Rain Stops, Construction Continues

The daily rain has stopped and construction continues, with the walls getting higher by the day. The new pictures that John has sent reveal some things that need to be changed, and is one of the reasons I had hoped to be there while the construction on going. Even though they are simple changes, the less changes, the better. The ceilings above both bedrooms and bathrooms should be poured later this week or early next week. No real changes can be made after that. The living room and kitchen ceiling will be poured at a later date, after the walls get raised to 11ft 6in.

Looking south to the front door

East side of the house

Looking back to the living room, from the pool and cistern

The west side of the house

The doors leading to the patio from the living room are set for a 6ft 8in door, and we have since changed that to an eight foot French door. The bathroom windows also need to be changed to high level windows, because I don't think Mischelle would like windows in the shower that start at waist high.

John is sending out the order for his windows this week, so I am looking forward to seeing the pricing info that he received from WinDor. Hopefully these will be the quality windows we were looking for.

New Pictures Arrive

After three weeks at home and limited news of the construction in Belize, pictures of the house in Belize have finally arrived, showing the construction as of June 25th. Several days of rain have delayed construction, but the walls seem to be going up and everything seems to be in the right places. These first few pictures show the construction as of June 19th.

These last pictures are of the construction as of June 25th. The walls for the bedrooms are just about to the right height, then the blocks need to be set for the higher ceiling in the living room and kitchen.

View of the front door

East side of house

View from the water looking back at the retaining wall and patio

View looking at the retaining wall and west bedroom

View of retaining wall and east bedroom

View of retaining wall, cistern and pool

Almost finished east bedroom and bathroom walls

All of the walls almost complete

I have decided to change the patio doors from the standard 6ft 8in height to a larger 8ft height. With the living room ceiling at 11ft+, it should add to the air flow and sunlight in the living room and kitchen, while also adding a visual effect of a larger room.

On a more serious note, Bob Wright, whom I rented a studio apartment from while I recently was in Belize, is undergoing surgery tomorrow to help restore his hearing. Good luck to Bob and a speedy recovery. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the surgery is successful.

The Building Goes On

When I left Belize, the house was two sets of blocks up from the foundation. The electrical boxes were just being placed and some flex conduit between boxes was installed. The pool was just getting a rough coat and the lounge area cement pads were just in the finishing stages. The area below the retaining wall is now flat and ready to work with. The project is beginning to move along rather quickly.

When John sent these new pictures, they had already moved up to eight blocks up on both the inside and outside walls and looked like they were moving fast. Since I was out of town and didn't have internet access, I didn't check my e-mail until Saturday. From the pictures that John had sent, I noticed two things were wrong and one thing I had hoped to change. But, were they too far along to easily fix the problems? The first thing was that the bedroom windows facing the ocean were being set for 4 x 4 foot windows and not the 4 x 5 foot that was on the plans. The other was the placement of a bathroom window and also the size. When I called John, he assured me that both problems would be checked out and changed as needed. The other change that I wanted was removing the top step out of the pool. It just looks like a great place to stub a toe. Also, by removing the step, it doesn't allow for dirt collection and provides a larger step, down into the pool. John has to check on that to see if is safe and possible to do.

For now, I have to wait for the next set of e-mails from John, hopefully, with more pictures. So in the mean time, I will update the blog with the things that I saw and the people I met, during my months long stay in Belize.

Work has begun on the main house

After a month doing all the prep work, installing the cistern, pool and retaining walls, the work on the main house has now officially begun. The forms for the structural beams were set up on Monday, the cement pour was on Tuesday.

The tearing down of the wood forms was today. The crew has had a few busy days and the temperatures have been on the warm side, but they just continue to work to get the job done. There are between 15 and 18 guys on the work site everyday, so things do get done rather quickly. Tomorrow they start to fill in the voids between the beams and the areas surrounding the cistern and pool. The estimate is for around 40 truck loads of fill, with each truck load of around 20 cubic yards. That's a lot of fill dirt and will take at least a couple of days to finish filling in all the areas between the structural beams and tamping it down.

