Time for doors!

So I am getting closer to moving in although the tiling did take a bit longer than expected. I am actually really pleased with the finished floors, I have never tiled floors before - or anything else for that matter. So it is one step closer to moving in.

The only brick doorway I could save

There has been a lot of progress with the plastering the last big room is complete and I will be starting on the front of the house next week. It was funny I walked out the front of the house the other day when I was walking Enzo and this girl asked me if I lived there - obviously I said yes and she said ‘what an ugly house!’. I was a little bit offended but then I actually sat back and had a look and it is about time I sorted the front out.

Finished bedroom floor

I have to get permission to close the sidewalk for a week or so whilst I plaster the front - I am hoping to start mid next week. 

Rebuilding my garden wall

I also started to rebuild the garden wall as it was half falling down, I decided to add an extra six feet on top of the wall as the house next door is ugly to say the least. It will add a lot more privacy to my garden.

Concreting the floors

So whilst all the plastering has been going on I decided it was about time to put some door on my place. How hard could it be I thought? well it turned out to be very difficult. First of all I had to decide on the type of doors  - metal... wood... glass... etc. Doors can make a huge difference to the appearance of the house so I wanted to make the right choice. 

First door frame up

Now not only was it the style but the fact that every single door way in my house is not a standard size the cost would be prohibitive as they would have to be custom made. I put a couple doors on the pool house a couple of months ago but I didnt really like them, they were cheap but they are very thin and lightweight.

First door hung - will look better when stained

Soooo there was only one option left - to make the doors myself. I decided to use 2 inch pine for the doors - I want heavy weight solid doors so decided to give it a go on my apartment first and I am pretty pleased with the results.

Next double door to be hung

Ok I know they dont look great at the moment but they will look a lot better when I stain them to look like dark wood. I am also thinking about cutting a hole in them and maybe adda window or two but will decide that later on.

Starting the floors

I have been slacking a lot on my blog lately so here is where I am at... The plastering is STILL going on - the amount of cement I have used is unbelievable, I reckon it will be close to 1000 bags once the walls are complete. 

The end of the plastering is near though, they are on the last big room downstairs which leaves only the front and sides of the building and a couple of bathrooms upstairs and it will be done.

Completed balcony

The walls without a doubt have been the biggest job - the time it has taken has thrown me off schedule by about 2 months! The guys are getting on well though - I reckon one more month and they will be complete. I have got one of them rebuilding the garden wall down one side of the house and making it higher as it is not the most pleasant view at the moment.

Finishing touches

I have been working so hard on getting my area ready. All the plumbing is complete and the cistern is now fully operational. It has been filling up for three days and is still not full so I am hoping that means I will not run out lol

Cistern complete!

For me to move in obviously I want running water but I cannot have that until I install the pressure tank - it should be soon though as I am building an outbuilding in the garden to house the tanks and pumps next week.

Almost ready for the roof over the balcony

I have also tried my hand at tiling the floors in my place. It was a bit of a slow start but I got the hang of it and now I just have two rooms left in my place. A friend from Australia is visiting at the moment so I managed to convince her that helping me tile floors is more fun than laying on the beach! Not quite sure how that happened.

Starting to tile my apartment

This next week I am hoping to have my place almost ready to move in. I went to the electricity company today to get a meter installed so I can finally connect up my panel. So after I finish the floors I just need to add doors, windows and paint and it will pretty much be ready. Its starting to get exciting now!

Tahnee helping with the tiles

Looking good...

The rain has stopped which has been a blessing as being up to my ankles in mud was starting to get annoying. I have finished the steps outside my apartment in the back garden which is awesome as I have been waiting sort out the balcony for a while now. The rear balcony although safe was sagging in places so I decided to use some of the old Mahogany roof beams to level it up a bit and give it a bit more support as I am going to add quite a bit of weight with the hand rail upstairs.

Putting up the pillars

It was tough work getting the beams up as they weigh a lot but with ropes and a hydraulic car jack I managed to get them up and straighten the balcony. 

