California 2 Puerto Rico

It seems so long ago that we were trying to get a mortgage for this house that it is hard to believe it has almost been a year since we were approved. It really was a very difficult task getting our mortgage from a Puerto Rico bank. You see, because the house was under construction, no bank would give us a traditional mortgage. They all wanted to give us a Construction Loan (if at all) which would have racked up a 17% interest rate along with hazard insurance, progress reports to the bank and check lists which we would be required to complete on the monthly basis. It was serious stuff, and as this is our first construction venture, we weren’t ready for that type of commitment.

After much research, dozens of phone calls and emails, we got in touch with a Puerto Rico mortgage company which would grant us our loan (traditional, 30 year fixed rate at 6%) but they had a few stipulations to ensure we finished our house and didn’t take the money to the Bacardi factory in San Juan and drown out the noise of our newly purchased generator with rum. They required us to give them about 20% of the homes value in an interest baring CD account with them that they would hold for two years (we make the interest, but our money is tied up) and another 12% as collateral that we would finish the construction to their specifications. It was a bit of a shady situation, but after 6 months of trying for a mortgage (with impeccable credit and a large amount of money saved) we decided if we wanted to buy the Sector Vargas property we were going to have to trust the Puerto Rico mortgage company that would sell our mortgage to Banco Popular as soon as we closed the deal and they made their commisions.

Well, after giving the bank most of our cash/savings, we had to spend our present income on completing the house. This gave us a monthly budget (which we somehow managed to exceed on the regular basis) to complete our bathrooms, kitchen, flooring, electrical, plumbing, excavation etc. Well, come January, we had to hold off on dumping money into the house so we could pay taxes (we are both business owners so the tax man is always a bit of a mystery to us until our fiscal year is done).

Because we exceeded our monthly budget, I spent a good portion of my tax savings on the house, and realized that in order for me to make my taxes on time without penalty, the bank was going to have to issue us our Certificate of Occupancy which would lead to a refund of our initial deposit (about 12%). Summer knew we were going to make it just fine, but we hadn’t finished all of the required items on Banco Populars Popular Mortgage to-do list so I started going into the bank about a month ago telling them that the economy isn’t what it was and that I shouldn’t be required to complete all of the things they want me to do to the house. I talked them into sending an inspector out to the house, and with some well placed barking dogs, the inspector saw everything he needed to see to approve our Certificate of Occupancy!

Banco Popular / Popular Mortgage issued me a refund check on Friday, ten days after approving our Certificate of Occupancy.

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Things have slowed down in regards to work being done on the house, but we are ramping back up to going full steam ahead!

For the first 3 months of construction, we were spending around $1000 per day, so you can image how financially exhausting that can be. And, there is the unknown cost of the tax man that has been looming over us as well (That is one thing I hate about owning a business…you never really know how much you’re going to be indebt to the government at the end of the year). Stefan has his taxes all hammered out now, and I’m in CA working with my accountant to get the last few details of my taxes finalized, so it’s time to get back to work on the house (aka: resume spending $$$)!

I was feeling like nothing was getting done for the past couple of months, so I have set up a daily “To Do” list that has really helped Stefan and I to motivate. With such a big project as building a house, I would often find myself wandering around in circles trying to figure out what to do and then just giving up because I couldn’t figure out where I should start. So, I give Stefan and myself small tasks to do each day, and it has helped resume progress on the house. For example, some of the little things we have done: Hung artwork in the master bedroom, built and installed surfboard racks, installed light fixtures, hung mirror in downstair bathroom, etc.

I’m totally a list person :).

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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!

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Summer and I finally found a great door place in Puerto Rico. They are located on the No. 2 highway just north of Isabella (if you are driving towards San Juan). They had a very large supply of nice wood doors. All of these mahogany doors look like they are hand made. They range in price from $100 to $500 per door. They also sell brass hardware and other door fixtures and accessories. What they don’t do, is sell the doors in pre-hung frames.



Two of these doors upstairs, guest and master bedroom

We are going to cut out the top square of wood and add glass

The office doors do not include the louvered side windows. We did however buy four of those for under our back porch. We’ll have two 19′ louvered side windows on both sides of our 96” tall, 72″ wide mahogany French doors (not pictured here).

Placement of Louvered windows and the new giant French Doors:







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We have so many projects going on in this house, that it seems like nothing ever gets done. It’s way too easy to get side tracked, which is proving to be very counter-productive. Stefan and I talked about this and we have decided to focus on one room at a time, in order to stay on track. So, with this in mind, these are the things that we will be working on in order to finish the master bedroom and bath:

Master Bedroom:

- Pick out and install ceiling fan.
- Pick out and install lighting.
- Find/buy/install french doors for the closet. (Done!)
- Install closet light fixture. Done!
- Lay hardwood flooring above closet (storage area).
- Purchase mahogany and finish window trim.
- Purchase bedroom furniture (Done!)

Master Bathroom (Shower/Wetroom):

- Find/install final trim.
- Purchase small storage cabinet. Done!
- Purchase/install light fixture.
- Purchase/install towel bar or hooks.
- Paint.
- Cut/install corner shelves for shower.
- Screw on the drain cover.

Master Bathroom (Jacuzzi Tub):

- Finish building vanities.
- Purchase/install sinks.
- Purchase/install mirrors.
- Purchase/install light fixtures.
- Install marble around tub and top of vanities.
- Install/hook up jacuzzi tub.
- Trim out the windows.

So. There you have it. This is our “To Do” list, so let’s see how long it takes to get the master bedroom/bathroom finished!

