Almost Done...Or IS It?

The house on November 22, 2008. The only major change is that now we have some little lamps near the sides of the garage door and the house. I guess the only other change that'll be noticeable on the "Poor Man's Time-Lapse" Picture Show will be the painting, whenever that gets done. And any eventual landscaping.

The dining area, which leads out to the back porch.

A partial view of our master bathroom with...wait a minute! Is that a bidet? Damn right, son. If you come to visit the Sitzman/Jimenez Mora de Sitzman house, you can bet your ass that you'll leave with a clean ass!

The sliding doors in the living room, finally installed. Complete with a spectacular view of the Crappy Casita. Hmm, we're gonna have to do something about that. Angela, Honey? If you're going into town, could you pick up a few sticks of dynamite? Thanks, dear!

A blurry picture taken from our future room.

The dining room (left) and the kitchen area (right).

The tub hole, sans tub.

The door to our future room, inviting us in...Soon enough, dear house. Soon enough.

A Busy Week

This week was very productive in terms of getting some of the details done on our house. Angela had talked with her brothers to see if they could get one of their brothers-in-law to varnish the ceilings, since that's something her brothers' brothers-in-law do, evidently. So on Saturday morning at 6:30, the painters showed up at our house. But the painters were her brothers.

I like my brothers-in-law very much, which is why I didn't really want them to varnish the ceiling: it's basically just a really tedious, crappy job. But they said they wanted to do it, and they convinced us to let them. And they did a great, efficient job. Here are some pictures of the painting, and some of the other stuff that was done this week:

Angela's brothers and a friend of theirs, hard at work.

Using screws to attach the paintbrushes to a stick?? Dammit, why didn't we think of that?!

Freddy installed some of the outlets.

Me and Angela's room, with the circuit breaker looking like some sort of gutted bionic animal.

The workers also put in these steps in the back...

...and these steps in the front.

The master bathroom, nearing completion.

These guys were good.

Freddy (right) and Carney--yes, I think that's his real name--installing some of the sockets.

So, that's it for this week. I'll try to get some more pictures up as soon as possible, since things are advancing so quickly now. Thanks for reading!

October Update

October was a busy month, at least on the inside of our house. I know that our builder has been saying "Only two more weeks" for the last few months, but this time it might actually be true! About 95% of the ceiling is up, and most of the rooms have tile now (I'll put up those pics soon). We obviously need to paint the house, but that will probably be the last step of all. And of course, we still need to put in the doors, but that will probably be done this week. So, all in all, we may be moving in sooner than later.

In the meantime, please have a look at these recent pictures. Hope you enjoy!

The living room when they were putting up the ceiling.

Our in-house model, Angela Rosa de los Angeles Jimenez Mora de Sitzman, demonstrating the beauty and classiness of the tile in our bathroom. The naysayers said we couldn't put tile up to the ceiling, but we nary say "nay"; nay, we say "Yea!" Plus, this makes it have the same tile-filled ambience of a bus station bathroom.

October 5, 2008: It still looks the same, but at least they're doing stuff on the inside.

The finished ceiling on the back porch.

The living room/kitchen/dining room, before the first coat.

I now hate varnish.

Oh, sure, it'll be easy to put varnish on the ceiling... at least we had music, though. And once I changed from "Shuffle" to exclusively Bon Jovi, productivity--especially among Ticas--increased markedly.

Kati, one of our neices who we suckered into helping us varnish the ceiling. She was the one who cleaned a lot of it with a mop before the painting.

Angela, varnish-ing.

Kati flips out and stages a Mop Rebellion in order to escape from the work. We later replaced her with Mariela, another niece who naively wandered into the construction.

Kati cleaning the ceiling.

The room after the first coat. Sure, it kills your neck and arms to look up and paint for 6 or 7 hours with a roller on a broomstick, but the fumes get you so high that you don't really notice after the first two hours or so.

So, that's it for this time. I'll try to get some more pictures up ASAP, but with the novel writing, it may take more time. In the meantime, hope everyone is well!