Pillars in place

Now that this is finished the guys have started the plastering of the outside downstairs which is awesome as its looking like I will be able to move in soon.

Infiltration pit

I have had a lot of bad luck with tools this last week my skill saw, drill and chainsaw have all broken which sucks. They are all covered but warranty but I soon found out that  it is not worth the paper it is written on. If you buy something here after sales service is non existent. One place actually told me it is not their problem - go to the manufacturer (on a 2 day old chainsaw).

Plastering under the balcony

The plumbing has been coming along nicely - I am about 80% finished downstairs so not far off finishing. Due to all the rain the cistern filled up with water - ok I know its meant to be full of water but I hadn’t finished the inside of it so that is now all drained - so I am hoping I can get that finished in the next week or so as I am building a little shed to house my pressure tank and pumps which means I will soon have running water - exciting stuff.

I have also started putting my infiltration into place - the big hole in the ground was starting to annoy me. So I aim to get that finished tomorrow - hopefully that will stop the river running through my house when it rains!

My finished pillars

So a pretty short update but I am very excited at the moment, it is finally coming together.

Rain and mud!

I do not now what is going on but without a doubt I have picked the rainy season to complete this project. My whole garden is full of earth from digging all my channels for the plumbing which is now all mud and running through the house. But I will not let it slow me down! So in my last post I was just about to start the plumbing which was a job that I should have done earlier - probably before the electrics but thats just the way things go.

I feel like a plumbing store

Probably the hardest thing I have to deal with is having to start jobs whilst I am in the middle of another job - that is one of my biggest hates - I like to see a completed job before I move on to another but that is impossible, for example the reason why I started with the electrics first after the roof and floor was due to having the guys ready to start the walls - so I started the electrics telling them to just leave to rooms with the plumbing until I start plumbing. Then something will come up - like my rear balcony is not level so they could not start the plastering under the balcony as it would crack when I jack it up... simple - add some pillars, but before that I need to lay the concrete base for those pillars - but thats where all the plumbing pipes run so I need to do those before the pillars... you get my drift? My mind has about a million things running through it!

getting to grips with the pipes

The issue is I am just one person with two hands, it gets pretty tough. People just say to me why don’t you get someone in to help but to be honest you never know who to trust and also budget constraints - plus if i do it myself I know where everything is - so when it goes wrong I will know where to fix it!

So time for the plumbing update - I feel like a plumbing store as I ordered enough pipes and fittings to get started and set to work. My priority was to sort a working toilet as I mentioned last week that the inspection pit was collapsed in so the pipes were just backing up. I tried to find a pvc inspection pit like I have seen online but after visiting what seemed like every hardware store in Santo Domingo I gave in and started to make it myself. I have to admit I am pretty proud of it - although it did take the best part of a day to get all the angles right and to ensure it all flows correctly.

My homemade inspection pit

So after sorting the main inspection pit out to the street I turned my attention to the downstairs plumbing. I mentioned before that I wanted to move in as soon as possible and that has not changed so I decided to focus all my attention downstairs in my apartment.

The bathrooms pipes are all fitted and tested - again like the electrics first time I have done this so it is a learning curve - my evenings involve watching youtube videos and searching google for answers - what fun!

The hole for my infiltration system

Now back to the rain... I have a big roof which obviously means a lot of rain water. Almost all of the houses here just have pipes emptying it onto the street, which is fine until the street fills up - which does happen! Not ever wanting to deal with that I decided to make an infiltration system in the garden - simply a big hole with rocks, barrels and pipes with holes in it... I wont go in to the details but it is a great way to drain away all the rain water. I am building it at the bottom of my garden so not only does the roof water go into it so does all the water running down the hill. I am hoping this will solve the river running through my place when it rains!

The balcony needs to be leveled asap so the guys can start the outside of my living area so I also turned my attention to that. Now as my garden in on a slope I decided to make a walkway with steps outside my living area under the balcony. I am about a day or two away from finishing that which is when I can finally finish the plastering outside by putting up the pillars.

