Construction Progress….

I can’t just say ,”Casita” progress, because work is progressing to encompass the workshop as well. Things are moving along pretty well. We’ve started work on Scott’s workshop. We had hoped to get the roof on the workshop as fast as possible. So far, rainy season hasn’t been especially rainy. Which is good for us, but not so good for the water supply. So, the foundation is done and half of the floor has been poured. They are ready to start pouring the second half of the floor. All the plumbing has already been installed under the slab and the hole for the septic is dug, the leach field still needs to be done. Scott thinks the floor should be done this week. I think next week they will be starting on the walls, which will go up fast.

The Workshop is about 2000 sq. ft., That should be plenty of space for Scott to play with wood. Of course one end of the workshop is a small studio with a bathroom. This will be my little art studio for now and maybe a studio for a caretaker down the road. The other end of this structure will be a large room for water storage tanks and filtration system. I’ve been helping to keep a steady supply of sand, gravel and cement up at the top. Me and Edgar spend our days going up and down. Me sitting in the truck writing on my iPad,while he loads and unloads…I know, lazy me!

Work on the Casita slowly but steadily continues while some of the guys work on the workshop. Javier is our resident repello specialist and has been steadily working on finishing all the walls inside and out. Right now he is making the arches on the terrace. It’s really looking great. Before we left for our California trip we had the window guy here measuring for the windows. They should be ready to install in a few more weeks. Scott has been working on installing the metal framing material around all the ceilings that will be coffered . He’s also running all the electrical conduit throughout all the ceilings, in preparation for running the wire for electricity. We still have not installed the tile on the roof, that can wait awhile. First the roof on the workshop needs to be up and water tight, then maybe we will have them work on the tile. In the meantime the tile is here, just sitting there. I think the next big thing we will start doing will be to level out the cement floor in the casita and begin to install the tile throughout the terrace and the entire casita. It will be a continuous expanse of the same tile throughout the casita.

We have yet to have hired an electrician to bring power up to the property. It seems as though me may need to find it in ourselves to be a bit more demanding, or direct? Not sure why these guys don’t have any follow through when it comes to getting us a price quote. Maybe the job is too big or too complicated, being so far from the main road? Who knows! All I know is, it sure would be nice to have electricity by the time we hope to move up there. Which, if your wondering, ( I know you are) is hopefully by early January. We did invest in a big propane generator, so if worse comes to worse, we can use that for the refrigerator and things like that. One really nice thing about building a house up here in Boquete is, we don’t need heat or air conditioning. I love that about this area. It’s really never much cooler than low to mid 60’s and not much warmer that mid to high 80’s.

The other infrastructure portion of this project that we need to address is getting the water to our property. We have met the people who are in charge of this and have let it be known that we would like to get it started but I don’t know where we are on that project. I dont even have a clear idea of what it’s going to take to get water hooked up to our property. We have donated funds to the water district an hope to learn more about how we can be involved in the water board, maybe making some kind of contribution if we can, to help in whatever way we may be able to do it. It seems as though it is quite a community run organization and we’ll be happy to do whatever our part is. Up to now we’ve been using a big storage tank to transport water with our truck from our house in Alto Lino to our property . It will be nice when we have water right on our property, which hopefully will be soon. Lucky for us, since we will not be living in Alto Lino for much longer, our new neighbors have kindly offered to let us fill up our tank from their hose bib , which is located right at the beginning of our property.

So, only about 4 more months or so before we can live in the casita. Mind you, we will still have much to do in the casita even after moving into it. Scott’s workshop should be up and running by then enabling him to begin to make all the cabinetry and interior doors. But it’s unlikely he’ll be able to do it before we need to move. And, and since we are talking about ‘moving’….We are about to do just that! The wonderful house we’ve been living in is owned by a couple who are planning to retire and make Boquete their official home in August. We’re preparing to vacate their home and have been generously invited to live in our new neighbors house, right next door to our future home! I’ll write more about that in my next post….

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