California 2 Puerto Rico

It seems when people come to town we make the same rounds to the same places; all of which are relaxing to Summer and I but brand new exciting experiences for our guests. It kinda makes it more fun, watching the reactions of our friends as we do the same ole same ole and they are in awe of the beauty, flavor or even ridiculousness of a situation.

We took Conner and Dianne to the waterfalls outside of Rincon in San Sebastian on their last full day here. The drive out there (only about 30 minutes from Rincon) was quite uneventful and we found it without a hitch. It will be much easier to find for tourists now that there is a new landmark to look for; there is a brand new Walgreen’s at the light where you need to turn left to get to the waterfalls in San Sebastian.

As usual, the trail down the hill was treacherous and slippery. It is only about a quarter mile to the river from the parking spot on the side of the road but the hike usually takes about 20 minutes due to all of the negotiating through mud and slippery exposed roots. I like to wear shoes for this part of the trip because it gives me better footing, but whatever you wear will get muddy and will need a good cleaning when you get home.

I was the only one wearing sneakers so I was able to maneuver quickly and basically played the photographer the entire time. I was setting up to take a picture of Summer and Dianne climbing over this one tree when Dianne slipped and would have fallen down if Summer hadn’t caught her. I just so happened to take the picture mid fall. ASR, here I come.

Action! Good catch Summer




Once we got down to the waterfall, we took the opportunity to shoot some prom photos. The rain forest and the beautiful waterfall make for great photos our families can put on the mantles above their fireplaces. The shots we took turned out pretty good.

Conner and Dianne Irwin in Puerto Rico at the Waterfall

Summer and I posing for our aquatic prom picture




As soon as we finished up with the prom pictures, conner and I hopped in the chilly water and went right to the waterfall to start our climb up. Say what you want, I probably deserve the ridicule, but I don’t like jumping off of this thing from the high jumps. You either need to clear about 15ft out from the rocks or you have to stand directly underneath one of the streams pouring over the side in order to get a safe jump. I have enough fun surfing…but regardless, I had to show Conner the jump spots in case he wanted to go.

Showing Conner where to jump

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I have been working or overseeing work on the house now for over 8 months and including all the financial shenanigans I needed to pull off to negotiate the approval of our loan I have had this house in my head non-stop for over a year and a half. In the past month, I have felt a bit consumed with it so when our great friends Conner and Dianne decided to come down for a quick visit, Summer and I decided to not do any construction work or have anyone else come work on the house for the length of their stay.

(Yes, we did finish building the closet, but all the measuring and cutting were already done and it was cool to have Conner and Dianne help us glue and finish nail it together…Nail Guns are cool…we owe the experience of using one to visiting friends)

At the end of their trip, Summer and I drove them back to San Juan so we could go to the Marshals Mega store and hopefully score some furniture, rugs, kitchen stuff cheap. We decided to go up a couple of hours early so we could visit Old San Juan and eat at one of our favorite restaurants FireFly DragonFly.

We scored a parking spot right before the streets turned into little one way alleys allowing for easy parking of the truck. Conner and Dianne won’t know the difficulty of finding a parking spot in Old San Juan on this trip.

We walked around, checked out the architecture and ate some food. We may have had a rum drink or two as well.

Check out some pictures of the architecture of Old San Juan Puerto Rico:

Can anyone tell me what the significance of any of these buildings are? I know that the buildings with the big front lawns (i am jealous) are government buildings of some sort…




I know this picture of the Airport in San Juan Puerto Rico is completely random, since I am showing pictures of Old San Juan, but I couldn’t help but think that this new terminal looks a lot like a space ship. I have a completely new fascination with construction projects now that I am building our house. I’d say it compliments my life long fascination with architecture quite well.

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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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Jamie and Brian came down to Puerto Rico with one goal. Install the tongue and groove teak hardwood floors in our house. We did some surfing and a whole lot of work. Not only did they do a kick ass job installing the floors (in the entire house, my office and the deck) but they also handcrafted beautiful wooden thresholds into the bathrooms and kitchen. Brian also tore down our old “sin tratado” (un-treated) back deck and rebuilt it. All that, and we surfed. Crazy.

It was cool having two of my best friends down here helping me with the house. They taught me a lot as they went instead of just flying through stuff. Thanks to them, I am now much more comfortable using the table saw, miter saw and pneumatic finishing nail gun. I have the confidence to finish the hardwood flooring on top of the closet and bathroom in the master bedroom. I am also going to buy a router and start experimenting with finishes for our baseboard.

Jamie is an artist. He has been working with his hands for a long time repairing surfboards, restoring classic surfboards (pigmenting resins etc), painting, carving and building something for as long as I’ve known him. It is really cool to know that not only am I going to have some of Jamie Kelly’s surf art on my walls, but now I have an entire house with beautiful teak flooring that has the signature of my two buddies on it.

Thanks Brian and Jamie.

You can check out some of Jamie’s handy work at his website. I pirated a few small pictures of his work so you can get a teaser before you go on over to his site: Jamie Kelly Surf Art

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Mark is a good friend of ours, here in Puerto Rico and he is actually the one that tipped us off about this house that we ended up buying. He even knew exactly how much we could low ball the seller ($100K), since he’s been watching the market and well, because he’s the “Mayor” of Rincon. I call him the “Mayor” because he doesn’t actually hold a political office, he’s more of a Peoples Choice Mayor. Everyone knows Mark and everyone love Mark. Guys, girls, Puerto Ricans, gringos, dogs, kids, old ladies, etc. Mark has lived in Rincon for 13+ years and he also hosts the poker games we talk so much about.

