Yes...We're Finally in the House!

 We've been living in the main house for nearly two months now.  It's great to be out of the little casita!  Since everything's nearly finished inside, we've had time to work on some outdoor projects.  

One of the first outdoor projects is a perimeter fence. We're slowly building the fence around the side and back of the property, hoping to slow down drifting sand during wind storms.

The fence posts are basic 4x4 lumber treated with insect repellant.  The panels are made of what are called Tallo's.  Each Tallo is the center stem of a date palm leaf.  When stripped of their leaves and dried, they're rigid, similar to bamboo or cariso, but more durable.  Each one is nailed with an air gun to horizontal 2x2's running between each post.  If it's cloudy in the morning, I go out and nail for a couple hours, until it gets too hot. It's a slow process, I usually complete one or two sections before the heat gets unbearable.  

Bundles of Tallos below:

                          

Materials storage and work area.  There's no treated lumber available in this region, so we treat each post with a insecticide for termites, paint a tar like substance on the part that will be in the ground to waterproof it, then stain.
                                         

                            

The guy that brought the Tallos, just happen to have some pretty cool lava rocks in the back of his truck... hoping we'd be interested in buying them.  Well, we were.  I think this rock weighed over 300 lbs.  It took a good deal of wrestling to move to where we wanted it.  The hand truck was worthless.  The rock squashed it like a bug.

                          

Done!

                         

We're slowly attempting to control the blowing sand.  We brought in loads of black sand from the local arroyos.  It's heavy and doesn't blow easily.  Walking paths are covered with fine gravel.  Someday we'd like to make walkways, but that's a way's off.   After we get all the plants in, the planters will be filled with red gravel like the island above.

                               

Expanding landscaping on the ocean side of the house:

Rainbow after a little thunderstorm:

Below is the entrance to the courtyard.  We're having gates made in Loreto.  We're supposed to pick them up this week, but yesterday and last night we had a lot of rain from Tropical Storm Ivo.  I doubt the roads will be passable for some time.

The Casita landscaping is much more mature:

View from Casita patio:

Main house patio:

Main house BBQ and outdoor dining area:

  

We have way too many trailers. There's a travel trailer, two cargo trailers, and a camper spread about the property.  

Below is the beginnings of a storage area for the trailers:

Are you in the new house yet?

Quite often, we get asked if we're living in the new house yet.  When I say no, the response is why... what have you been doing all this time?

Well......

There's the solar water heating system that took about forever to install:

But, so far, on a sunny day with temps in the mid 60's, we're getting 115 - 120 degree water!

Then we had to install the propane tank, another lengthy project.

                                    

...and the propane detector.  This connects to a valve at the tank.  If it senses a propane leak, or any other dangerous gases like carbon monoxide, it shuts off the gas flow.

We also had to install (and still need to complete) the low voltage converter, and small solar powered battery system.  

The low voltage converter powers 12 volt outdoor lighting.  The solar battery charger will power bed fans and maybe some outdoor automatic lighting.  It will be seperate from the main solar.   

Then there's the water filter system.  Every faucet will have drinkable water!

Oh...and the grey water drip system.  This collects shower and washing machine water, then converts it into water suitable for a drip system.  

...along with staining and painting of all the doors:

 It's definitely true that detail work takes longer than construction!

I can't believe 4 months have passed since the last post.  During that time we've been working 8 hours/ day, 7 days a week on finish work.  We're finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Here's a photo of the completed kitchen:

One thing we didn't realize with most of the appliances, is that in the instructions, there's a list of "additional" parts needed to install them.  As it turns out, none of the "additional" parts were available anywhere we looked in Mexico.  Most of the installations had to wait until we went North to the States in November to get more supplies.

Master bath and shower are done!  Still need to tile sink countertops though:

Sunrise from the kitchen window:

It's starting to look like a real house!

Upstairs deck:

Sunrise from upstairs deck: