lights for the bathroom walls. Up until our visit it was thought the wiring to the light over the showerhead was lost. But he found it during the install of the others - and proceeded to complete that installation. We can attest that the light is necessary. While we love our tilework and teak ceiling, the effect is that the shower was otherwise a pretty dark place. Lights are waterproof - ones intended to get wet with no ill effects (and no shocking results either).

On the first day of this trip, Saturday July 25th we needed to "close" on the cabinet in this photo. After having Jose in Sarchi custom build side tables for the beautiful bed he designed and built (out of Guanacaste - a native Costa Rican tree); we decided to trust he could do similarly beautiful work in making a closet (of sorts). This is a heavy piece, with huge amounts of storage. Shoes go under, there are four giant drawers, and a 1.6 meter wide pole for hanging clothes inside, and a hat shelf above that.

We selected this photo for posting as it shows all of the colors put together that is the setting for this cabinet.

Now the STORY. When we met Jose to pay the balance and arrange delivery; we had assumed we would pay and delivery would follow the next week. We did NOT expect that Jose would do additional strapping on his pickup truck, and follow us to our place 2.5 hours away on the coast.

That drive was an adventure to be sure. As we drove a storm developed so that while on the windy, twisty mountain roads we had intense rain, crashing thunder and fog. What an experience!!! It was dark when we got to Alazan; and then we discovered that Jose's truck was not a 4x4 - and thus not capable of making up the 1.3 kilometers to our house on wet dirt/mud roads.

We unloaded the cabinet at the guard house at the entrance, and then Dick and I decided to pay for a room for Jose and his wife (who accompanied him on his drive). After showers we met in the hotel dining room. This hotel, the Hotel Delfin, is right ON the beach, just a few feet from the ocean. Spectacular views and sounds! Great cajun food at Hotel Delfin. During dinner we learned that Jose and his wife had only been married 16 months, and being of modest means as furniture builders, never had a honeymoon. So our gift of a room turned out to be their honeymoon trip. We think a cool story.

While waiting for Jose to secure the cabinet in his pickup truck; we were in his new store location and found this mirror on the wall. Price was low and look was more like what we wanted - not a continuation of the bed/tables/cabinet; but a powerful piece that can hold its own. So we bought it, and hung it before we left.

So all that remains is for Gerardo to build the vanity table, and for me to tile it, set the sink and faucet; hook up water/drain; and of course install those fixtures and we'll be done.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao!

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Work on the upper main level nearly done - Kitchen

This series of photos is mostly a photo essay. But let me add some words to help this make more sense. This first photo shows midweek view where we had painted the walls green. What is not obvious is the the countertop granite is "ubatuba", a dark green. Also not too clear is that the backsplash is a recycled glass and tile that is not up yet either.



We painted the kitchen last, so the posts that will follow this will show the application of color.



We had the crew come down and help lift the appliances (Fridge, stove and microwave) upstairs. The refrigerator came up upside down, so we waited 36 hours to turn it on.



The other surprise was that the range was a slide in - rather than a standard range with a back panel. The assumption was that there would be countertop behind it. We didn't provision for that! With some fast thinking by Rob and Kent at dinner that night, we resolved by using a scrap piece of angle iron attached to the wall structure (steel); anticorosive paint applied, and then two rows of the backsplash tile on top to meet the level of the countertop.



This next photo shows the microwave installed (and working), the stove in position, and the refrigerator finally up and running. The refigerator surprise was that the top is curved even though the box top is flat. That door blocks the upper cabinet doors from opening unless the refrigerator door is open. Clearly, we'll put lesser used items up there!


This sheet of tile is what will go up on the walls above the countertop as our backsplash. We'll complete that during our next trip if we haven't been able to get Marvin to do it before then.

This next photo swivels left a bit, showing the sink and the cool cabinet above it. That cabinet is a dish drainer over the sink, so that as we wash dishes we can stack them there. I discovered that if I leave that door open, even in the Costa Rica humidity, the dishes still dry. But most of the time after they drained I towel dried them, emptied the catch pan, and closed that door.

We bought this great dining table and extremely comfortable chairs in Sarchi, along with much of our other furniture in our Januaary trip. At least for now, this wall is going to be the location of that table. While Dick isn't in complete agreement, it is Jim's desire to put some sort of lamp on that wall to provide brighter light over the table. But first we will replace our track light bulbs and see how that affects the ambient light at night.

You can clearly see the graphic we applied, and you can see those same colors (except the blue) in the bedroom wall behind this.


This final photo of this post shows the "inside" wall that is common to the Kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. Those are the walls that will be cooled once our AC system is put in. Both sides are in this great sky blue that we felt cools the space visually, and also picks up on the ocean and sky views looking out the sliding glass doors.

Thanks for reading our blog!

Ciao!

Ricardo y Jeeeem