Stefan and I went to prom! There was an 80’s Prom themed party at The Pool Bar and it was richter! Everyone got dressed up in their best 80’s gear and the prom was on…
Here’s a little video of everyone getting down to “Thriller”:
Popularity: 36% [?]
Here is a cute video of Cheech that I made for Valentines Day:
He loves to nurse on that blanket!
Popularity: 50% [?]
Here is a video I took when I was spying on Stefan jackhammering the cement footings in the backyard:
We are reducing the size of the footings because we are going to pour a cement slab under the porch and the formerly big square footings would have been the perfect ankle-biting height. You can thank us next time you are stumbling around under our back porch and you don’t smash your foot into them. 
Although Stefan did put in his time with the jackhammer, I can’t give him all the credit. Jerry did most of the work and my dad took his turn playing with the jackhammer too. If jackhammering looks fun to you, we know where to rent one for $60 a day. Come on down to Puerto Rico and we can find something for you to jackhammer!
Popularity: 27% [?]
Here is a video of the progress of our guest bathroom:
It’s almost complete! To finish the bathroom we need to:
~ Buy/Install a permanent shower rod.
~ Buy/Install a towel bar and towel ring.
~ Install glass shelves in mirrored nook.
~ Apply final coat of paint.
~ Switch out PVC sink trap to chrome.
~ Hang the door.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Jerry and I are both working about 2 or 3 hours a day in the 90 degree sun on our property. The goal is to clear all of the Pica Pica before the season hits. Here are some pictures and a video to give you and idea what we are up against:
Choose your weapon!
Here is what I am up against…for 3 acres
These are the Pica Pica pods in October
Here is a look back at where we came from..and already cut
Popularity: 16% [?]
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.
Popularity: 21% [?]
When we purchased ceiling fans for our house, Brian gave us some recommendations on good fans and good fan brands. He is very diligent when it comes to installing fans and wants no wobble whatsoever. His ceiling fan schpeal all came back to me when i was sitting in my office in California, listening to this annoying wobbly ass fan…
I was just waiting for it to come flying out of the ceiling at any second.
Cheap fans + bad installation = no bueno!
Popularity: 30% [?]
Summer and I really want to have a very raw look downstairs. Currently, it is all completely raw block walls and slab concrete. Our plan is to polish the concrete on the floor and maybe keep the walls block and just sand them, clean them and let them look unfinished. Then we could put our money into detail work around all of the doors and put in some killer industrial private investigator doors in the offices and a normal door for the guest bedroom/gym.
The other option for the walls is plaster or some sort of concrete that could have a smooth finish. The problem with this finish is that it takes a long time and is expensive both with concrete and about 2.5 weeks of labor. If it was something we had our hearts set on, we would spend the money, but I feel like we are just doing something to take the next step to finishing the house, not doing it because we like the idea of it.
Regardless, we definitely want the floors polished…so the guy I hired last week showed up a day late and polished up the floors. Before he could do that, we had empty the entire contents of downstairs (including 30 some sheets of 4×10 3/4 inch greenboard, power tools, plywood etc) and put it in the new shed we built to hold our tools and stuff.
We built the shed under the existing master closet out of pressure treated wood. There were two things we did that will hopefully make our life easier later. First, I set the floor with screws over where our septic tank pipe is in case we ever needed to get to it and second, I mixed a couple bags of concrete and covered the ground with a few inches of concrete. The reason for this was simply to keep the weeds out…weeds in Puerto Rico can be very invasive.
Here are some pictures of our guy polishing the cement, of the shed and a video of the guy I hired polishing our concrete and of our shed.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Before Stefan left for Oklahoma, we went shopping for a sink for the guest bathroom. Gino (our tile guy) told us about this somewhat high end bath and kitchen store in San Juan, called Armadietto. He wasn’t kidding when he said it looked like part of the cemetary. It WAS part of the cemetary. Kind of an odd place to have a kitchen and bath store, but okayyyyyy.
We didn’t find anything at Armadietto, but this grave is for sale.
Let us know if you’re interested in some eternal rest in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We’ll put in an offer for you…
Popularity: 27% [?]
Hurricane Dean skirted passed Puerto Rico on Saturday pouring rain and minor wind on the Ponce side of the island but was more like a severe thunderstorm for the than a hurricane. Dean continued to gain strength as it headed directly for Jamaica. Jamaica is through the storm now, although I can’t find a lot of news about the category 4 hurricane, Jamaica must be worked. It is so poverty stricken I can’t imagine all those shanty’s surviving the storm.
Now Hurricane Dean is heading to the Yucatan Peninsula just south of Cancun.
Popularity: 22% [?]