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I am such a novice in this construction thing. I was a typical office worker (that surfed and came from a fairly active background) that was making some money and decided to give up the life in the fast lane for a couple acres in Puerto Rico and a fun little project (sarcasm). Finish a six bedroom, two bath house in Rincon Puerto Rico. Haha! Give up the fast lane? I have been busier now than I have ever been in my life and I have spent more Cash Money in the past eight months than I ever did in Las Vegas, San Francisco, Manhattan or La Jolla gourmet restaurants and clubs combined.

I have learned so much (including how to spend money), but today young grasshopper, I give you advice from an experienced (1 project) Do-It-Yourselfer. This advice will help you keep it together on a big project like ours. Every time we do a clean up, I feel a million times better about our progress around the house. So, here is my advice to you: Keep your construction site clean and organized

Today, I had a little Tom Cat come and scrape all the extra concrete, scrap wood and trash out of our backyard. We worked filling two large dump trucks (about 8 meters each) for about four hours and are now pretty much ready to plant some grass seed in the backyard.

We are also expecting our plants from Montoso Gardens tomorrow…so before they get here with the tropical plant and fruit delivery, I am having 8 meters of Top Soil dumbed down by the mango tree so we can make a little shaded nursery area for some of the younger plants and have the ability to back fill the big plant holes with rich top soil.

Starting the clean up of our back yard

Our Rincon backyard looking pretty good.

It feels great to see our back yard clean like this. I wish I kept it clean and organized from the beginning, it would have saved me so many headaches.

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Stefan and I have been trying to take a break from working on the house, while Conner and Dianne are in town visiting, but I wanted to finished the closet really bad. So, Conner and Dianne decided to help us out and finish up the last of the master closet.

They helped build the last shelf and hang the last dowel. Our closet is finally complete and I love it!

Conner and Dianne helping build our closet.

Our completed closet!

Left side of the closet.

Right side of the closet.

Fill ‘er up! Can you guess which side is Summer’s?!

We love organization!

To make this closet, we used the following materials:

~ 3/4″ cedar plywood (4 or 5 4′x8′ sheets)
~ 6 wood dowels
~ 6 sets of dowel flanges
~ Belt hooks
~ Wood glue

Tools used:

~ Circular saw
~ Nail gun and nails
~ Electric sander
~ Level
~ Squaring ruler
~ Tape Measure/ruler

The total cost to build this closet was around $300 (since we already owned all the tools) and it took us about 6 - 8 hours of labor. Although, we can probably do it a lot quicker now that we have the kinks worked out :).

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Summer and I are still working hard on the house everyday. It is funny, we moved down to Puerto Rico for a more relaxing tropical lifestyle and I am busier than I have ever been in my entire life. Ha, I guess that is just how it goes when you build a house.

Now that we have the beautiful hardwood floors in, it is really time to do something about the driveway. At the moment, it is just scraped dirt with some hard rock, but when it rains, it pretty much turns into a slip and slide. If you are parked down by the house and a good rain comes through, you aren’t leaving unless you have 4 wheel drive. For Example:

The mud and dirt from the driveway get tracked into the house by the dogs, us and our friends that come over. I mop in the morning and by the time Summer wakes up she doesn’t even notice that I cleaned the floor.

Now, we have plenty of options as far as driveway surfaces go, but I think our bank account is going to dictate what we are going to be able to do to resolve the problem quickly. Concrete is just too expensive right now, and we will be able to cover up a gravel driveway down the line with concrete when we can afford to pull the trigger on such an expensive project (maybe when we get the pool and cabana in the back yard :-).

Here is the basic layout for the driveway. Nothing fancy at all.

Does anyone have any experience with gravel driveways out there? The only thing I remember about them as a kid is they suck to walk on with bare feet. I am looking for a little deeper intellectual insight than that though. How often will we need to pour in new gravel? Do we need to build a form for the driveway or do we just dump the rocks and push them around? Will they drain well or will they all erode down the hill? Should we have a big roller come in and compress them down?

Do you guys have any insight on gravel driveways in Puerto Rico or elsewhere?

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Well, we have really moved far enough along on this project that we can really make this place look like a house with a little bit of work. But, what should we do? This isn’t a well thought out post, but as I procrastinate here in front of my computer, I will make a list:

• Clean up scrap wood
• Remove scrap concrete around new slab
• Put up temporary Railings on the back deck
• Build the master closet
• Build a work bench in the shed and shelves to store lots of tools
• Put all the tools from downstairs into the shed
• Do something about our mud pit of a driveway (perhaps rocks until we can drop a couple thousand on cement or block
• Get bedroom furniture for the master
• Remove all construction supplies/tools from front porch and scrub it down
• Buy porch furniture for front porch
• Trim floorboards
• Tile downstairs bath
• Hang doors
• Get Satellite Cable?

Aside from the obvious clean up stuff, do you know any small stuff that will make our house look homey? Summer and I don’t have any x-mas decorations up…maybe that would help (but it gives me one more thing to clean up…ba-humbug). What do you think?

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As you all know, Summer and I are designing a walk-in closet that will be made out of cedar. Having a closet will really give us the chance to free up a lot of space around the house, organize our clothes and have a place to put our shoes and belts.

Normally, finding specialty items, like 3/4 inch cedar plywood, in and around Rincon is not the easiest thing to do. Normally, it goes something like this.
ME:(at Home Depot): “Hi, I am looking for a shower drain. Can you please show me where they are?”
Home Depot Guy: “Yeah, we normally stock those, but we don’t have any. Do you want to use this plastic PVC drain designed to drain concrete patios for your shower drain?”
ME: “No thank you, do you know when you are going to get them back in stock?
Home Depot Guy: “No, we don’t know when we are going to get items, they just arrive. Can I help you with something else?”

Here is some of the wood we found in Aguada. If you need directions on how to get there…it is really easy and very reasonably priced.

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