Hi there! Time for a house and work update, I am happy to announce that the works are almost done! Here is the previous episode if you missed it.
I want to do a small video for you to put things into better perspective, but I’ll wait until it is fully finished. So this week I was partly home alone with BF gone to Guatemala City and I did a couple of trips with the new little car to get construction materials, and a mattress for the concrete bed. They had it delivered, and since you can’t buy a mattress without buying a bed apparently (tried 5 shops in town… exhausting), we have a bed too.
The little truck was on its way to deliver it when I passed them with my car, so I stopped and offered they follow me to the house, while we got there I asked if they were lost earlier, the answer was “no, just resting!”. I first passed them, then went to pay my taxes, which took about half an hour since I had to negotiate for paying them early (didn’t manage too but didn’t get charged a late fee from the old owner, that was something), so the guys had been “resting” for at least 45 minutes before they delivered my mattress. Cool job.
Turns out queen size in Guatemala is smaller than US queen size and our internet search was a foot too wide for the mattress base, we’ll have to see how we sort this one out. There is a cool lake view from the bed, looks like you are sleeping on the water
Anyhoo, on to the house. The room has a glass door! I could go on for hours about how unprofessional the glazier was, he was so ashamed of his work he left without the last $120 we had agreed on and fled!
The idea was to have two sliding doors and a mosquito net the size of half the window, so if one pane is open the bugs don’t get in. Our contractor friend thought it was a good idea to leave a space between the window and the net, just in case some of the nice bugs want to join us into bed. BF had to escort one of the helpers out of the property when he started swearing after we asked them to do the job we had paid for. The other smart move of his makes the door super hard to lock, but that may be a good thing, if someone wants to get in and steal stuff, we’d rather they just let themselves in and not break a $500 window.
The window looks awesome from the distance, the house is almost buried in nature and glass is tinged green and reflects the surrounding trees.
That glazier also made a mirror for the bathroom (that we had to fit, he didn’t know how), and a door for the shower, since it will be a sauna. He made us build a concrete support on the floor that turned out to be optional and is leaving us less space to shower. Great guy.
That is the shower door above, and below the bathroom door made with wooden sticks
On the rooftop terrace, we built a kitchen top, to separate the cooking space from the eating space, they will also build a clay oven so I can make bread and pizza.
I have been making bread for the past couple of weeks, mostly because bread is not Guatemala’s forte, and using this super simple recipe, it has turned out great. Now I am off trying cheese bread, banana bread, etc. and I love it! I use my kitchen mixer so it barely takes any time.
The stairs that go down from the terrace to the room are ready
On the animal front, sad news. Mrs Turkey had laid 12 eggs that were eaten overnight by some animal or a shameless villager. We were so excited to get baby turkeys! I don’t know how long until she lays again but unlike hens, it is not every day. Since the handyman killed a chicken by throwing wood chips with nails and metal on the cage’s floor, we have had two more deaths. One is likely due to the workers unloading stones and burying a chick alive, the second we think may have been a male beaten to death by the jealous rooster. Ah the laws of nature… if the rooster keeps beating everyone up, he will have to be eaten and replaced by one of the chicks, although until they grow enough to reproduce we will keep him.
OMG am I bitching against everyone today? Sorry about that, dealing with all aspects of the works has been demanding and I can’t wait for BF to come back and do some. To be fair, it looks like I do a lot but he has been doing the major chunk and he is exhausted too so it is more than normal that I take over.
What is new on your little corner of the world?
This post was featured on the Helpful Habit, thank you!
The house looks like it’s coming along well. I still like the bathroom. Are you going to get a king mattress since the queen looks a bit undersized for the bed?
Not possible, the queen is 150cm (5ft) and the king 200cm (almost 7ft), we needed a 180cm one (6ft) so a king won’t fit. I think we’ll build a frame around it to avoid moves every time we climb into bed.
Love seeing all the updates on how your house is coming along. It looks great so far! The bathroom looks awesome. I thought this was funny -> “he was so ashamed of his work he left without the last $120 we had agreed on and fled!” I feel like this would never happen in the US!
I didn’t think it would either… he tried to bargain the last time he came to leave only $40 outstanding and we said no because he wouldn’t have bothered coming back. So we left $120, he did come back… and left without the money. Poor guy.
The house is coming along nicely. Sorry about the mattress and the eggs…but I love the view!
thanks! the view is stunning.
Looks like things are coming along very nicely, though I am sorry to hear about the mattress and eggs. I do have to say though, I think my wife would kill to have that view from our bedroom. 🙂 Unfortunately our view is of a bunch of snow right now….
10 days to spring!
I actually like the way the mattress sits on the concrete. Is there enough room to sit down there at the edge of the bed? You could probably make a small cushion to fit that area and hang a little over so people don’t hit their knees on the sharp corner of the concrete.
You can’t sit on the sides, at the end there is over 1ft space to put cushions and be a kind of bench to put shoes on and sit. On the sides I am thinking wooden frame so the mattress doesn’t move all the time.
Pauline, your house looks like a tropical paradise. I’m entirely and completely envious! Congratulations on your progress and enjoy!
thanks!
Managing contractors can be so trying at times. We recently had issues with a plumber that we hired so don’t feel alone.
I don’t know if people only talk about the bad but I hear terrible stories all the time. My neighbor has to climb three steps to go to the bathroom, they put the WC one meter above the shower level, like a throne! I am thinking about setting a price based on different steps of achievement and going down with delay…
Oh cheese bread sounds fantastic. My wife and I stopped at bakeries everyday in German to get her some Kase Brotchen. There really isn’t much better in this world than fresh baked bread!
The guest house looks great. Shame about the bed sizes, but I would have been in the same boat. Why would anyone assume a queen bed would be that much different in sizing?
maybe the Mayan queens were shorter 🙂
If you want to give home breadmaking a try, this recipe is really simple, and I just rolled the dough flat, put some cheese in the middle, then rolled back to the shape of a baguette loaf with the cheese inside. Delicious!
Beautiful home Pauline. I am quite jealous. I love your updates, so keep them coming. I hope you have a great week.
thank you Grayson, you too.
I love all of the stone in your house, looks so pretty. And that’s definitely a nice view from your bed!
thanks!
Place looks awesome Pauline. I completely understand your desire for people to let themselves in, instead of breaking the $500 window. Back when I was younger, I had an old Honda Accord with nothing of value but a cheap CD player. I always left the doors unlocked, because I prefer they just come in instead of breaking the window. (or steal the car altogether – I didn’t care at the time as I was hoping they would steal it :))
haha I hoped they would steal my little scooter a few years back, which they did but the police found it and I had to bring it back home 3 miles pushing it because it wouldn’t start! had they not found it the insurance would have given me a new one… but you can’t blame the police for being efficient!
I absolutely love the stone work in the bathroom and bedroom, and the floor of the bedroom is so cool! Sorry about the animals. I had another blogger friend who had chickens and it seemed there was always something like this happening. I’m not sure I could handle it very well.
there is always some drama, more intense than the telenovela!
I’ve followed a lot of non-traditional construction like yours and one thing I’ve learned is that the kinds of problems your having with the bed not fitting, and the glazier requiring unneeded work, etc are entirely normal when you start trying to build a house that doesn’t look exactly like every other kind of house on the planet. It certainly isn’t as easily as they make it look on HGTV!
that is when you see the difference between a skilled contractor and a guy who didn’t know what to do for a living and became a glazier. Our main contractor is 25, has no degree, but understands all the concepts and things we ask for on the first try.
The lake view is gorgeous and the bathroom is really coming along nicely 🙂
it is! can’t wait for it to be over…
Your house is like Animal Kingdom. Poor Mrs Turkey. Does is phase them to lose eggs or do they just go on like it’s no big deal? House looks great.
they move on with life, incredibly resilient. I have a post in queue about what animals taught me those past months. Even the one who lost two chicks crushed by the workers was like nothing happened the day after.
Your place is coming along beautifully; I love these updates. The view is so gorgeous. I’d just lay in bed and gaze out the window. I can’t wait to see the house finished.
This view is not going to help my procrastinating habit!
I just love hearing about the house, Pauline, b_tching and all. :-). Despite the shady characters you’ve had to deal with, the house is just gorgeous. So sorry to hear about Mrs. Turkey’s babies. Hopefully she’ll lay some more soon. Have a wonderful day!
They have a year round honeymoon setting to help them try again!
I absolutely love these house updates! The pictures look awesome! You`re house is like one of those you see in an interior magazine!! I checked out that bread recipe, and it looked really good! have to try that one time!
that site is amazing and it has such wonderful pictures. so far I have just tried that recipe but I want to try more.
Poor animals 🙁 Your place is looking really great. I can’t wait to see the video!
thanks Catherine. Yeah poor animals, but that is life and they move on incredibly fast.