Here is a rare sighting of Mark outside of his house. He is showing Stefan how to pick up chicks in a bar.

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Here is another blog about a couple that just picked up and moved from the West Coast (Washington) to Puerto Rico:

The Kruse Chronicles

It’s pretty funny to read about them going through many of the same things we have been experiancing…From trying to decide on solar power and getting hot water to our pets adjusting to life in Puerto Rico and new neighbors.

Although, it looks like the Kruses have been having more fun then us! While we are stuck in a major construction zone, they have been riding manatees and climbing trees ;)…

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Brian and I both woke up early this morning. It was pouring rain all night…beating on our commercial grade corrugated metal roof. We wanted to surf before he started working and I had to leave for the airport to pick up Summer….but the waves were really bad so Brian opted to start work and I opted to blog about the back deck and start carrying extra hardwood out of our living room to my office where it will be stored until we are ready to use it.

I could be wrong, but it sure looks like that rainbow ends at our house.

Brian is leaving today. His flight is out of Aguadilla at 5:15 on Spirit Airlines. That basically means that we have to leave here around 2:15 to get him there early enough to not stress. Saturday traffic is always a wildcard down here in Puerto Rico. You either luck out and get the holeshot…or you get stuck behind every weekend driver that isn’t in a hurry to get anywhere. The only guarantee is that there won’t be pimped out Puerto Rican school buses stopping every couple of minutes.

Brian has a short list of things he would like to get done in the next 6 hours.

• Finish the floor in my office
• Attach the kitchen threshold trim (Jamie made it the day he left)
• Trim the ledge along the steps
• Finish the work on the bullnose of the floor where it meets the steps
• Hang the microwave oven

Yesterday, Brian and Jerry worked a full day (10:30am - 6:00pm) completing the back deck. Since he has been here, Brian completely rebuilt the back deck, laid the hardwood floors, built the knee wall (taking into account a 62″ opening (French Door) dead center to our future back deck and a 36″ opening all the way to the right for our future steps up to the back porch (we would like to train all of our guests to use the back door), framed in where the screens will go (all I have to do is trim out the PT with a hardwood) and put T-111 plywood around the outside so it matches the rest of the house (once we paint).

Back Porch at 60% done

Opening for the French Screen Doors in the center

Enclosed back porch from the outside

Building this house really has been a marathon accompanied by a series of sprints. The work is slow and steady when I am the General Contractor but as soon as someone that knows what they are doing shows up to help, the progress gets shifted into high gear for the duration of their stay. Jamie and Brian really got so much work done while they were here that the only two major things we have left to deal with is the master bath/jacuzzi area and the 3rd bathroom downstairs.

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I entered us in a contest for home remodeling blogs/websites over at RemodelingMySpace.com. There are a lot of cool blogs that are in the running, so pop on over and check them out (but vote for us!!!! Just kidding ;)…). It’s cool to see home projects from all over the country/world varying from minor home improvements to major overhauls. RemodelingMySpace.com also has all kinds of home improvement resources like DIY videos and an idea blog for when you are designed-out (like I am right now!).

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My Dad arrived in Puerto Rico yesterday and he has already gotten SO much shit done on the house. First of all, he showed up with a tankless water heater for us (and guys thought girls liked flowers…)!

Stefan and I couldn’t find the type of waterheater we wanted here in Puerto Rico and we couldn’t find anyone in the states that would ship one to Puerto Rico, so my Dad tracked one down, lugged it to the airport and drug it all the way down here for us. Of course he got searched profusely at the airport, since security was baffled at why anyone would travel with a waterheater, but hey, that’s what Dads are for, right? haha.

Today, I played plummers assistant to my Dad and he set our sink for the guest bathroom. FINALLY!!!!!

Yes, we not only have a sink, but it also has a faucet that water comes out of. Oh the simple joys of life!

I have been wanting to get the guest bathroom complete for several weeks now and for whatever reasons, it just was never happening (welcome to Puerto Rico ). I was totally content with having a working sink in the bathroom, but when I turned my back for a second Super Fix It Dad installed the above sink lighting and fan as well. Then he made some seriously positive changes to the kitchen cabinetry, covered the marble flooring in the kitchen to avoid scratches AND even cleaned the disgusting toilet downstairs (that the construction guys have been using. Gross.) because he knew I wouldn’t go near the thing.

It’s nice having someone around that knows what he’s doing…My Dad is awesome :)!

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I moved down here in May and have been here ever since working on the house and my business. All the while, Summer has been running her business in San Diego commuting down here so we can be together and so she can chip in on the house work.

We planned it, we knew what we had to do to make this happen and we did it. It hasn’t been easy being apart or catching each other on the phone when one of us is completely exhausted and doesn’t feel like talking on the phone. When you are with someone, one of the things you forget about (at leas I did) is how awesome it is to be around them…and in their presence or at least under the same roof. The conversation doesn’t always have to be there, there is comfort in silence when your around each other. It is a feeling so natural and complete yet I never noticed it until I didn’t have it.

Summer arrives in Aguadilla in 14 hours 12 hours 7 hours. She is moving here on this trip. If she goes back to San Diego, it will be for a couple days or a week, and I will be with her. I am a happy camper.

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