With all of the work we have been doing on the house, we haven’t really been focusing on the Master Bedroom. It has been on my mind, but there is a chronological process to all of the work we are doing here and the way it works out…we need to finish “A”, “B” and “C” before we can get started on “D”. For example, I am not going to pull Gino off of the kitchen tile work to start on the vanities in the master bath because we are waiting on the kitchen tile work completion to finish installing the cabinets…and we are waiting for the kitchen cabinet installation to order the counter tops (so we can have an exact measurement) and the counter tops take 6 weeks to arrive. HOWEVER, we are waiting for the vanities to be built so we can measure the amount of tile we need so we can start to finish the master bedrooms jacuzzi and vanity corner…which is the first thing you see as you enter the room. See what I am saying…chronological process.
Another example of this is the process of laying the marble walls in the Master Bath. The tile we are using on the floor is a pre-sealed and grouted travertine. It is somewhere between a 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick. It will (is) cover the entire floor and will be the 6” border around the bottom of the shower and wet room. From there, we will stack the marble on top of it and carry it up the wall to six feet. Here is the process; the marble is 3/4″ to 1″ thick…so we need to build the bottom tiles out a half an inch or so so the staggered marble tiles are flush with the border tile. Because the marble is so heavy, we need to give the travertine a day or two to dry to ensure it is structurally sound….but we came up 10 tiles short for the installation so that has come to a grinding halt. We are pretty much dead in the water in the master bath until those tiles come in…which I had to special order from San Juan.
Today, I worked with Jerry cleaning up all of the junk in the backyard to get it ready for the dump truck. Once we were done moving all of the wood and trash around…I went and picked up my Mark Richards surfboard from one of the local ding repair guys and went for a surf in little waist high, but clean surf. When I got back to the house, Jerry and the guys had already spread all of the topsoil around the front yard, dumped all of the trash in the truck and were pretty much waiting on me. I was only gone for two hours!
The guy that sold us the topsoil used a Bobcat to push all of the dirt around and pick up our trash. He said if we wanted to use it for anything, he would leave it with us for the rest of the day. Of course we could use it! So, for the next three hours I powered around the yard in a Bobcat clearing weeds, moving dirt and getting ready for our big planting day tomorrow. I think we need a few Bobcats for miscellaneous stuff around the yard…maybe 3 or 4.
We started working on the kitchen floor yesterday. We are butt jointing all of the tiles (no gap) which makes it a more difficult task as opposed to having a gap between each seem that would allow you to fudge the measurements a bit.
After measuring the entire room, determining the center point and determining which part of the room is going to be the focal point, we laid out the tiles so that all of the cuts would be against the wall on the right and or under the cabinets once they are completely installed. The entrance has full tiles as will the main work area of the kitchen. The first few rows of marble that were installed need to sit for 48 hours to completely cure before they start making cuts and laying the sides. They’ll need to walk on them which means they need to be completely set and dry.
The factory cuts of the marble are not perfect, some of them are a little bit thicker at one end vs the other and some of the edges have tiny areas that look beveled. I don’t know if that is how all marble is, or if that is a bi-product of buying marble in Puerto Rico. There are going to be some small gaps that we’ll have to fill in with a grout at the end of the day. Gino suggested we grind up broken pieces of the marble to create a grout that matches color perfectly. We’ll see…do any of you have experience with a decision like this?
Acting the recommendation of the Granite guy in Mayaguez, I am going to buy 511 Impregnator to seal the white marble floors in the kitchen. The only stuff I found around here is way too expensive…so we are going to order it online.
511 Impregnator Sealer is applied to polished marble floors as a water, stain and slip protector (it also says it can be used on slate, quarzile, travertine, polished granite, porcelain tile, quarry tile, terrazzo, concrete, brick, stucco, agglomoerate and sanded grout). It is designed to protect medium to dense porous surfaces. It creates an invisible barrier that resists moisture and stains but still allows moisture to escape. Each gallon covers 1,000-4,000 square feet.
Gino started laying the marble in the kitchen yesterday. He checked the level of the floor and thought it looked good so he started setting our 24 inch tiles. He set 3 of them, and on his fourth he had a hard time getting the joints to line up (Butt Joint) and he decided to tear up the three tiles he already set (it took him 2 hours) and to put down a floor leveler to make his job easier down the line.
I went to the Home Depot and bought UltraPlan, another Mapei product. UltraPlan is a high performance, quick setting, self-leveling underlayment for tile floors. The purpose of it is to level the floors to make butt jointing tile much easier and less time consuming. If the floor isn’t even after we lay the tile, marble tile can break. We used up 4 bags ($40 a bag) to level the floor in the kitchen.