Sounds like builder problems are universal, or maybe it is housing problems! Perhaps we should just go back to living in caves. Anyway you are rising about these so the occasional bitching rant is more than permitted!
this room is like a cave with all the stone, it should be easier to build… oh well, it is the price to pay not to be on top of people the whole day, which would be otherwise exhausting.
The house looks so incredible…really. The pictures are so cool. The stone!!!!
thank you!
As much as I enjoy your finance post, your weekly updates are truly my favorite to read 🙂
I want to try that bread recipe!
it is delicious, really hard not to eat all at once. I make about 6 loaves and then freeze for the week.
The place looks pretty cool! Looks like a nicely designed bathroom. Will be neat to see the video when shared…living vicariously here in cold weather 🙂
haha glad you enjoy it!
As with your Internet connection, sounds like the hired help are the other small problem living where you do Pauline. I’m glad you’re taking it all in your stride though. intentional or not, your post was very humorous…’the glazier left in shame before we’d paid him the last $120′ cracked me up.
For all your trials and tribulations though, I have to say it looks amazing – you should be really proud of yourselves. As far as bedroom views go, I really don’t think I could imagine anything more idyllic (even if you do have to share it with a few mosquito net circumventing bugs). Fair play to the glazier though, he may not be able to precision fit a patio door, but he’s not bad with bathroom mirrors. I think you made a wise decision fitting it yourself though 🙂
With the mattress and everything, things don’t seem to go easily to plan with shops, tradesmen, labourers and the like in your neck of the woods Pauline. But having said that, I feel 100 percent sure that all the frustration will soon pay dividends, and you’ll be extremely content there.
yeah it did a good job bringing the mirror all in one piece on 6 miles of dirt road. other than this the building workers are pretty dedicated and happy to work here. They all think we are weird for wanting a strange house like this but after that go back home and copy details on their own homes, it’s really sweet.
So now you have a mattress that is too small and a bed that came with the mattress because you can’t just buy a mattress. Geesh… It was a good laugh though lol… I guess you answered my question in the Grocery Game here today. I asked if you baked bread with all that flour you buy. Your bread looks awesome! I’m going to check out your recipe. I have 2 kitchen aid mixers and use them both as it does take no time at all to get things done. Sometimes I do it by hand as well, depends on the time. Sounds to me like you have learned lots of lessons with your small house and the contractors coming in. How would you do it different if you had to do it all over again? Everything looks great though. I’m jealous of your upper kitchen and clay oven… very nice and can’t wait to see it when they finish it. Keep smilin!
Yes I do bread mostly, I am not very good at baking although my coconuts are almost ready, so may be doing coconut flan and coconut bread. I tried banana bread this time but it was not very good, not enough banana, I invented a recipe and should check one instead.
If I could do things all over again I would probably be more present on the works so they don’t screw things when I turn my back around. It is not that they are bad people, just that they forget and make costly mistakes.
One guy is building a wooden door, and it was touching the floor. Instead of making the door smaller, he cut the floor! We had already varnished with polyurethane and polished and he screwed all that up for not taking his door down and shaving the edges. You have to take all initiative or it will be bad.
Hi Pauline…
Since you posted a comment on my Chautauqua post I found my way over here and have been poking around. I’m now subscribed.
Great stuff and wonderful adventure.
Too bad you won’t be joining us in Ecuador, but I hope our paths cross one of these days!
Hi there! Thank you for stopping by, I am happy you like my blog. Ecuador is a country I want to visit again but at the moment I am fully focused on Guatemala and a trip back to Europe, it will have to wait!
What a beautiful home, Pauline.
I am very sorry you lost the eggs to someone or some thing…
I enjoy seeing your dream as it unfolds.
thank you Tammy.
Wow that is a really cool little house! This is the first I have read about it and I like it!
Thank you Nick! Lots of sweat and effort but it is coming together.
It looks as though the work on your little piece of paradise is going great. I’d love to see the video.
On a side note, I didn’t think that workers could be anywhere as near as bad as some that I have had to deal with in the past. However, from your experiences I suppose these workers take the cake so far. Good luck on the rest of your renovations.
this glazier was a prick. the rest of the builders are friendly and want to help, unfortunately they never formally learned how to do the job so you have to be on top all the time.
Very cool looking stonework in the bathroom!
thank you!
Hey Pauline! House is coming around!
hi there! happy to see you around here. Yes it is eventually looking almost finished. *relieved*.