detail work

In the last week or so, Eduardo's been working on details. Light switches and plugs have been installed, as well as the edging of the windows. The paper laterns have been hung, but the final placements for the lighting fixtures will wait until I'm back in Cuiabá. Less than a week to go, and much easier than me kvetching about 30cm in one direction or another over skype.



And the most recent addition has finished Eduardo's table! The rest of the granite will take a bit longer (early January, I believe), but this piece had to be purchased from a different vendor. It's the same stone, but our primary vendor didn't have enough in stock. I imagine the stools we get will be a bit taller than Eduardo's bucket.



Merry Christmas!

more photos!

There's internet back on the farm, and now in the casinha as well. So Eduardo took me on a quick tour of the house before lunch today. And it's remarkable how much has changed in the last couple of weeks. The stone for the bench in the shower has been installed, and he's mocking up some of the lights. Also, the majority of the switch plates and wiring boxes are installed, which makes everything look much more finished. Now if the last tiles would only arrive... though theoretically they should get in on Tuesday. But no more tiles installed until January since Zé (out amazing tile guy) is at home.

Here's the current incarnation of the kitchen. With paper laterns with pressed flowers hanging over what will be the island.


And the stone installed in the bathroom. In this picture it looks way darker than in the last photo I have. Here you can also see the one wall still lacking tile...

one blueberry wall

or as Eduardo likes to call it-- Indigo, either one works for me. I can feel his blank stare through the internet as I describe a color as cornflower, or chalky anything. But blueberry is valid for two reasons-- one, he loves blueberries and two, that really was the name of the paint color we used in new hampshire. The only downside being that the color that is called 'blueberry', that is very similar to the color below, isn't the color of a blueberry!



The crazy thing is when I flip through the pictures on my laptop, iPhoto cycles. So right after the most recent picture, the first picture I have of a dusty kitchen with the old floor, and a wall that doesn't exist anymore and no ceiling pops up. It's a shock to see how much has changed.

final granite decisions

So in the end, what we thought was amarelo ornamental was actually amarelo icarai. how could we have been so foolish?? ... right. Anyhow-- whatever its called-- it's the final decision for the kitchen. Its a little bland, but there will be a lot of granite in there. And in the photo below it looks blander than it actually is next to the ornametal. Also-- did you know that really pale granites can be stained by oil? We had no clue-- but apparently this granite isn't too pale. Eduardo tested a not so visible area and we're good to go.



In the bathroom, there will be less than a meter-sq of granite, which means we got to pick something more fun. A granite with crazy splashes of green and blue and gold and creme on a brownish red base is what we're going with (the left panel in the pic). I think it might out weigh our colored back wall, but it should be good. And it's too pretty to pass up. The jatoba tiles are in the upper-left corner. But the images on the web are also kind of crummy. For example-- the top left (shanghai yellow) has little flecks of gold in it that are not at all visible in the image, and the bottom right tile (etna green) is actually more green than mud colored. Also there will be a grand total of ~33 cm where the tile will actually be next to the granite, so even if they don't perfectly match, we should be ok.

But the word from the stone shop is that the granite will be ready and installed by Christmas!

a little bit of color

Still no internet on the farm, but a few more pictures received. Before I left, Edu and I kicked around the idea of painting a wall in some of the rooms to add some more color. We really like colors, our place in new hampshire had a chili colored wall in the kitchen and a blueberry colored wall in the bedroom. It made it really warm and cozy.

Granted, I don't think we need to worry about the place in Brazil being sufficiently 'warm', but cozy is always important. So some yellow and blues are being judiciously applied. In general we're going with pale, calm colors. But the guest room is going to get an indigo wall reminiscent of our blueberry wall in new hampshire.

the home stretch...

Since my last post the internet has been down on the farm (apparently a lightning strike got the antenna), so not too many photos have arrived. But the tiles are now installed (except the bathroom tiles that have yet to arrive), and the doors are installed as well. Apparently the dogs and chickens are not fans of their newly limited access.

So the most recent photos...
The door onto the varanda

and the pretty kitchen tiles (one short, but it will arrive soon...)

Next week the painter will be back to do the last coat, and the measurements for the counters will be taken. And hopefully more photos will be arriving with the internet repaired.

