California 2 Puerto Rico

It’s time to get the sinks for the master bathroom, since we are getting close to finishing up the master bedroom and bathroom. We decided that we want vessel sinks, like we put in the guest bathroom, BUT we want the master bath sinks to be porcelain as opposed to glass. The glass vessel sink looks pretty in our guest bathroom, but it’s virtually impossible to keep clean. For whatever reason, the hard water spots and sticks to the glass like crazy.

Faucet.com is having a sale, so I figure it’s a good time to purchase the sinks. Here are the styles that I have it narrowed down to:

Popularity: 66% [?]

I have been really busy over the past week or so. Without evening mentioning work (the kind that helps pay for all this), I have been digging holes, chipping away rock, hacking down jungle, planting and watering like a mad man. I mentioned this in another post, but landscaping is something I can just zone out to and not worry about it being ‘up to code’ as far as construction goes. Dig it, plant it, water it, watch it grow.

Since there hasn’t been any surf this month, I have pretty much been working 7 days a week (why not?) on the property and this week I decided I needed a break. So I took a vacation and relaxed in the hammock for a few minutes. Laying there, i watched a little storm come in offering my new plants a much needed break from the sun and a bit of moisture.

Rincon Puerto Rico Vacation - For 3 Minutes

Instead of dozing off (like I would have done if we were simply renting a house in Puerto Rico), I fast forwarded myself 3 months to the start of the rainy season. I could only think of one thing; “I need to install our rain gutters.” My little Puerto Rico vacation was all over.

For those of you that don’t know, Puerto Rico doesn’t have a seasonal climate change similar to the North East (where I grew up). Puerto Rico pretty much has three seasons as far as i am concerned.

1. Dry Season (November - May)
2. Wet Season (June - November)
3. Hurricane Season (June 1st - November 30th)

When it rains, it really comes down. My little Puerto Rico vacation was over because i was starting to day dream about the damage all of the moisture could do to our offices if I didn’t do something about the water run off from our roof. So, I went to Hojalateria Hipolito Rosa, INC (a metal shop/factory) in Aguada and made a custom rain gutter order.

I ordered about 272 feet of 6” deep X 6″ wide corrugated steel rain gutters. They slide under neath the existing corrugated steel roof and will have to be fastened to the house from the top down…which is going to give me more work to do (sealing up all of the screws to ensure those holes won’t leak water into the soffits). Looks like it’s back to construction work! How do i do this again?

This is definitely a DIY (Do it yourselfer) special!

Popularity: 62% [?]

It’s weird for me to go from working out in a gym 4 times a week, to not really knowing what to do with myself, since we moved to Puerto Rico. I guess it’s just transitioning from Southern California to Puerto Rico, but I certainly got a workout today, while working in the backyard. Killing two birds with one stone!

Here is what went down…

First, grab a cinderblock from the cinderblock pile:

Run the cinderblock 100 yards to the other side of the house (and place in line):

Repeat 15 times.

Run down to the dirt pile and shovel dirt into the wheelbarrow:

Run the wheelbarrow up the hill:

Shovel dirt into cinderblock “planter”:

Repeat steps 3 - 5 ten times.

Everything was fairly easy, except for running the wheelbarrow up the hill. That was HARD. I had to get a running start at the bottom, which would get me half way up. Then I would have to set down the wheelbarrow, (so it wouldn’t slide back down) and reposition my feet. Then I would literally have to inch up the rest of the way. I’m sure my neighbors probably were watching me and laughing their butts off.

Nonetheless, we got a nice temporary planter around the backside of the house so we can start growing out our jungle

After planting some ginger, birds of paradise, etc.

Popularity: 65% [?]

Trying to make decisions when building a house, is very progressive. Take for example, the closet doors that we just installed in the master bedroom. At first, Stefan figured that we were just going to install those cheap mirrored sliding doors. That was not at all what I envisioned, so we decided to go with french doors, so we could completely open up the closet and walk in. With that on our minds, Stefan was asking a friend that has door/building experience where we could find french doors for our closet and he advised that we should definately get louvered doors for the closet, in order to encourage airflow and avoid moisture/mildew issues in the closet (something that is very important when living in a humid tropical climate).

Great. So not only do we need to figure out where to get french doors for the closet, now they have to be louvered….

So Stefan and I wandered aimlessly trying to find closet doors for quite a few weeks. Finally, we decided that we had enough and that we would just go to Home Depot and get whatever the hell they had in stock, so we could move on. After pulling out, inspecting and discussing every door we could find in Home Depot, I happened upon an endcap display that had these super cheesy fake wood (plastic) bi-fold louvered doors. I called Stefan over and told him that these would be PERFECT if they were made out of wood. Instead of having big french door opening into the master bedroom (which, in hindsight, would have been space consuming and annoying), the bi-fold doors, simply fold neatly to the side, saving space. Long story short…We found louvered bi-fold doors for the closet that were made out of mahogany!

Mahogany louvered closet doors:

We stained the doors and had Jerry help us install them, since we didn’t really know what we were doing.

How many Puerto Ricans does it take to install closet doors?

Just one! Thanks Jerry!

Something as simple as closet doors, makes a huge difference in the master bedroom.

Going…

Going…

Gone!

Yay for progress!

Popularity: 72% [?]