We have chosen projects and materials that we can afford (we blew through our budget in 4 months) and completing home projects one at a time. Obviously, more important things came first, (bathrooms, kitchen, flooring) and now we are at a point where we have all the important construction projects done. The only two things we have left are framing and adding French Doors downstairs and building the back deck…and we just built the back deck.

My friends from Jersey flew in for 7 days and build the deck of the back of the house. The footings have been there since day one as have the plans and the ARPE permits, but we just couldn’t prioritize a back deck over the downstairs offices, bathrooms, nursery etc. Well, we haven’t done any major projects in over a year and we have been saving, flew Brian, Jamie and Wil down and they built the deck.

Brian flew down a week early to relax and surf and we used one of those days to drive around the island and find high quality lumber for the deck. We ended up finding everything we needed at a lumber yard in Lajas called Don Benja True Value. We ordered all of our lumber in Spanish (a little nerve racking) but when we paid for the lumber at the register, the manager spoke perfect English.

We are re-doing the back deck with bar tops and trim

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From the back corner towards the kitchen

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Looking through the kitchen window at the girls.

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Looking up at the deck from the backyard

Here is a gallery of the deck going up and the finished product. From start to finish.

Chicken Coop Plans

Finished Chicken Coop

Organic eggs in Puerto Rico are expensive! They run $5.99 a dozen and we are going through 12-20 eggs a day between the kids, adults and baking. That’s just plain expensive!

Building the coop was fun. I picked up all the supplies at Home Depot because they were cheaper than the local hardware store “Do It Best”. When all was said and done the cost of building a chicken coop was around $400. The first round at Home Depot didn’t quite cover what we needed so I made another run to buy more supplies.

The coop has 4 doors (8 hinges) to help clean, get eggs and let the chickens run around in the back yard. The roof is built out of a material that is relatively soft so if mangos drop from our tree, they won’t bang on the hot tin roof like a gunshot in mango season.

We aren’t planning on getting any roosters because they are just too loud to have this close to our house. Some roosters in our neighborhood start crowing at 3:00am, not at sunrise. If we had one of those, he would end up in the freezer inside 7 days.

We bought special feed for the baby chickens, but 1 month later they are practically full grown and are eating regular chicken food which seems to consist of mostly yellow corn.

Chicken Coop Nesting Boxes

Sydney loves the chickens and Monkey and Cheech are learning NOT to kill and eat them.

Summer, Sydney and Eli at the new chicken coop.

If you want some help learning how to build a chicken coop, check out Ricky’s blog Born Activist. He has plans there and will be happy to help you out if you email him any questions!

Ventilation Holes in the Subfloor

1. Sealer on the concrete floor
2. Half inch wood subfloor
3. Subfloor framing has holes drilled into it to let the moisture flow out and not puddle
4. Glued and screwed 3/4 inch plywood and let settle for 6 months before installing tongue and groove
5. Layered felt paper between plywood and the teak tongue and groove flooring
6. Sacrificed a goat and a virgin during the full moon last night while crossing my fingers

One of the really cool things about this project was the fact that most of the supplies I used were leftover supplies from other projects, so it didn’t cost me an arm and a leg to complete a Do It Yourself home project (it seems like everything costs at least $1,000). The only supplies I purchased for this project were the sheets of treated plywood. Everything else was here as a result of overestimating supplies for other home projects.

Hardwood Floor Installation

Once the first line was snapped and I lined up the first row of boards, your path has been set and it’s time to choose the correct pieces of wood, bang the new row into the grooves of the already installed row, pop in some nails and move on to the next row. I used a 18 inch 2×10 piece of scrap wood to bang the boards into place and my trusty air compressor powered finishing nail gun to tack the boards down. The nails I used were 2 inches long and I nailed through the tongue of the board so the nails would be hidden once the next board was installed. The only two areas you can see nails are the starter boards and the end boards. Once I trim out the walls with runner boards I will putty the nail holes and it will all disappear.

Hardwood Floors Installed - Brazilian Teak Looking Real Nice!