This morning, we went back to home depot, bought a new 1/2 inch drill to replace the one that burnt out yesterday (i also bough it yesterday..so I exchanged the busted one for a new one), picked up 14 bags of Marmolina to plaster the walls (we should finish up this afternoon) and a new trow to apply the UltraPlex 2 marble grout / thinset.
The twins are supposed to show back up today at 2:30 to finish up with the wall plastering downstairs…it took about a week and a half. They said 4 days. I am really glad Summer and I discussed this one ahead of time and decided to pay them for the entire job (payment at the completion of the job) as opposed to the per day charge they suggested.
I put together a little movie of the work going on downstairs. The movie really makes it seem like this stuff is getting done in a day or so…but in actuality all of these tasks take a while. If your on schedule with labor, finding the materials throws you off. If you are on schedule with material, the guys that are supposed to be doing the work don’t show up. In order to stay on schedule, the stars need to be aligned…big time.
Another example of thinks taking longer than expected is the pain/sealer we are going to put over the plaster downstairs. The sealer is called “WaterTite.” From the research I have done, it is a great product that can actually seal out water that has a PSI of 32! It costs $38 bucks a gallon, and there is only one store on the West side of the island where I could find it. I went there yesterday (so we could start painting the plaster), purchased the last 16 gallons they had and brought it home. Jerry was here, taping up the floors with plastic and we were planning on starting the job last night. After I read the fine print on the container, I found out that you need to wait 30 days before applying WaterTite to new masonry. Well, I’ll calendar that one for November 10th.
I am going to drive to San Juan today to try to track down some epoxy mortar so we can start laying the marble in the kitchen and bathroom. This is really slowing us down (at least two weeks now) otherwise I would not be driving out there. San Juan is a pretty big city and very confusing to get around in.
The place that carries the product we need is right across from the Mercedes Benz dealership by the airport. Easy enough right? All I have to do is find the Mercedes Benz dealership in San Juan and I am there! Wrong Answer! The Mercedes Benz dealership in San Juan doesn’t have a website, I can’t find them listed anywhere and because Dal Tile isn’t listed online or in the phone book either, I will be flying blind…which is not easy when your native language is English…and everyone you will ask for direction speaks Spanish.
Oh well, hopefully I’ll get it done and it will just be a day of driving. hmmmm…will the transmission get me there and back? Better to test it out now than when we are on a tight schedule on the way to the airport or something.
WAIT! Marble and Mortar Update:
I am pulling an audible! I found the telephone number for Dal Tile in San Juan and that don’t have any Jamo Products in stock. They told me that the mortar they recommend for Marble Tile is called UltraFlex 1. The only warning it gives, is not to use it on Green Marble or Green Granite. This could mean that we are getting this show back on the road today (since I will only have to drive to Mayaguez Home Depot), but we’ll see. I am not holding my breath. Here is some more information I found online about UltraFlex 1 Mortar
It seems that I am thinking about something that has to do with the house 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Walking through the kitchen to the fridge or down the hallway to the bathroom something always pops into my head about how I am going to complete this project and in what fashion.
Are the three-way light switches layed out in a user friendly way (light switches at the top and bottom of the steps)?
What kind of wood should we use to build the shelves in the hallway closet?
If it takes 6 weeks to get the counter tops cut, delivered, installed, polished and sealed and we can’t start that until the kitchen floors are installed so we can permanently attach the lower cabinets….how many weeks will it be until the kitchen is 100% complete? The amount of time it will take to finish the kitchen will dictate the time line for everything else (master bath, steps, hardwood floors)…hmmm, so does that put us on schedule with the rest of the house projects?
Will I rent a car to get to San Juan on Monday to find the epoxy grout for the marble tiles?
What can we realistically spend on landscaping to achieve the tropical landscaped yard we want?
Will ARPE grant us our Permiso de Uso by January?
So, while building our dream house in Puerto Rico is an amazing experience, I am keeping my eyes on the prize; A completed house/home office where Summer and I can kick it, work and plan our next adventure.
I decided that I should put a list together of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly emotions/experiences that is involved in Puerto Rico construction life. If you have had a similar experience with construction (anywhere) or with Puerto Rico in general, post it below I’d love to hear about them.