Steps in the garden

So that is about it for this installment. I am absolutely shattered but loving it, just cant wait for the property to be completed.

What is that funky smell?

You guessed it - time to start the plumbing. Now I knew the pipes were in a bit of a state as all the upstairs plumbing was blocked along with all the drains so I was expecting to replace everything.

Trench the length of the property for pipes

I got an extra guy in to dig up all the channels for the new pipes as I didn’t want to slow down my guys doing the plastering. They have finished in the inside downstairs and have just started to do the outside under the arches. The ceilings are so high it makes me want to cry when I see how much cement I go through a day... but the good news is I am about two thirds done with the walls - I cannot wait to to finish them all.

All the old pipes were blocked solid 

I have dug the trench a bit wider in the back garden as I need to make some concrete foundations for the pillars to sure up the balcony - I thought I may as well do this whilst I am putting the plumbing in. 

There was a lot of rocks!

My original plan was to install a 6 inch pipe down the length the of the property and tie in all the 4 inch wastage pipes from the bathrooms and drains. All looked good on paper... However when I got to digging up the collapsed inspection pit - which is inside the house I might add - I found the old clay pipe that connects the main sewage line under the street outside. Now the good news is that it seems to be all in tact but the bad news is that it is only 4 inches... 

Thats the clay pipe in the right hand corner of the pit

So I have a decision to make before I move on... I have spoken to a few other house owners and a small hotel in the Colonial Zone and apparently that is the norm. To me it seems very small as I will have around 10 bathrooms - it doesn’t seem right to me. My choice is either go to Ayuntamiento (which I really don’t want to do after the permit process) to dig up the road outside my house to connect a 6 inch pipe or just go with the 4 inch and add an extra inspection pit and cleanouts to ensure if it does block I can unclog it with ease.  I haven’t a clue what to do yet to be honest going to have to think about that one. 

Plastering under the sun deck

So plumbing wise I have about 6 more days of digging for the guy to do and in the mean time I am getting quotes for all the pipes and fittings. But I am hoping it goes quite quickly to actually install the plumbing - I have it all planned out so hopefully I shouldn’t run in to to many problems. 

Plastering is moving along well

I am eventually getting through my job list - every now and then something pops up however... like yesterday I forgot to run the wire to the grounding rod so I was rushing to get it installed before the guys plaster that wall. Also I have been meaning to fix a few things on my car and service my bike - so this week I replaced my starter motor, two window motors and front brakes on my Jeep and replaced the front and rear brake pads on my bike along with changing the oil. Its little things like that I have been meaning to do for a while now but you know its time when you have to carry a hammer to start the Jeep and you hear scraping whilst you brake on your bike. 

Fixing my bike around the mess

So hopefully by the next post I will have most of the waste pipes fitted in the house and the guys should almost be finished the plastering out the back. Until next time...

Light at the end of the tunnel...

I am really starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. It may not look it from the photos but I have had a really productive couple of weeks. Where shall I start...

Upstairs rear of house

Well I have finally finished running all the electrical wiring over the whole house - the amount of wire I used was a bit of a shock but it is done now and I have to say I did not enjoy doing it that much. Having to dig in the walls was tired and dirty work - a lot of people said to me why dont I just run wires outside on the walls but I hate the look of houses with external wiring and while I was doing the walls anyway it seemed stupid not to run them in the walls.

A big job!

I am sure I have made a few mistakes in there somewhere but I will find them when I start testing the circuits. I have used a 200amp main panel, a 125amp sub panel for upstairs and to 40 amp junction boxes at either end in the garden. I forget the size of the place sometimes as I have had to buy and install over 300 wall outlets/switch boxes. I did go a little crazy putting outlets everywhere but it is better to have to many than to little... right?

