Moving on Up!

Barely 3 weeks since the building permit!

As far as we can tell it is the whole north half of the house (living, dining, kitchen and laundry) - the part that supports the second floor!

Oh it makes me want to visit RIGHT NOW!!

Home Outfitters

With construction underway, and little required of us in terms of time or effort to keep it moving forward, our minds have turned to outfitting the house.

Interior design - appropriate for a Costa Rica setting!

We have arranged with Sheila to do the work, but we need to figure out what we want.  That has meant looking at catalogues and websites, window shopping with the camera.  We need to create a portfolio to show what we want.

Furniture is hard because there are very few places locally that you can get suitable pieces - so really seeing if it is what you like - kicking the tires so to speak - is impossible.

For those of you who know my partner Lisle, you also know that shopping without buying is practically an impossibility!  We have the pots and pans and a set of knives for Costa Rica in boxes in the dining room.  I believe we bought dishes on The Shopping Channel this morning (they are so colourful and tropical!!).  There are pages from the Crate and Barrel catalogue scattered about the office.  I keep reminding him that Sheila will do all that, but I fear we are going to need a warehouse and a freighter before we are done!

Also found this neat add-on that searches for interesting articles on the web related to what I am writing about - check them out

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Design - Build

So, I thought I would share the 'final' design - there has been some tweaking of windows and doors and room sizes - nothing dramatic, but all necessary

Seeing the progress is very exciting.  So the question is "what is going to happen and when with it be done"?

Robert provided the following 'high level' schedule this week.

First floor walls panels in place - end of August
Pour ground floor - September/October
Structure for second floor - November/December
Second floor walls - January
Then the roof and interior

Still on track for completion May 2011!

Not Just Our Home

Costa Rica is not just a great place to live if you are a person, it is actually one of the most biololgically diverse places on earth.


I was reminded of this when Karen sent a photo - Her words - I thought I had seen every bug, and then there is this - crawling away along a leaf after being swept from the Terrace.

There certainly are bugs - the reason my mother says she won't visit me there - a few we have photographed.

But there are also monkeys

And Sloths

And other furry creatures

And Birds

And Bats

Frogs, lizards and crocodiles

And things that swim

Not Rain nor ... well I doubt there will be sleet or snow!

It appears there is nothing that can stop them now - - work!  work! work!

Apparently it is raining as if it were October - and July is supposed to be dry.  We hear that since May there has been more rain than in all of 2009!

Despite that, they have made amazing progress in 6 days!

Macrame for Iron Men!

Once they have finished the digging - the filling in the holes and trenches starts.

Miles of rebar, woven into 'towers' and 'mattresses'

Then all that iron goes into the holes and troughs

And then you fill it all up with cement!