Lots of progress in the guest house today: our kitchen cabinets we’re installed as well as the toilet and most of the electrical fixtures. Our appliances were also delivered. We now need counter tops, finishing the plumbing and the shower tiles, some final painting, and connecting the house to the water, power, and septic system. We can see the light at the end of the guest house tunnel!
They also did some much needed work on the driveway, including building stairs along the steepest part so we can safely walk down without sliding. Yes, it is that steep!
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The windows and doors are installed in the guest house and the electrical wires have been run. The septic system is also almost completed. They have built the little roof structure over the entrance. This will eventually be covered with my product, Palmex.
Entrance
They have also built the pool stairs and poured the concrete ring that will hold the roof of the bohio (round gazebo).
Pool
While things are progressing, I doubt that we will be able to move into the guest house by the end of March as we had hoped for.
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Ceramic tiles have been laid down, the walls are painted, and most of the windows have been installed.
Here’s the bathroom:
The tile roof is also done:
Next week we should have the rest of the windows and doors going in, electricity and plumbing going in, and the kitchen cabinets installed. I’m guessing that in 3-4 weeks we’ll be ready to move in.
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Here’s the solution our architect came up with to relocate our jacuzzi. I think this will actually work out better than the original plan as the jacuzzi will be more prominent and will have a much better view of mount Picacho.
However, a side effect of misplacing the bohio (palapas) is that the driveway was shrunk severely. We think we’ve found a somewhat satisfactory solution to that too, by widening it by about 1 meter as seen in this picture:
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My friend Michel Lafontaine, who was also my business partner in Panama, died in a tragic accident in the San Blas islands on Wednesday. He fell off a roof and banged his head. He passed out for a short while but came back. He complained of not feeling well and went to his room to rest. They found him dead the next morning. He probably died from internal bleeding which could have been avoided had he gone to the hospital, but the closest hospital was several hours away. Michel was a great guy who truly enjoyed life to the fullest.
Michel and I were co-owners of Palmex Panama and he was running all operations on the ground there. I now need to head down to Panama for a few weeks so I can sort out the business and find someone else to run it with.
Almost exactly a year ago I had come down to Panama to help him get our business started and we spent Christmas eve on his deck eating a wonderful meal we had prepared together. We drank lots of wine and rum while telling each other stories from our respective past and speculating on what lay ahead of us with our business venture in Panama. We laughed hard while enjoying the beautiful air of Altos del Maria and we felt like we were on top of the world. Needless to say, our Panama adventure will never be the same without him, and this Christmas will not be so joyous.
I am very sad that I will never see his smiley face or feel his famous bear hug again. I miss him dearly already.
Here he is with his wife Patricia and my wife Diane, at his place in Panama.
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Drywall work is done. Here’s a view of the kitchen from the living room:
And a view of the vaulted ceiling in the upper bedroom, which I will also use as my office:
Adding a layer of stone to finish the exterior of the guesthouse:
Building up the BBQ in the bohio:
Stairs going up to the upper bedroom:
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Looks like we found a satisfactory solution to the jacuzzi problem. We will move the jacuzzi to the edge of the pool where it will overflow into the pool. This means the pool will be a bit smaller, but we will have a much nicer view fromt he jacuzzi and we will eliminate the little bridge that would have gone over the pool to the bohio. This has the side-effect of giving us more patio space.
This changes the whole “look & feel” of the orginal design, but it gives us some nice advantages in exchange, so overall not a bad outcome.
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I got some bad news today. My builder built the bohio (palapas) too close to the kitchen module, not leaving enough space in-between for the outdoor jacuzzi at the end of the pool. I’m upset because not only did the builder make a mistake, but my architect didn’t catch it, and my project watcher didn’t catch it. On top of that, I have a strong suspicion that my builder has known about this for months and waited until now to say anything so it would be too late to fix the problem. As far as I can tell, he had to have figured this out when they were laying the footings for the pool several months ago. But at that point the bohio foundation was already in place, and he would have had to tear it out and start over.
I learned about this from my architect today, because the builder asked him last week to come over to look at the problem and suggest a solution. My architect is suggesting that we simply move the jacuzzi to the other side of the little bridge, where there would normally have been a sitting area in the shallow end of the pool. This has the advantage of giving us a better view from the jacuzzi, but it changes the whole flow of the design and I’m not clear on how it will look.
This is not the end of the world but it is very disappointing and I feel let down. I had three levels of checks, and still such a big mistake slipped through. I also kick myself because I noticed that things looked tight during our May visit, and again in September, but I let it go because I assumed it was just an optical illusion.
Back in September my builder warned me that he was going to present me with an extra invoice because of the extra difficulties he had with the terrain and the inaccurate topo. I was more than willing to accomodate him but now I have a feeling I will be negotiating hard as he owes me compensation for this mistake.
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There’s been more progress on the bohio, the pool, the pathway, and the roofs. Things are now obviously behind schedule though. The guest house was supposed to be ready in September, then October, and now looks like it is at least a month away from completion. The whole project was supposed to be done by January, but I’m guessing it will be at least 3 months later than that.
But I was fully expecting such delays. When we built our custom lake house here in Canada it was finished three months late, so I could only imagine what it would be like to build in a developping country, and one with a very slow pace at that!
The following picture shows the roof over the kitchen. This piece of roof has a gentle slope toward the back. The roof over the living room on the left is much higher and “cathedral style”. The two were designed differently to help differentiate the two spaces.
This shows some of the column work for the pergola above the patio and pathway going up to the bedrooms. You can also see the beginning work on the stairs going into the pool.
This next picture shows the relationship between the pool, living room on the right, and the pathway leading up to the bedrooms.
This next one shows the relationship between the living-room/kitchen on the left, the bohio on the right, and the pool in the middle. The picture was taken from the pool-deck above the guest house.
This one shows the two story bohio structure and the infinity edge wall of the pool on the left. This wall will become a waterfall once the pool is functional. The lower level of the bohio will serve as a carport, laundry room, and pump house. The top level is the outdoor kitchen.
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They’ve been working mostly on the bohio these last few days. You can see the progression here.
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