July, 2011

Hi All,

Building a house is an interesting adventure. I am unsure of the person who said this to me but it seems to ring true in my limited perspective. “When you come to Costa Rica you need only two suit cases. One filled with money and one filled with patience”. In my last blog I spoke of going to choose some tile in Liberia while it was on sale. Guess what? After two trips we still do not have tile. This is the “patience suitcase” that the unknown person was referring to. First trip: the severely discounted tile was either not to our liking (as in very ugly) or not enough. Folks at the tile store were very nice but could not calculate the amount of tile we needed because of the pattern we chose. Second trip: Doug furnished the tile store with the correct measurements and Kim, my Mom, and I spent hours picking out the tile for the entire house. Tile store still could not calculate what we needed but were sure we needed more then they had. Since we were emotionally invested we asked what needed to be done to get more. We needed to order and buy an unspecified amount of tile that day. What? No calculations? Just buy a lot of it right now? Nope. We walked away. Doug called later and our favorite tile was discontinued. We could get something very similar but not within the tile allowance budget anymore. The good news is we have time to explore other options. The other good news is the therapy is starting to work and I no longer have that nervous twitch. Patience!

On another note: Does anybody read this stuff? Am I just venting or is there someone who is garnishing a small amount of insight to the building process down here? Well either way it works for me. Moving on……We decided to name our home Casa Bosque (the forest house) because it is nestled in a beautiful dry tropical forest.
We are working with Tom Peifer, our consultant, and Elias, the farm manager, to create an edible, native, biodiverse, and animal friendly habitat. More on that later.

Regarding the house itself, the first floor rafters are in place and the wood ceilings are looking really nice. We had a little challenge in selecting tint colors for the wood ceiling but Quincho, the foreman, and the stain guy from SUR made several samples for us to choose from which was nice. The staircase has been added and the second floor walls and windows are in. We have been to the site just about everyday watching the progress and making a few adjustments along the way. Doug has been very gracious with our “house tweaking” and after six months we are still very happy we chose him as our builder and would highly recommend him. Of course, with a project of this caliber there are always challenges but we work them out. We are looking forward to the completion of the entire roof soon and will post more pictures.

Be Well,

John

May

The beginning of May has been a sizzler. Late day clouds have begun to gather large and ominous over our landscape. A few welcomed rain showers have cooled our afternoons and created steamy and sultry evenings. We have been very busy with the planning and building and much has happened since our last blog.

As you can see from the pictures the walls are going up quickly and the traditional Spanish arches on the terraces are being formed as I write. Creating a kitchen island has taken some time. Kim and I spent many hours drawing it out in the dirt on site to get a feeling of proportion. We then took a piece of vellum paper and taped it to our building plan and traced it out to scale. We needed to make sure it could function as a work area with a second sink as well as an eating and hang out area. Our builder can use the scale to help align the plumbing and electrical.

It really is a beautiful thing to watch your vision take shape one block at a time. As many of you know the art of building is not so much what you see but rather what you do not see. For instance, as part of our plan we have a separate utility room that will function as the nervous center of our home. This room will house the main electrical panel, telecommunications, cable and hot water but it will also be the hub for the future solar electric, and security systems. We consulted with both solar and security companies to add the necessary conduit to our utility room so we can plug these in at a later date when finances permit. As far as the PV array it was a simple matter of stubbing a one-inch and a one and a half inch conduit to the outside from the utility room. The two conduits will enable us to pull both high and low voltage wires accordingly as the two cannot be mixed. The security is a bit more complicated but is basically the same deal.

We have an appointment with an interior designer at the tile store, Expo Ceramica, in Liberia this week to discuss the tiles we would like for our floors, terraces, bathrooms and showers. It is a bit premature for this type of finish work but this particular store is offering a 50% discount on clearance tiles while supplies last. So we need to move on it!

Also, a bit premature, we have purchased two beautiful tables that Kim found on in the classifieds of Potrero. The dinning room table seats six comfortably and is one large beautiful piece of Guanacaste wood for the top. The other is a large antique coffee table with lots of character. Our thought is to find great deals on unique pieces when we can rather then waiting and not finding what we want later. Catch as catch can.


Be Well,

John

April 10, 2011

Whew! O.K. folks, building in Costa Rica is a process much like anywhere else world. The good news is we just received our permits and we are ready to start building. Hooray! We also have a copy of the building plans so we can review and make any necessary improvements/changes. So, why did it take so long to get to this point? Good question. Here’s the story: We spent a lot time going back and forth with the architects to get our vision as close as possible to match the reality of the home. During this process it started morphing into a larger and costlier project. Go figure. Somewhere during this design process the home needed to be stretched out in order to accommodate the roofline in conjunction with the second floor. This added more square footage than our budget allowed. Last blog I spoke of due diligence and the reason we chose Doug and Steve as our builders. We chose well. Steve graciously bowed out of the equation so we would have a greater budget and Doug worked with us streamlining the costs and gave us a solid contract price. Doug even went a step further and offered to track all building costs to use a cost plus scenario. He will then give us whichever price works out in our favor. This is a great solution for us as it allows us to forge ahead with the dream. The house design is now marked in chalk on the earth and this coming week the weight bearing walls will begin to shoot up. Very exciting. On a final note, it is very hot here in April. Quite literally there is sweat on my brow as I type this blog. One of the ideas we are incorporating into the design is a “get away room”. It is an idea we borrowed from “The Not So Big House” book. Basically it is a small room set up with an office, couch, and TV. The thought is to be able to escape the afternoon heat to do work, watch a movie, or simply relax with a good book. Being a relatively small room it will be a cost effective way to stay cool versus cooling larger spaces. Since, even now, the April nights and mornings are pleasantly mild it makes sense not to AC the whole home. Live Well, John