The view from the patio door with the unfinished cistern and pool.


The view from the front door

I had a wonderful dinner with Donna and her mom, Jeanne, last night. Filet mignon, bar-b-que chicken, garlic and buttered shrimp. Who says you can't live the high life in Belize. They are good people and I'm sorry to see them go, but I am looking forward to having them as friends and neighbors in the future. It's their last night here in Belize and I'm sure after 3+ weeks here in Corozal, they are ready to go home to start making plans for their new home on Four Mile lagoon. I think Donna is happy with the progress they achieved while she was here and with all the people and contacts that she met. And I think her mom has adjusted well down here and will fit right in to the Belize culture. Good luck to them in the future. And if you haven't seen Donna's blog, Our Belize Planning, just follow the link on my blog. Between the both of us, you should get a good feel of what it takes to build in Belize.

I am, again, Connected to the World

I have an internet connection once again. BTL came out today and reset the modem and put a new modular end on the ethernet cable to see if that would resolve our connection issues. We had a few problems along the way, but they think they have solved the problem. Only time will tell (and the next power outage). I can now update the blog with new pictures.

Construction continues on the retaining wall, pool and cistern. It's really starting to show some progress.

But, before they can begin work on the structural beams, I need to make changes to the 2nd floor Master bathroom. Even though we won't begin work on that for a year or two, we need to have all the plumbing in the right location so everything will be there later when we do build. I also need to decide the final placement of the electrical outlets, fans, track lighting, wall sconces and outside lights. And other considerations are for phone/internet, satellite TV and speaker placement. I've had most of these on the original drawings but have decided to scale back some lighting and fans. We just won't need as much as I had originally planned. I also need to plan for the satellite dish placement. With the equator so close, the satellites are more spaced apart than they would be in the States, even though they are in a geosynchronous orbit. It just means that I need to have a full view of the southern skies from wherever I decide to put the dish on the roof. Another item to consider for the future is the satellite TV provider. Not everything is legal down here and it requires permits to import satellite dishes. Most providers don't want to provide service outside the US or Canada probably due to copyright laws.

Still No Internet and the Blog Suffers

It has been almost a week with VERY limited internet access. With all of the power interuptions, it has taken its' toll on the modem. BTL, the local telephone monopoly, said they would be out Thursday, by noon, to fix the problem, but this is Belize. Thursday came and went with no BTL technician in sight. A call to BTL was of no help, as they said they were quite busy and they might be out Friday. Well, Friday has come and gone and again, no BTL technician. They are closed on the weekends, so, no internet until at least Monday.

The building on the lot is progressing and we hope to start pouring the support beams sometime late next week. They are just finishing up work on the cistern, pool and retaining wall. It's beginning to look like something instead of a big hole in the ground that just sucks up money. John has got a great crew working on our house and they have all but finished on Pip and Jason's house. Work on our place should start to move at a good clip from here.

John has picked up all the jobs he is going to do for the rest of the year and into the first part of next year. He's smart in not getting stretched too thin, as that is the problem that has confronted other builders here in Belize. John seems to be the only builder with a backlog of home builds while others here are idle. He's trying to build a good reputation and seems to be doing a good job of that. It's getting to the point where he's going to need office space in town to handle all of the things going on. He has sold the house he is currently residing in and is clearing the lot for his new home. He has a new architect, Dan, that will help design homes for people looking to build in the future. He is currently working on John's new home design and will probably have a good challenge working on new layouts based on living in the tropics.

The weather here has just been wonderful, now that the winds have died down. The last couple of nights I have spent time lying in the hammock, listening to some Jazz music and looking up at the stars. It is such a different sky than we have in Camarillo, with a whole new set of stars and constellations above and a much darker sky. I'm looking forward to bringing down my telescope so I can begin to explore.