The SP Tiles

So last night Eduardo sent the first photo of the day:



It's the kitchen wall behind where the stove will be. With the newly re-arrived tiles from Sao Paulo. This morning the rest of the kitchen wall tiles will be installed, and then the floor will start to go in.

More tiles!

Today was pretty busy, and full of progress. I picked up my Brazilian driver's license (without having to give up my American license), Eduardo fixed the roof of the clinic, the kitchen accent tiles arrived from sao paulo (again...), we picked up two granite base boards, and another room and a half has been tiled! This is all good, because tomorrow morning we head to Sao Paulo, and I head to the US from there and won't be back until the end of December. Eduardo's promised daily photos of the construction while I'm gone, so I won't be left behind.

So our bags our packed, and it's bed time. I'll post pictures soon.

Tiles and Pruning

So, last Monday, the tile guy was supposed to arrive. Unfortunately, he never showed up. No word and no sighting all week. So off we went to find another person who could install the tiles. Clovis hunted down Option #1, but he wouldn't have been able to get it done until the end of the year, and was going to cover about R20 / m-sq. Luckily, through a patient of Evelyn's we found option #2 -- and he started yesterday. And should likely finish by the end of next week.

José, the tile guy, is fantastic. He does good work, he understands what we want, and he's good humoured. So the floor for the guest room is laid as of today, as is a bathroom wall. As it turns out the other bathroom wall needed to have a pipe moved so it would line up right with the toilet. Eduardo and Cosme took care of that little issue today.





Eduardo also did a little pruning in the back yard today. There's a jabuticaba tree that wasn't getting enough light to bear fruit, so Eduardo cleared some of the branches of the mango tree that was shading it. He also pruned some more of the low branches of the mango tree to open up the view. It means it'll be a little trickier to pick mangoes, but we'll have more shady space to enjoy. The branch he's sitting on is slated to go tomorrow.

Granite finalists!

... the three finalists (for type of granite to use for the counter tops and possibly base tile) are:

Branco Kashmir (Silver White)

Ornamental Yellow

and Ceará White

Historically I've favored Branco Ceará, but currently I'm leaning toward Amarelo Ornamental. It both looks better with the floor tiles and is less expensive. But really, I'm just glad that Eduardo has realized that Salmão Tropical is *really* pink.

Tiú: the dirty ol' egg sucking lizard

Monday, while hanging out, enjoying the holiday, making sushi and chocolate mousse, we heard the dogs going crazy inside the casinha. Eduardo heard the ruckus over the mixer. We both went over to check it out, and found the dogs had cornered a huge lizard behind the door propped up against the back of the house. And this is the kind of lizard that eats chicken's eggs, and chicks as well when it has the chance. Therefore, its not particularly welcome on the farm. Eduardo managed to grab its tail, but it just shed that section of tail. Eduardo got a hold of it once more, but it just shed more tail. So it was left to fend for itself against the dogs.

I didn't manage to get a photo of that particular Tiú, but I did manage to get a photo of a smaller one that Eduardo and his dad caught last week.

Two steps forward...

... and one step back.

Friday Evelyn noticed that the door frame to the kids' room was facing the wrong direction. doh! Originally this placement made sense as there were two doors. One coming in from what was Clovinho's room, and the other going through to what was their parent's room. However, in the current incarnation of the house, what had been Clovinho's room is now a hall that opens up to the back porch. The guest room has been made a bit smaller, and there are now doors to both of the back bedrooms that don't involve going through someone else's room. So the door between the two back bedrooms was bricked up, and we were left with one door between the kids' room and the hall. The problem being, this door was set to open into the hall as opposed to opening into the bedroom.

So it was decided-- better to deal with a week of annoyance now as opposed to a life time of annoyance later. I.e. better to fix the door frame. Luckily, it's gone faster than we expected. Friday morning, Eduardo cut out the door frame. Friday afternoon, Cosme smoothed out the hole in the wall. And today, Eduardo will reinstall the door frame (facing the correct direction) with foam. To reinstall it with cement would have required making a significantly bigger hole.