The bodega for the workers is up and the temporary electric and water lines have been run for the construction process. The crew foreman has laid out string on our building pad representing the dimensions of our home so we can tweak the orientation. I have spent many hours on site watching where the sun rises and sets and feel fairly confident about its position relative to the lot, views and solar exposure. We have a about a week and half before our designs come back from the Santa Cruz Municipality with the necessary permits.

Which brings up the subject of process. Forgive me if I digress but probably a key element to the project success is due diligence which, for us, has been an on-going process. As you are aware with my last blog we visited many fine homes and spoke with lots of folks. Almost without exception all gave us an account of who built their home and the structure in which they paid the builder and what they would do and not do again. This is an important process before working with your builder. Although, there are several reputable homebuilders in the area we felt Doug and Steve would give us the best experience, quality, and value for our budget. Plus I like and trust them. However, I think it is important to note that this blog is from an owner’s perspective for other lot owners who are considering building.

So, first talk to as many people as possible. Than choose your builder and architect who will work together with your ideas and their experience to create a rough design of your home. We actually spent a couple of years in this phase as we were trying to sell our farm.

Get a rough estimate on the costs so you can begin to scale your designs to meet your budget and work out the exact payment arrangements with your builder. It is then necessary to meet with the Tierra Pacifica Architectural Review Committee. We met with them on our lot with our designs in hand. The purpose of the committee is to make sure the building plans align with the CCR’s and the community goals.

Then it is time to agree to a final rough draft of your design, work up an electrical schematic, and send it off………this is where we are now. I spoke with Doug last week as to how it all comes to play out. It is a lot…and Doug has it down to a science. Here is my boiled down understanding…

The rough draft and rough electrical schematic goes back to the architect who oversees this whole process. They send it to the draftsman to put on an AutoCAD system, which puts it all to scale. During this process a mechanical engineer works on the structural elements and an electrical engineer works up the electrical pages. This is all sent to the College of Engineering, which reviews the structural, electrical, zoning, and water access. This takes a few days. Once approved, three sets of the plans get stamped and are sent to the Santa Cruz Municipality along with some paperwork for the building/construction permits. At the Muni they review twenty plus or minus items like water information, zoning, taxes, corporate names…to basically make sure there are no discrepancies and all the legal signatures are there. Part of the building prerequisite is the builder needs to have a workmen’s compensation policy through the INS for the whole job depending on the square meters of the job. Of course, all this meanders through the different branches of the Municipality for about two weeks. They will then fax the builder that the permit is ready and voila you start building. Now, again, this is my limited understanding of the process and I am sure there are many other administrative hurdles the builder must jump. My intent is to give the reader a basic understanding of the complexities that must happen before a single block gets put down.

I really appreciate the encouragement from our fellow lot owners and I will keep posting as things happen and time permits.


John

Architect Review Team

Digging of the trench

Introduction

Hi All,

My wife and I recently moved from Vermont to Costa Rica and will begin building our new home on lot #61 in Tierra Pacifica.

Our thought is to share this process with you through a bi-weekly blog update from an owner’s perspective. We have carefully chosen an experienced, creative, and respected team….

We chose Ileana and Javier from Ircarqui Arquitectos Consultores to help refine our design concepts.

We chose Doug Stern and Steve McKnight as builders to keep us grounded in our budget but not lose sight of the dream.

Lastly, we will be working with Stephen from SwissSol to help us initially design a solar hot water and photovoltaic system. Our thought is to plan for them in the design process and plug them in at later time when it fits our budget.

Our plan is to create a simple 2200 sq ft tropical home that blends indoor and outdoor spaces and incorporates as many “green” and “sustainable” ideas possible. Part of our plan is to continue our sustainability theme into the garden for food production and an edible landscape design much like we did at our Vermont homestead (See CountrySide Magazine Sept/Oct.2009).

We began this process several years ago and have visited many beautiful homes in Tierra Pacifica and the surrounding area. We listened carefully, took many notes, and are very grateful for all the folks that shared their time and wisdom. We believe with this accumulated information as well as the experience and expertise of our team the result will be a union of form and function…. our home.

Last week the excavator came and we sketched in the circular driveway and created a building pad. Breaking ground is a wonderful feeling after so much dreaming. After roughly drawing out our design plan on the ground we spent time in the space watching the movement of the sun, manipulating the orientation to capture local views, and feeling the flow of our design. There is a big difference between seeing it on a piece of paper and walking it on the ground. In the final analysis we made several small design changes that will benefit the final outcome.

More to come………

John

Breaking Ground

Cutting in the driveway on the high side of the lot.