Makeshift Scaffolding 

The guys have been working really hard with the walls - I can tell they are fed up with it - it makes it worse have to bring all the materials upstairs so hopefully it will be easier downstairs. They have done a really good job upstairs and have just finished it today, well I say finished... I haven’t completed the plumbing yet so I have 4 bathrooms and a kitchen left to plaster up there but its 80% completed.

Starting downstairs

The amount of windows, doors and details in each room is really time consuming and it gets frustrating at times with the apparent lack of progress - but when that happens I just look back at my last blog post and see the progress since my last post and the frustration goes away.

My big goal over the next month is to actually move in - might seem like a crazy thought looking at the photos but once the walls and plumbing are complete downstairs its doors, floors and decorate and our home is ready. It will save me a fortune in gas and time going back and forward each day as gas seems to be going up in price everyday here at the moment.

Just finishing the windows

One of the jobs that has popped up is the rear balcony - I kind of put it to the back of my mind and though I would just deal with it at the end but it became apparent that I need to do something with it before they plaster downstairs. It looks in a bad state but the supports are safe, although they are not level. They are made from concrete with metal bar so are really strong but I want to build a little roof overhanging the balcony - although it will not be heavy I am unsure about adding any extra weight to it.

So the plan is to use the old roof beams as pillars to hold and level the balcony and continue those pillars up to the overhang roof. I was a little unsure about how this would look at first but I liked the look of the pillars supporting the roof on the pool house so I thought why not give it a go.

Looking good

The other option is to build concrete pillars to hold it all up but I like the idea of using the old roof beams as look awesome and best of all they are free! Being as the base of the pillars is where the plumbing will be run I will start digging it up and putting up the pillars at the same time.

Beach house in Azua

I am working 6 days a week, around 10 hours a day at the moment - I am not complaining as I love it but it sure does get you tired. I try and get away every Sunday to do something different - this weekend it was a friends beach house in Azua - just thought I would add this photo in as I had a great day off.

So whilst the guys have the plastering downstairs to keep them busy for at least another month I can move on to my next task. The plumbing! I am really looking forward to it as I got so bored of running wires.

Wow, time is flying - I cannot believe it is August already. I am a little behind my planned schedule but still reasonably happy with the progress so far. The walls have turned out to be a bigger task than thought and even more of an expense than planned. You would not believe the amount of cement I have gone through...

An almost complete pool house

Although when you look back at what the walls were like before you can tell why it needed so much - I dont think one wall is straight in the whole house.

Finished walls - what a difference

The guys have started on the outside upstairs now which will be a massive transformation - I cannot wait for it to be completed. Whilst the guys are doing the walls I have been finishing running the electric downstairs, I have finished the back part of the house and the outside lighting now I need to do the four big main rooms. Its one hell of a job but I am getting there.

The huge doorways take a lot of time

I have just bought the main panel so have started to dig in to the wall to fit that into place. As soon as I finish the electrics I am going to have to start the plumbing. Thats the problem with being on a tight budget - I have a list a mile long and it keeps on getting bigger!. 

The outside walls - had seen better days

The pool house at the back of the property was annoying me as the roof was leaking and was half finished so I decided to task myself with finishing that. First was the roof, the tiles put up by a previous worker had to come off as it was leaking and I put a proper roof with waterproof membrane and replaced the tiles on top.

Cant wait to get painting

It was a bit of a pain as I had to buy a few more roof tiles as I broke about 15 when taking them off but I was pleased with the finished roof. I also finished hanging the doors, and varnishing all the wood - a very messy job but I thought I should do it sooner rather than later to protect the wood. I also put another beam I recycled from the old roof as a support - I think it looks pretty good actually.

Rear balcony

The doors were a priority of mine as now I have a secure lockable room for all my tools which is a big weight off my mind. I know I have Enzo to guard the place and the workers but it just makes me sleep easy knowing they are secure.

Remember this picture - should be a big transformation in a few weeks

So hopefully by the next post the upstairs plastering will almost be complete... until next time.