The Casita project update…

All this traveling and leaving Boquete has created a bit of a difficult crimp in our project, but progress continues in spite of it all. Luckily for us, we have a very dependable crew of hard working guys who we can trust to continue doing what they are supposed to do even when Scott isn’t there to watch their every move. It’s not everyday that you end up with men like that. It means a lot to us that we can leave them unsupervised for short period of time and come back to see that they kept working hard and doing a good job. And our neighbors are also a huge help when we have to go out of town. Al has very kindly taken care of giving the guys their pay when we are gone for a payday. It is something that is more helpful than he even realizes. We are so blessed to have such amazing neighbors who I can tell will be like family to us when we live there. I often marvel at our good luck. 🙂

Right now the crew is in the process of finishing off the foundation of Scotts workshop. The actual foundation is actually pretty well finished and now they’re beginning to prep for pouring the concrete floor of the structure. Unfortunately our architect isn’t proving to be especially dependable. We actually design the building and just give him the drawings expecting him to do the actual final drawings and engineer all the details. But, just like when we started working on the casita, we have yet to have received completed detailed drawings for the workshop. Scott has been asking for them and when he’s emailed preliminary drawings they have been incorrect. So, Scott has had to just do all the footings and foundation design on his own. Eventually we hope to get satisfactory plans but, this is Panama, so who knows, maybe by the time he completes the building the workshop plans will be right? Hah!

In order to leave the project it takes a huge amount of coordinating and planning on Scott’s part. Before leaving for PC last week we spent all of Sunday driving back and forth to Ivan, the supply store, to get the gravel, sand and cement stocked up for the foundation pour that they would do while we were away. Scott has been able to get Ivan to deliver materials to the very entrance of our property but then the guys have to drive Scotts truck down, shovel gravel or sand into the truck and then drive it back up to the top where the structure is being built. Its’ a lot of work. And it’s very nice that we can trust them to only drive the truck on our property. Unfortunately we only have one guy who has a drivers license and on Saturday he had to leave to take his baby to the doctor. So one of the other guys drove the truck down to load material. He somehow crashed the bed of the truck into the retaining wall and down into the drainage ditch taking out the drivers side tail light and banging up the wheel well pretty good. Sigh. Good news was, the retaining wall didn’t get damaged at all! And no one got hurt, thank god! I felt bad for the guy who did it because he was terrified that Scott would be mad. But, what’s there to be mad about? It was an accident and the guy was just trying to keep the job moving along. Its a bummer but it’s also a chance we took and there was no sense in loosing any sleep over it. That brand new truck is looking more and more like a work truck everyday!

We have four guys up at the workshop and two still working on the repello on the casita. The window guy is coming this week to take final measurements and start making the windows. Most of the repello is done on the inside and the outside. I think Scott will have the other two guys move up to the workshop as soon as the window openings have been finished and prepped for the windows. If we can get the workshop up and water tight in the next three or four months life will be good. Then Scott can move his tools in there and return to the casita to start doing the interior finish. Its so nice that we have already purchased all the materials, the tile and plumbing and lighting fixtures are all just waiting to be installed.

We’re also getting closer to getting an electrician up there to start bringing power to our property. We have a bid that we consider acceptable and have been told that he will get us a contract. Of course it’s been several weeks since being told we would have a contract, so , (shrug) who knows… The other big thing is getting water connected to our lot. This is another one that we have to find time to work on. We have met all the important people who are supposedly in charge of our water district and I am assuming Scott knows what’s going on with all that. He just has so much going on , it’s impossible to deal with all these details at once.

It will be really good to have this trip back to California over with and not have that worry on our minds. Of course as soon as the container arrives we will need to oversee the unpacking into our storage in Dolega. Whew. One by one we’re checking off things that need to get accomplished and settling into our new life here in Panama. It’s amazing to think about all that we’ve accomplished in just a little over a year. It wont be long now and we’ll be living up there in the casita. I just cant wait to live there and to have a place that’s ours. To have our own household goods, linens, furniture,dishes,all those things will make it really feel like home.

The Casita project update…

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