The Walls are Plastered, The Water Is In

             

The  walls of the second floor are plastered, inside and out, front and back.  All the columns are plastered.  Macho Man says they are ready for paint, so in the next week or so I plan to be over there with my equipment and the paint and get started. 

                                

If you look closely, you can see the blocks on the first floor have not been plastered.  They will be, but not right now.

                                  

                                            Here you can see how smooth this plaster is.

                                 

The plaster is put right up against the electrical boxes and the window frames.  Jose is so particular about his work that he makes sure that each outlet is perfect and there are few, if any, seams between the window frames and the plaster.

                                 

And here is how they get the plaster so smooth.  The plaster is thrown up against the wall to make it stick in all the little nooks and crannies, and then Jose takes this 1 x 4 with hand holds cut into it and scrapes the plaster over and over until it is perfectly level.  Then it allowed to dry and get ready for paint.

                                

This is the front door, looking into the living room.  The front and back double doors will be made of solid Rosita 2x6s. 

                                 

The window and door frames are all in upstairs and we are getting ready to make the windows.  Last week the glass was installed in the arched portion of the windows.  The windows will be doubles, in the old  Spanish Colonial  style.  The windows will be made from Rosita 2x4’s.  The window niches are 6” deep, but they will be pretty much filled up with windows, screens and wrought iron security bars.

                                  

             This is very close to what the Rosita will look like with a coat of matte varnish.

                     

                                                                                

We have electricity, at least on the portico and in the living room.  We are trying to pick out the wood for the ceiling.  The biggest problem with that is we both like the look of bare wood, but in Honduras, if you don’t want to have the termites literally eat you out of house and home you have to use treated wood.   The treated wood is a sickly green color, which would have to be painted over.  It is also treated with arsenic, which I don’t particularly want to be breathing 24/7.  I wish we could afford to buy Rosita for the ceiling, but it is very expensive.

                                     

We have water in the kitchen and the bathrooms.  So why haven’t we moved in yet?  Because we haven’t installed the plumbing fixtures.  That will probably happen in the next week or so.  By mid-August, si Dios quiere, we will move in and continue working. 

                                  

I'm told this is the faucet for the hose I will be using to water my garden.  Yeah, right.  I have trouble walking on a flat floor.  Guess who won't be hooking up the hose. 

                                  

This is Pancho,  our watchman.  Pancho works 7 nights a week for us, and during the day he comes by if he sees anyone or anything strange on the property.  Sometimes he drops by and helps out with the work.  We have learned to ask Pancho his opinion on many things.   Pancho is about 70 years old, but anyone would be an idiot to mess with him.  He has a really nasty looking sawed off shotgun and a machete, and he knows how to use both.  Yet he is the gentlest teddy bear you could ever want to meet.  Chico likes Pancho, which says something.

We are blessed with the way our house is coming along, and with the friends who are making it possible.  Thank you Jose, Marvin, and Pancho.  Thank you, Ramirez Family.  And the biggest thanks of all goes to my beloved Macho Man, for building my dream house, and doing it so well.

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