more sunken costs and the joys of moving...

Who the hell knows what all those pipes are for, but in any case, we´re paying for them, so better keep a record....


The lawn is going to go all the way to the side of the pool until we have the deck made, at which point we can "harvest" the lawn and put it somehwere else.

Our new bed... the mattress was custom built to our specs, came out great.

Lovely chaos... and a table leg upside down. Virtually all the boxes were opened by customs, but nothing appears to have been stolen, something I feared for things such as silverware, or CDs. Also, we were lucky that they didn´t open the boxes containing the 20 liters of extra virgin olive oil from the famouos Maramara olive region in Turkey. I don´t know whether it would have passed through had they seen the cans.

Now the table is in its normal position, books on the shelves, kitchen stuff all stored away, and the box hell considerably tamed after a few hours of work with Barbi and my Mom.

Lights, camera...

Actually, the first time we see the lights at night. I didn´t see them in person, but Barbi went to oversee the unloading of the truck with our furniture. Tomorrow morning we get the container with our stuff from Turkey...

We got lawn!

The beginning of a lawn in any case. Something about this wide will surround the house. The greay cracked stone is our parking area.

Sunken costs

View from the main road. The worker´s house is now completely demolished. The more they clean the land, the bigger it looks. The landscaper is convinced we will not be able to handle it, he thinks i should leave the "jungle" we see in this picture as is, but I am terrified of snakes, and I saw all kinds of movement in the bushes today... We´ll destroy the habitat.

We now have power lines, if I were richer they would have gone underground, but that will have to wait...

The landscaping is proceeding at full speed. The grey pebbles spread out in front of the house will be the parking area. The other dark mound is lawn "cakes".

Well, there is Fabiana, our ferocious and loyal guard. She´s watching the entrance to the house. The pipe stuff are drainage channels to divert rain water away from the house. The little blue pipe inside I think is for the sprinklers. The worker in the back is laying the soil that goes under the lawn sections. There will be a lawn border around the house, to protect the drainage pipes and also to make things a bit neater. The rest will just have to become lawn on its own...


I have decided to go with the satellite internet access, which is very costly in terms of installation, but it would appear to be the only truly reliable option I have at this point. So we will pollute the house´s roof with a dish, plus a small one for DirectTv. Maybe I will put a kiosk by the road, sell internet access by the minute. I will be the only one in Punta Negra and Barra de Portezuelo with broadband I think.

The bobcat

Water in the pool! Our well was tested by the pool people, and apparently it´s good water, no iron, and very clear.

The bobcat starting the topography work, cleaning and smoothing the land surrounding the pool, while Victoria, very pregnant, enjoys the beautiful spring day.

TThe pool people were not too gentle with the land. Their machine left moat-deep tracks...

Spring. Everywhere yellow flowers, these daisy types and lots and lots and lots of yellow broom.



Frankie, our Frankensteinish stove...

We got the stairway railing, matching the one in the terrace.

As we were leaving today, we saw the UTE (power utility) truck bringing the wooden posts and the wire to the site. Fabian talked to them, they said they will start work on Monday, so in about a week from Monday we should have juice. That´s our cue to move in. There are many small details pending, but that´s the one thing preventing us from moving in, the electricity. The rest, we will finish once we´re there. Also, the container is arriving from Turkey in one week, so the timing seems to be OK.

White and blue

The whiter it is inside, the more the landscape stands out. Love it.

Kitchen cabinets are all white already. The new sturdy industrial stove is in place already, but I forgot to take a picture yesterday. It looks quite Frankensteinish, but super cute. They promised to replace the oven handle, which in stark contrast with the very squarish boxy appliance, they decided to make in turned wood, with curlicue shape. We laughed when we saw it, the guy did not see the joke, said it was like that because it was for "domestic" not commercial use. His "homey" touch.

Against the black granite counter top, the white wooden cabinets look very sharp. It will all be softened with some nice hardwood dining table (probably teak, I have a beautiful, huge one in mind) and with some leather (a couple of Barcelona chairs upholstered in distressed, light-brown leather, comfy and classy) and some rustic-looking linen upholstery for the two sofas. I think all the furniture will stand out nicely, but for the same reason everything has to be very carefully chosen, no so-so anything because it will stick out like a sore thumb...


The pool covered in the blue glass mini tiles.

We are now entering the final part, for good. The pool is almost finished, pending the landscape engineer´s drainage works. Because the plot is on a slight slope, with the land falling off in two different directions, we have to be careful with the drainage so as not to end up with a flooded pool, a clogged pool filter or dampness in the downstairs area of the house.

Therefore, the landscapers (Punta Ballena Jardines I think they´re called) will take care of all major structural re-arranging of the land, smoothing out the entire area, that now looks like a lunar surface, installing underground drainage channels in order to avoid water/dampness problems, and also adding layers of sand, good soil and lawn on some portions of the plot.

Last, and and very importantly, they will install the sprinkler system wherever there is a lawn (immediately around the house and between the house and the pool) and also on the perimeter of the 3 plots, so as to be able to start planting trees and shrubs to create a green barrier closing off the main road and hiding some of the neighboring houses from our direct view.

This is all quite costly for us. It may be peanuts compared to U.S. or European costs, I´m sure, but at this point it´s quite a financial effort, so that´s why we are so late in starting with it. Also, it´s the kind of thing that we failed to budget when planning the house (good thing, otherwise I may have ended with a smaller house) so at the end of the construction it feels like a big ticket item that we didn´t bargain for. Good to know for next time.

With regards to the actual gardening, I have decided to engage the services of my cousin and her partner, who, even at regular non-cousin rates are considerably cheaper than similar-quality landscaping firms or designers operating from Punta del Este.

I liked it when she told me that for each type of plant or shrub or tree she has a favorite supplier, rated in terms of value as quality of the specimen vs. price. "I have a palm-tree guy" she said by way of example, "that plants the palm trees himself." It sounds pretty obvious, but from what I know around here, landscape designers mostly work with a single purveyor, that is, with a single nursery per project. Maybe they alternate between two or three nurseries, but that´s about it, and locally, the good nurseries are pretty expensive, and so are the landscape designers´ services. I´m thrilled to finally be able to start thinking about trees and such. I have to temper my enthusiasm because of the natural constraints of the land (winds, soil) but I´m optimistic that I can grow quite the jungle out there eventually...

Barbi goes for a swim

The tiles are actually dark blue glass, the tiny kind, what we see here is the paper that glues together a bunch of them.

Today was a beautiful, warm sunny day, and we went to the house with Barbi and our friend Jorge, to meet the kitchen guy. The pool has been tiled, finally, after a very rainy period. They actually had to pump out the water accumulated on the bottom of the pool in order to do the tiling.