A Kitchen!

While there are many things Sergio and I like about our house, we are both really pleased with the kitchen. We wanted a space that was big enough for lots of people to help out, or just be there as other chef's did their thing.  It is finally ready.

This is a view looking from the living / dining space.

The windows straight ahead look towards the village.  The windows on the right open to the covered terrace and facilitate passing things back and forth.  The granite counter top extends to the terrace and there is even a little bar on the other side.

Sergio was inspired by these tiles in our local park where he takes Uma for exercise. He found a ceramics factory in Guanajuato (north of Mexico City) and worked with them to create replicas. The result is wonderful.

The floor is concrete with lots of swirls and a few stains.  Oddly, that's the look we wanted.  The stove is sort of industrial looking with five gas burners. It actually has two ovens - the one on the bottom is meant for smaller dishes! Too too.

After both of us working especially hard I took full advantage of the bath - my first.  Ignore the Costco size bottle of cleaning liquid on the corner!

Inching ever closer ...

Sergio and I have been spending a lot of time at the house trying our best to help out in any way we can.  The interior is almost finished. But man does it ever need a really good cleaning!

The carpenter has all but finished his work.  The countertop people have installed the granite counter top which looks fab, and the tile work is being finished this week in the kitchen.  Once the dirty work is finished inside the downstairs floors will be cleaned (with acid apparently) and sealed.

This is our front door!  The bedroom and bathroom doors are equally attractive, so nice, in fact, that we have asked the carpenter to quote on making us a dining room table top.  He still has to design and make the cabinetry for the bedrooms but that may have to wait until our cash flow is a bit more robust.  For now - metal shelving.

We now have cabinets, sinks and running water - hot and cold - in both bathrooms and we can even take a shower! This is the master bath vanity with "his" and "his" sinks - total caprice!  Still need mirrors tho'.

The last of the windows were installed up in the master bath.  It took nine of us to hoist this metal structure up to the master bath.  Three on the ground, three in the bathroom and three guys on the roof.  It will have glass windows on three sides plus a glass roof.  It looks great.  The windows in the corners open on both sides.

This is the view from the shower stall!
Gotta love it.

Lighting fixtures were never part of the original agreement so we've been buying them in bits and pieces and Sergio has been busy installing them so we don't have to shade our eyes from the bare bulbs that were hanging there before.  Sergio wants LED lights everywhere which is costing, in some cases, more than the lamps!

Sergio left for Cuba today for his birthday celebration.  I'm going back tomorrow to check on progress and to leave Uma with the dog sitters for the week while I go to Texas.  When we are both back home we intend to move to the house and help out as much as we can.  As you can see from this shot, we still have not done any work on the yard and will try and have at least the majority of the area covered in sod the week after next in anticipation of Sergio's party.  Our first guests arrive in just two weeks - yikes!  We might have to put them to work un-rolling sod.

I'll do another post with kitchen pictures tomorrow evening.

Let there be light

We are inching ever so closely to having a finished and secure house.

Check out this picture of the house with actual lights on inside - sure they are bulbs hanging from wires - but they are lights.

Here's Uma and I standing in the stairwell to our upstairs bedroom.  You can't really tell but the stair risers are black stone.  In a week's time we should have a metal handrail made by the same craftsman that did our windows.

You gotta love this view from the living room.  We've stayed over the last two weekends and it is wonderful to wake up to this vista.

Still no shots of Sergio - sorry - lots of me tho'.  Here I am doing some detailing of the upper terrace with Uma's help.

We went into town for "stuff" and there was a celebration of one of the parishes - San Miguel - lots of costumes, music and noise.

A shot of the two of us enjoying a beer and tequila after some garden work.  We're back tomorrow to see how things are advancing.