I realize that Friday and Tuesday are not contiguous days of the week. But we had a wedding in Campo Grande this weekend, and yesterday was a holiday. We spent it making (and eating) a ridiculous amount of sushi.

Tile Massacre: Update

In a stunning twist, I don't have to redesign the kitchen! We went to the store to return the tiles this afternoon and discovered that the tiles that arrived were not the tiles we ordered. The surface design was the same, but the ones that arrived were terra cotta tiles with glaze as opposed to normal porcelain tiles. So the correct tiles will be arriving at the end of next week. And should survive the ride from Sao Paulo far better.

Tile Massacre

In general, things are going really well. Progress is being made every day, and I love watching little things change over time. The bathroom is finally coming together, and Eduardo has put up 4 of 6 of the screened windows, and 2 of 6 of the accompanying storm windows. And they look gorgeous!

And today, we got the call that our (my!) accent tiles for the kitchen had arrived from Sao Paulo. I hadn't realized how attached I can get to little things. For example, gorgeous artesenal tiles that are hand painted and add just the splash of color I was hoping for. I had obsessed over these tiles. I looked at all the options on the website, I added each of my favorite patterns in the model to see how each one would look. And yes-- I have a 3D model of the house which I obsess over on a daily basis. And I gradually narrowed it down to my favorite. I counted up the exact number that we would need for the space; 54 center tiles, 52 edge tiles and 2 corner tile. 108 tiles at about R$10 per tile wasn't going to come cheap. But they're amazing!



And today, they arrived! Eduardo brought them home and laid them out on the floor. And apparently, the trip was a tile massacre. Eight of the tiles arrived chipped or broken, and of the ones that were whole over 3/4's were damaged. The glaze that protects the surface was completely chipped. No pieces had fallen off, but on many the glaze was essentially shattered.

So now our option is to either send back the vast majority of the tiles and have them replaced, or to just send them back and start obsessing over tiles all over again. The likelihood that a second shipment will magically arrive unblemished has p<<<0.05. Unless they're shipped better than 50 tiles / box with no protection at all stuck in the back of a truck traversing half of Brasil. Needless to say, I'm pretty bummed. Back to the drawing board...

Big Red

So the original floor to the house was 'vermelhão', which I like to translate as Big Red. As far as I can tell, it's a sealed cement that then has to be waxed. And the wax is a red color. From everything I've heard, it takes a lot of maintenance, and is terrible to clean. Knowing Eduardo and I, you can see why this might be a problem. I have never waxed a floor in my life, and don't really have any intention of starting, especially not on a weekly basis!


Big Red, the original vermelhão

So the plan was to put down tile on top of the existing floor. Far less expensive, and easier than breaking up the floor and then having to re-pour the sub-floor. But before finalizing this plan, we needed to know if the floor was any good. The original house was just the front rooms, and was built in a hurry with no intention of staying for 15 years! So Eduardo tested the thickness, and what he found was "a hole that you could fit two pigs in".



This giant hole was a termite nest, and as we later discovered, it wasn't the only one. There were two holes of about a cubic meter, and a few other smaller ones. Apparently, the termites that had eaten my in-laws library when they lived in the house had carved out a nest in the earth underneath the floor, and were still there! To paraphrase Eduardo, "in the interest of not waking up one morning and stepping through the floor to find ourselves in China, I think we should replace the floor".




So that's what happened. The entire floor (minus the back two bedrooms) was broken, the termites were killed off, their holes were filled in, and Eduardo re-poured the entire floor. He placed tiles to level the whole thing, and sloped the floor slightly so that water will drain. And next week the tile should start to go in!

Backstory

The house that my husband grew up in. The house that my in-laws started their family in. That house, is now our house. The first time I visited my husband's parent's farm, I barely noticed it even though it's only a couple hundred meters from their current house. Now I visit multiple times a day to see what's happening in the grand remodeling project.

Eduardo and I are the architects. And he, single-handedly (or just about) is the construction crew, engineer, electrician and plumber. We started this project when he moved back to Brasil (and the farm) at the end of 2009. When I arrived in June there was still more destruction happening than construction, and hopefully, within the next couple of months it will be complete.


Looking from the kitchen to the living room in March.


Just about the same view in October.