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

Counter Install

Hello again!

We had a good visit to Costa Rica in late April. Primarily we needed to be there for our Homeowners Association annual meeting since that is an important gathering so that all homeowners have better chances to meet at one time; plus to conduct important community business.

Dick and I had intended to hang ceiling fans, light fixtures and get plumbing set so we could stay in our casa. Unfortunately we learned that our electric rough in was fraught with issues and needed to be ripped out and replaced. Given that bad news - we did not pursue our plans and wound up staying in a hotel the entire trip. Now that was not a horrible thing since we had also planned for Dick's mom, sister and brother-in-law to spend the second half of our visit with us.

Still some things were destined to come together and this post is part of that. In early April our kitchen cabinets were installed. And as we were arriving and for the first three workdays, our windows were going in as well. Plus, we had arranged for the countertop to go in WHILE we were there.

This first photo is of the countertop guys arriving to our driveway, and starting to unload the two pieces of granite. For those who are familiar, we chose Ubatuba granite which oddly is cheaper than laminate in Costa Rica. Our only cheaper option would have been tile - and in fact that is what we're planning for our laundry and vanity tables.

In the third photo you can see not only the two countertop guys lifting the larger section of granite into the corner, but two of Alberto's window crew jumped in to help as well.

I think this is one of the cool things about the local worker culture there. The granite guys didn't go up to the window guys to plea for help. Rather, the window guys recognized that help would be needed, and just stepped in to lend a hand. I know that occurs in the states in many places as well. But we all know of other cases where people will just watch other struggle, and never help out. This was not the first time I had seen this behavior there.

In this final photo, the installers are securing the big corner section on top of the cabinets.

I'll have other photos in a later post of the sink hole being cut.

What we love about being able to post this blog is that you can see the windows in place, and counter top in place. Once electric is redone, the countertop tile backsplash can be installed. More on that in a future post.

Thanks for following our blog! If you're new to it, please check out the navigation on the left to prior blogs. You'll need to go all the way back to May 2008 to see the START.

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Monkey Tour

During our April trip where we were joined by Dick's mom, sis and bro-in-law; we took one morning to enjoy a monkey tour in the mangroves near Quepos.



These tours are pretty cool as it is both educational and entertaining. The boats are simple with light covering for the drizzle/rain that frequently characterizes that area. You'll see some deterioration as this is right on the ocean, and salt air is very corrosive.



As you can see, in this particular section the monkeys came right onto our boat, and onto US as well.

I fear our guides were not following the letter of the law and enticed the monkeys to visit. While I admit, we enjoyed that closeup view; these are wild animals and such interactions are not healthy for either the monkeys, or the humans. It appeared though that our guides were aware of the various monkey families along this part of the coast, and actively looked for this one family who DO interact with humans. We did not see them trying to "convert" the other monkey families to behave in similar ways.




Once we heard the couple of siblings on the roof of our boat, this was the first view, one of them peering over the edge to see who was below. Cute!

These other photos show the non interacting family coming close to the boat on branches. They are a curious lot, and want to see who is around and what they're doing.

Thanks for reading.

Ricardo y Jeeeem

Septic is IN

Wow, last week was very productive! Many thanks to Rob, Kent and our crew who gave up time off on Holy Week to put in our septic.

This is mostly a photo blog, so no real text to add. But the system is in, so one more item in getting our place to its first version of habitable.

One of the things we need to begin to scope out are details of our grey water system. But the urgency right now is low, with other priorities of the place to be done.

Our finishing plans are beginning to come together. Our 2009 trips are likely to be 4th of July week and Christmas week. Our work schedules make combining with the other holidays unworkable. But our desire is to be able to stay in our place over the fourth of July week, and enjoy being there to get things done. We hope to complete bedroom/bath #2 (lower right, next to the stair) before 2009 ends. We are intentionally deferring bedroom/bath #3 until 2010 since it is the shower chase that will be how we will manage electrical for Air Conditioning if we pursue that. Both trips this year (after the April trip) will be spent getting bedroom/bath #2 completed, and of course other details upstairs.

Assuming we're done on this trip, we can begin making our upper space rentable to vacationers.

So that's the report this week, updates within the week!


Ricardo y Jeeeem

Kitchen going in...

Hola!



The significant update is the kitchen going in just going into Holy Week in Costa Rica. The cabinets were delivered on Friday April 3rd. This first photo shows all the the items in Room #3 (Selva) since that is our standard staging room in the place. That is, Selva will be the last room completed.

While the windows are not yet in, all is weather secure and windows are next on the list of things happening, so the next Blog post should be showing progress putting those in place.

It is true, these cabinets have legs! They are safely off the floor and away from spills. Below them are these beautiful stainless panels that can be popped off for cleaning.

l

The material, whose pattern you can see here, is a man-made material with a simulated wood finish. This particular cabinet is in the photo not only because it is a good closeup to see the finish, but that door pull in the middle is actually a really cool cabinet design. Inside is an S shaped part that holds a bunch of stuff.

This is the virtually completed cabinet installation. We think you can follow the locations of the refrigerator, stove with microwave above. The sink will be just under that wall cabinet on the left.

Windows should be going in shortly, no later than next week. I'll have another update on the 12th.

Ricardo y Jeeeem

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