The Good
Seeing your construction project evolve into a home
Knowing your property and house inside and out
Choosing all of your finish items (kitchen, bath etc)
Laying in your hammock on your own front porch with a cup of coffee and a book
Meeting new people that help work on the house
Learning how to navigate around the island (looking for materials)
Seeing your home as an investment and the value you are adding to it with all your work
Daydreaming about your home and your life in it 10 years from now
The intellectual stimulation that comes with managing a project that is completely alien to all of your life’s experiences
Cutting out of the house and surfing while the guys keep working
Getting Electricity/Water/DSL
The Bad
Going over budget
Doing the dishes in the bath tub (and clogging the drain)
Lack of instant gratification
Being thousands of miles from Summer
No alone time
Difficult to work (on my business) because of constant interruptions
Learning the right way to do something after you have already done it
Waiting on deliveries
Driving every day to the same store more than once to buy more items because you didn’t plan well enough
Dealing with the dogs and strangers on our property (barking, growling, biting and locking them up
Having to bring a flashlight into the closet to find your clothes (and having to walk through plastic to get in there)
Knowing that if you cut out for a surf while the guys are working, productivity with drop 40%
Daily clean up
Trying to get electricity
The Ugly
Mud (in the yard, in the house, on your clothes, your shoes, on the dogs)
Bad Transmissions
Fried food and lack of healthy options
All the liter bugs in Puerto Rico
All the stray dogs/cats
The giant 5 and 6 story condos going up all over Rincon
Finding a knowledgeable associate to help at Home Depot
Punctuality
Urchins
Surf School
The pile of scrap, trash and trash in the back yard
I may be the only one that didn’t know this when Summer and I bought the marble for our master bathroom and kitchen, but you can’t just set (install) marble tile/slab with regular old grout. Certain colors of marble (Green and Black) will actually have a chemical reaction to regular old mortar and could cause discoloration and cracking. Also, marble is much heavier than tiles and some sort of adhesive should be used when stacking them up your wall (like in our bathroom). Because of all these reasons (and probably more that I don’t know about), it is recommended that you use Epoxy Mortar to install marble tiles.
Finding Epoxy Mortar to install marble tiles in Puerto Rico has been nearly impossible. I have called around and driven around to every store that sells marble for the past two weeks and either no one has any epoxy mortar in stock or they tell me that no one uses that in Puerto Rico, I’d be fine with normal mortar. Still looking.
I have even found it difficult to find suppliers of epoxy grout on the Internet. Hopefully, my phone calls to some suppliers around the mainland will be successful and we’ll be able to start our master bath and kitchen ASAP. If and when I find a supplier, I will post their name and number here for you…just in case you have a Puerto Rico construction project that involves marble.
It is really easy to walk through a house when it is done and take it all for granted. When Summer and I walked through this house (mid-construction) over a year ago, we sounded something like this; “We’ll put the guest bathroom there, kitchen in this room, we’ll open up the wall a bit, stairs over there, lights up there….”
We were absolutely stoked on the house…and the house was at a perfect stage in construction…we get to do all of the finish work and really customize it to be exactly what we want. It was a great thing for both of us..I wanted to build from the ground up (I don’t like all the small room concrete construction you find all over the place down here) but Summer didn’t want to build from the ground up…she said it was going to be way more work than I though and it was our first house…we should wait to build. Summer couldn’t have been more right (there, I said it) about not building from the ground up. It would have been very very difficult…especially without the proper budget. I couldn’t imagine starting from scratch on the first go…we are decisioned out at this point (and we took over over half way through the phase of construction)…sort of punch drunk…and this is the stage of the game where you make the wrong move if you’re not careful.
One of the many decisions we have to make this month is the layout of the stairs that will lead us from the great room upstairs to the great room downstairs (same size rooms up/down). I remember us saying…”Ok, stairs go there” but never even contemplated what stairs; spiral, straight down, turn at a platform, iron stairs, wood stairs (what type of wood: ipe, swiss pear, burmese teak, asian ebony, curly tasmanian euclalyptus, asian hardwood, Koa, treated lumber) concrete stairs…..ahhhhhhhhhhh! Funny…so many decisions.
Here are a few examples of stairs that I liked. Some of them I don’t like as a whole, but there may be one detail that I really like (toe kicks, tread, round railings, square railings, rod iron, glass, mesh)…do you have any suggestions or input for us?
Stairs Idea A Stairs Idea B Stairs Idea C Stairs Idea D Stairs Idea E Stairs Idea F Stairs Idea G
Keep in mind with all of these stair pictures and ideas, we still need to find the materials in Puerto Rico and find a contractor with the skills needed to construct them.