I did the entire job by myself and it took me about 20 hours. It probably took me about 10 hours to frame out the subfloor, shim the uneven spots, cut, screw and glue the plywood and then another 10 hours to install the tongue and groove flooring. If you have experience and the right tools, I bet you could get this job done in half that amount of time.

Here are some of the pictures that I took while the project was under way. The subfloor photos are from 6 months ago and the finish work is from this week.



Well, here is why; Once you have children or have house guests, it is nice to go to your sanctuary. Our master bedroom is virtually sound proof to the rest of the house so when I get up at 6:00am it doesn’t disturb Summer and her staying up late doesn’t disturb me. Our closet is big, we each have our own sink and there is a two person tub that Summer chill’s in regularly (and Syd gets her nightly bath in it). The fans are set up perfect, we get the trade wind cross breeze from the front windows through the back and the dimmers on our lighting make sure we can see what we ar doing, or barely see what we are doing depending on what we want.

The only thing that has been a thorn in my side regarding our master bedroom is our shower. I hate getting into our two-headed, pimped out marble shower when the trade winds are blowing and having the mildewy shower curtain blow up against and stick to my body while I am trying to clean up. Seriously?

Brushed Nickel Shower Door Price

I measured out the bottom of the shower and pulled out this expensive piece of brushed nickel knowing that I had to make the cut perfect or it would be a VERY expensive mistake. I made the cut a little big and had to saw through the base track two times but got it perfect. I then inserted the side rails, made marks on the brown tile (with a pencil?) and then removed the side guides. I then pulled out my drill, inserted the drill bit and began drilling into our marble tile walls. The first hole was nerve racking because I did not want to crack the marble. After realizing that buying the $17 bit for the job the best thing I could have done, I drilled the other 5 holes without sweating it. I occasionally sprayed cold water on the bit to cool it down.

I installed the base, sides using anchor and screws provided and then measured and cut the top piece. The top piece doesn’t get fastened to the sides or the wall, it relies completely on the weight of the door to stay in place. It simply slides into the grooves on the side brackets. Once the frame was secure, I added the screws, bolts and wheels to the glass doors which came with pre-drilled holes for the handles/towel racks as well as the rollers that are placed on the upper track.

Shower Door Bolts Are Fun

I have to admit, I got aggravated a few times at this project because it is finish work so it needs to look good. I am not that great with detail work and am a total klutz so there are probably a few more scratches in the brushed nickel than there would be if a professional installed it, but overall it looks great.

Much like many of the other projects around the house, once I have done the job once, I am much more confident in doing it again. This shower door project? So easy, I wish I had more to install.

Master Bath Shower Door (cropped photo looks a little funky)

We have been searching for a cool tile for downstairs for a couple weeks now, but aren’t really having any luck finding anything in our budget. We narrowed our choices down to about 6 different tiles that range from porcelain tile to slate. We are going to keep the tile 12”x12” to help reduce the cracking and tiles coming up in the future due to our floor being uneven. The basement was never designed to be apart of the house so the floor wasn’t poured level. Another thing we are going to have to do is strip the concrete polish/sealer up from the floor. From what I understand, if you pour water on concrete and it beads, the mortar you use for the tiles will never stick to the floor and you will waste a lot of time and money.

Help us choose! Which tile do you like the most?

Building materials and labor are much more expensive than we ever expected and although we are ‘do-it yourselfers’ on many of these projects, some of them become too expensive trying to get it right…over and over and over and over and over again.

Our current BIG project is finishing downstairs. We have been slowly saving our money and finishing one project at a time and are really making progress. We recently paid one of our buddies Jerry to come over and install the last two windows downstairs.

After this, we have to:

Before Pictures of the Basement Openings (sort of)

Pictures of the Project in Progress

After Photos of the Window Installation

Downstairs is soooo close to being done. We need to go to San Juan and buy two windows and french doors. Once we have those, we’ll be able to take down the steel cage we have down there now, empenatar the block and install tile. Then we’re done (except for the tile, baby proofing, the back porch, garage with granny flat, swimming pool, decorative rock walls, waterfalls, yard stairs, trails, landscaping).

