New Captains at the helm…

When I last posted, we were in a “stuck position”, with the entire shell and interior of the house basically completed. Of course, final work, like installation of lighting, ceiling fans, finished plumbing work was being held up by major issues. Notably, delays in the finished install of cabinets, which have held up the install of granite countertops, followed by plumbing, like sinks and faucets.

 Sunrise from the Peterson Beach Home, who says sunsets are the best ?

Of course, the kitchen counters and granite were not the only issues in the kitchen, as you probably remember. The incorrect and non- functioning folding windows and doors that were ordered needed to be replaced by a supplier from Guatemala. For well over two months, all I heard was “they won’t answer my calls”, they won’t reply to my emails”, and finally, “I don’t think they are going to replace them”!

Ceiling Fans installed by Nelsons Electricians, but no power to test them yet

Enough is enough, and Marsha and I have taken control of tis situation by ordering the correct folding window for kitchen and folding large doors for the living room, from Benny’s here in Belize. Marsha has taken great pains to send them all the specs, including legal drawings created by our Architect Tracy, so they order and install the correct windows and doors. And these will actually have the ability to lock!

Cabinets arriving and ready to be installed

I would highly suggest that if you plan to build your house in Belize, you personally take control of specialty orders, and if possible, get them ordered and installed by a reputable Belize company.

One good thing that gave us a ton of relief was the delivery of all our appliances, ready to install.

Appliances arrive to be installed after cabinets are installed, and we have electric to house ?

The past few days things have started to get better and we see finality to our building project. In addition to taking control of the window/door issue, we also took total responsibility for all granite costs and install. Lucky for us our granite is coming from a supplier right down the road from us here in Maya Beach, A.L. Construction who are personal friends of ours. In fact, we paid in full for all the interior and exterior granite, and they bumped the installation ahead of those with only deposits.

Granite counters arriving for install in kitchen.

Issues with payments to our cabinet maker / woodworker Conrad Lewis in Hopkins, Belize, were eliminated when we arranged to take over payments for that too, and he has already installed all kitchen cabinets.

Cabinets installed and ready for granite install.

On another note, you probably remember our large mounds of “lagoon sand” that was finally spread over the property. Well, regretfully the guy who was not our regular bobcat guy working for Nelson Montalvo, mixed the beautiful beach sand that was set aside, to be placed on top of the lagoon sand on our beach. The result is hard packed, full of debris, crappy beach sand. Definitely not happy with this.

But, there’s always a silver lining if you know where to look. We had a meeting with our builder Nelson Montalvo the other day and went over our list of everything that needs to be completed or repaired. Nelson will be having his bobcat “expert” come back and fix what was done, moving some good sand to the beach after scraping off the bad. If needed we will also have him bring in some clean river sand.

Whole House Gas Generator installed.

Our electrical stuff is all installed now, and Freddie our electrician / plumber that works for Nelson, even installed our Generac “whole house” generator, with oversight by the local Generac dealer, Belmopan Aggregates and Hardware. This system will kick on so fast in an outage that we won’t even notice lights flickering!

After a year and all electric installed, the power finally run to house.

Surprise! As I am writing I realize there’s a strange motor outside, and it didn’t sound like a vehicle. I head out to the porch of the cabana, and low and behold, the generator is on! It ran for ten minutes and shut off, obviously an automatic self-test. Sweet!

The first set of palm trees installed.

I will close with a shot of our first group of Palm trees delivered and planted. Things are really starting to come together, finally, despite the “bad and ugly”.

Palm trees being delivered, who says size doesn’t matter ?

We were very lucky to have Nelson Montalvo and all his guys and equipment on our house build from day one. They are excellent at what they do, and with his constant attention, and working hand in hand with the cabinet and granite guys, we should be in our new home in a week or so.

And this time, I will say with confidence, that week or so will occur this month.

Cheers all,

The Pirate….Gary