Here is a walk through of the progress on the guest bedroom and loft:
Trey, the guy that did our drywall, suggested the loft idea and I LOVE the loft! It opens up a lot of room since the guest bedroom isn’t very big. Stefan hooked up the room for me and put the bed in the loft and even put down some temporary carpet (we are doing hardwood in the entire upstairs, but that’s a couple of months off). The loft is also equipped with dual fans and lights. We are eventually going to build a cool ladder (perhaps with any left over mahogany) for the loft/guest bedroom. The house is coming along!
Gino and Kevin have been working on the mahogany window panes and here is the finished product in the guest bedroom:
They look really good! I was a little hesitant about using mahogany after seeing how expensive it is (we spent $1000 for a fairly small pile of wood), but I’m glad we did now. The mahogany looks awesome now that it’s stained and finished. All of the upstairs window panes in the house will have the mahogany finish. Que bueno!
Stefan just called and the electric company has finally flipped the switch and given our house electricity. Yay! Just in time for the hurricane that is supposed to hit on Saturday and that will probably knock out the power…
We are leveling off a decent part of the slope that is in front of our house.
This is going to help with drainage issues. The property slope causes water to flow right into the side of the house, which can be bad since the 1st floor is partially underground. So, this new excavation will allow us to plant a lush front yard and grass and the water flow will be directed away from the house. Two birds with one stone, baby…
Kuta running the show
And finally some video (it is very exciting to watch)
Jerry and I have been working hard the past couple of days working the electric company (trying to get our meter installed) and laying out the excavation work for the front yard. With all this going on, I didn’t realize that a tropical storm formed off of the Cape Verde Islands and is strengthening. Like most small towns, everyone is talking about Puerto Rico being “due” for a big storm…they haven’t had a big one since Hurricane George back in 1998. Everyone seems to be a weather expert, especially when they are talking to the “New Guy” in town (that’s me). None of these “dooms day’rs” know that I grew up with Hurricanes in New Jersey and dealt with them all through college in Wilmington North Carolina.
Things are a little different though, Summer and I now own a house and it isn’t as easy as moving to a new rental if it gets wrecked. However, our house survived Hurricane George (105 knot winds) with absolutely no damage. I am confident in our house and the good news is, at least we can’t loose power…we still don’t have it.
Check out Tropical Storm Dean gaining strength in the Atlantic. You can see the storm path has it heading towards Puerto Rico, but there is a lot of time for things to happen between now and Saturday (estimated landfall); Wind Shear, Northern Tracking, Barometric Pressure Rising….if all goes well, the hurricane will track a couple hundred miles north of us and give us some long overdue surf.
I shot two videos of the house yesterday…one starting out front covering the great room, the kitchen, the guest bedroom and the guest bathroom. The second covers the great room, back porch, master bedroom, master closet and master bathroom.
I originally had a really hard time getting them online. I tried to upload the two separate videos to YouTube but they were too big. So, I jumped into a program Summer told me about that comes with all Apples. It is called iMovie. Once I figured out how to edit these two movies together (not seamless by any means) I then exported it (File-Export-Streaming) and compressed it and it uploaded to YouTube in like 2 seconds. Much better than the 20 minutes I waited to get shot down by them before. But I digress…check out the walkthrough…on one video.
Today Stefan ad I went to Rustic Tile in Mayaguez, to check out some tile for the wetroom/shower for our master bedroom. This is what we came up with:
We’re thinking, the light travertine for the floor (since it’s not as slick/slippery as the marble), dark brown marble for the walls and broken marble for the trim. Bueno? Do you like it?
Stefan and I were driving by Tamboo, (which is a popular touristy bar on the beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico) and we both noticed that they got new doors for their trash bins…and we like them :D:
I think they would look cool for our downstairs doors (which are currently just big metal gates…):
The doors above are also SO simple to make. Hmmm…So many decisions…
Stefan and I went to the Home Depot in Mayaguez and picked some paint for the interior of our house.
We went with a vintage-y, brightish green for the kitchen, a light blue for the guest bedroom and hallway, a very light green (it looks white at 1st glance) for the great room, a coffee brown for the master bedroom and a much lighter brown for the master bathroom.
Two great things happened today. First, I got to take this picture of the ocean from on top of Rincon today while running errands (Dad, Susan and Skyler; this is where my service cut out while talking with you on the phone). It was beautiful up there this morning…a few degrees colder than down by the water and the ocean was showing everyone home much it has been raining lately.
Second…the electric company came and installed our poles and ran the line to our pedestal. Apparently there is something that is not up to par with our permits or certifications or something…so we didn’t get the meter installed today…but we may be pulling enough strings to get the ball rolling tonight for tomorrow. We are meeting some people at 6:30 to try to get it done. Greasing palms may seem expensive, but it is getting things done quick. If you ever need any help in Rincon with electric poles…shoot me an email..I know a guy.