Going to San Juan to go shopping used to be an easy task, we just needed to motivate enough to just go. Get there in the morning, spend the day and then drive back. Well, that is no longer an option. Summer and I now have our little Sydney to think about. It would be really tough on her to sit in the car and go from store to store with no exercise, no time to try to practice standing, no high chair for meal time, no nap time etc. You guys get the idea.

When Summer, Sydney and I finally make it to San Juan to buy the remaining items to finish downstairs, we are going to rent a hotel room and do it over 2 days. No more need to rush around and hurry up, Sydney keeps us focused on what is important, enjoying the moment.

Tourist season is coming to a close and the prices at the nice hotels are going to start dropping soon. Once they do, our family is going on its first road trip. Destination, San Juan and hopefully the El San Juan Hotel and Casino!

Now, looking at these pictures, you need to understand that so much more went into this behind the scenes. First off, we have the electrical work. Brian flew in from Florida for a 7 day trip and ended up staying for 21 days! Apparently, the last guy we had down here completely butchered the electrical work and basically spit in the general direction of electrical code and standards. He didn’t ground outlets (we have gone through 3 battery back up units and the computer on Summers’ commercial sewing machine fried). Not to mention the fire hazard of ungrounded electrical run in a wood house. So, the former electrical rats nest known as our home, was rewired downstairs. We also added all the recessed lighting (good luck finding commercial grade recessed cans on the west side of the island), ran Internet up to the kitchen, set up the wiring in the wall for a TV downstairs and ran electric out of the front of the house on the left and right side for future landscape lighting and to have outdoor outlets. Brian did a ton of work that was above and beyond his responsibilities. He also fixed some plumbing issues around the dishwasher and cleaned out the sewer pipes before we close everything up. Man, I get tired just thinking about all the work he did.

Then came the next bit of work. Cleaning out all of the rooms and getting ready for the crew to come in and do the ceilings. We wanted everything out of the way so nothing was in the way and so nothing got broken. Cleaning downstairs was a much bigger project that we thought and we left more behind and open to damage than we wanted to when we left, but with Sydney and packing for two months in California we couldn’t get it all done.

The work took about 5 weeks to complete. Thank goodness we weren’t here for all that banging. At this point, we are sick of hearing the banging of construction and people coming over asking for money, running over our baby plants, driving on our lawn (around the rocks we have set up to stop people from doing that) or honking the horn in the driveway just as we get the baby to go to sleep.

So, without any further delay, here are the pictures of the ceilings, soffits, fans and recessed lighting downstairs.

Here are the big things left on my ‘to do list’:

1. Tile Downstairs
2. Install leftover hardwood floors in the gym/guest bedroom
3. Find a wood worker to build and install big ‘shutter style’ windows like we have upstairs
4. Find and install french doors (get rid of iron bars downstairs)
5. Recycle the iron bars by welding them into our front gate
6. Back deck

We really are getting close though. We have been working much more outside on the landscaping and paint and empenatar work, but finally moved the next project to inside.

We are going to close up the ceiling in the basement with sophets and drywall and make it look real real nice. We are currently working on all the wiring downstairs, the future wiring for outdoor landscape lighting, power for our water purifier, our back porch lighting and a power source for an eventual pool area.

Once all the wiring is done, we are going to insulate the ceiling and close up the stairwell so we can have a fully climate controlled level of the house. This summer really taught us that it pays to have AC with a newborn. Sydney didn’t like taking naps very much all swaddled up when it’s 100 degrees.

Once I get some pictures I will upload them so you all can see the progress. I’ll also update you to where we bought the 3 wire and recessed cans which were very difficult to track down. Also, we had to reground all of the wiring downstairs that was in the block wall because the original electrician didn’t ground anything in the concrete. I don’t know if that is local standard or we had a lazy electrician with too man Medallas in him, but we blew out a bunch of battery back up units and Summers expensive sewing machine.