Virtual 360-Degree Tour Of The House!!*

*To get the full, 360-degree effect, be sure to set your monitor to "full resolution." Then, point your screen at the ceiling and walk in circles around your computer a few times while looking at each picture.

Well, the Gringiticasa is finally done, and we're living in it now. There will always be small little crap to finish like hanging up a towel rack here and there or chasing lizards out of the living room, but that's just part of owning a home, I guess. In any case, here are the definitive "done" pictures of the Gringiticasa, and with them, I will also just about call this blog "done"! Thanks for reading, and we hope to have you visit soon!

Front Door.

A view of the back patio.

Taken from the Crappy Casita (subject of a future blog, hopefully!).

A view from the side of the house where we apparently store random sacks of gravel, for some reason.

The Gringiticasa looms imperiously over the Crappy Casita.

A different view from the street.

Even our loser cat Cucho likes the new place.

The garage. Not the classiest part of the tour, but still, not that bad...

My "office"/guest room/future emergency baby storage.

In the same room. Angela's sister made the curtains for the house.
Thank God.

The little bathroom, where you can see the little green pitcher next to a bucket of water in the shower. That's cause the incompetent hick employed by Berlín's junta de agua is still shutting off our [I can't think of an expletive bad enough to fill this space] water every night around 5 or 6 while it's still "summer." It's also why we've not had a housewarming party yet... guests tend to not like filling up a toilet tank with a pitcher of water from the bathtub after using the john.

Angela's office. She's jealous of my kick-ass decorating ability (ie, the Colorado flag). Having said that, though, her office does look a bit scrappy. As in, 's crappy. Ha ha just kidding if you're reading this baby looks like I'm not getting any tonight then, right?

Inside the front door, looking into the living room. I should have probably reordered these, but Blogger only lets you put pictures up in batches of 5, and the order gets all inverted and weird.

The entry hallway.

Our bathroom.

Our bedroom. I should have opened the curtains for a view of the Gulf of Nicoya, but what do you expect from me? I'm not Anne freaking Leibowitz.

The TV room in the middle of the house. Maybe also a guest room. What's certain is it's not a laundry room as we had originally planned, and we're very thankful for my one stroke of genius on this project, when I moved that crap to the garage.

Living room.

A view out the back. And no stunning view would be complete without the Crappy Casita.

Sure, why not?

Anyhow, come here, and we will make you eat rice and beans at this table.

So, that's about it for now for this blog. I'll see about expanding it or creating a new one related to the landscaping or the Crappy Casita, if anyone would be interested in that (possibly not). In the meantime, please receive my warmest thanks for checking out the blog and for all the time and encouragement you've given while I've been writing this blog. It was fun to do, and a good idea at that (Thanks, Kris!).

We'll hope to see you in Berlín de San Rafaél de San Ramón de Alajuela de Costa Rica very soon!

"The Phylis Sitzman Special": Cabinet Pictures

My mom--Phylis Sitzman--did the main design and layout for our kitchen cabinets (maybe this could be a nice side-job, ma...be sure to send me kickbacks!). In any case, they're really nice, and I've been telling her for weeks now that I'd put up some pictures of the cabinets so that she could see them. So, here they are, mom (and notice that we hung up the towel you made us!). For everyone else, you can take a look or just go somewhere else in the cybersphere (preferably here).

The one to the right of the oven and the left of the sink. They pull out.

One side of the island (your butt would be close to the stove here).

The other side of the island (butt would be close to the fidge here). This is our "wine cellar/tool holder." Send wine and tools!

The main cupboard and some bookshelves.

The Lazy Susan in the corner. I tell you, that Susan is a real lazy-ass.

The stuff by the fridge.

So mom, hope you enjoyed them! Thanks for all the help!

A Few More Pictures

Well, the house is basically finished, and the only thing left to do--besides getting the kitchen sink properly hooked up--is to move our crap in!

I've got a few more pictures for you, and that may almost be it. I'll try to put up a few more when we're living inside, but until then, thanks again to everyone who's checked out this blog and encouraged me to keep it up. Hope you liked seeing the slow building process, and remember that you're always welcome to come visit us!

Angela in the kitchen, now with furniture.

Here I am in our door/mirror.

The (simulated) view from our toilet.

Angela's brothers are staining the doors.

Angela and I in our new house (I'm leaning back 'cause the auto-picture kept cutting off my head). In any case, thanks again for checking out the blog!