Come see us! Nuestra casa es su casa!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Our renovation is almost done and, of course, it’s later than expected and a little over budget. What a shock! We have our rental until Jan. 15 and we hope to move back into our home by then. We’ve got lots of cleaning to do!
The next important thing is to get everybody COVID-vaccinated so you can come visit!
Leslie and I will still be in our rental for Christmas. The upgraded kitchen and bathroom projects will apparently go into early January. Hopefully done by Jan. 15. So here are a few more photos of the renovation, along with a Merry Christmas to all!
Maybe. The renovation is on schedule. Work on the kitchen plumbing and electrical is done, as is the wall repair and painting. The appliances have been delivered and the carpenter is taking last-minute measurements for the cabinetry. So the kitchen, at least, may be finished on time.
We’ve been picking out tiles and fixtures for the new bathroom, and the old bathroom is almost ready for the washer and dryer. I’m providing as many photos as possible at the end of this post.
In other news, Leslie and I always believed there was a bit of “magic” in our charming little village of Ajijic. Now the federal government agrees. Ajijic was just named a “Pueblo Mágico,” or Magical Village. It’s one of 11 new Pueblos Mágicos throughout Mexico. There are now nine in the state of Jalisco.
This program promotes tourism, especially among Mexicans. So there is some concern about how the village is going to handle lots of new turistas. Parking is quite limited in the village and there are not a lot of hotel rooms available. The upside is that local officials expect a number of improvements — most notably an enormous project to move all utility wires underground. That will likely take years to complete. We’ll see.
Leslie and I have been to several Pueblos Mágicos in the time we’ve lived here. We think this designation will be great for the Lakeside area.
Finally, the pandemic continues. We’ve heard news reports that Mexico has a plan for distributing the Pfizer vaccine early in 2021. We are in the third priority group, right behind health care professionals and people over 80. No discrimination — natives and gringos will all be treated the same. Maybe this is the beginning of the end.
Hasta luego!
Today (Nov. 17) marks four weeks of construction and the new master bathroom is taking shape in our Mexican casa. It may not be quite as large as we expected but it will have two sinks with lighted mirrors, a walk-in shower with a rain-style shower head, and a vanity area for Leslie, with a nice boveda ceiling.
The crew is putting in the plumbing and electrical, which means the floor is still dirt. They’re starting on the new laundry room and the new kitchen, too. We think everything is on schedule.
We’re selecting tile, faucets, fixtures and kitchen appliances now. So many choices!
One huge change has already happened. The new master bathroom and kitchen renovation was Phase One. Changes to the front wall and entry into the courtyard was to be part of Phase Two. But our architect, Juan Allera, proposed doing all the work to the front entrance now because it made sense. I asked how much that would add to the total project. The figure was fairly low because it’s mostly labor, so we gave the green light. Most of the front wall is gone now!
We still hope to be back in our house by Christmas, but some of the appliances are going to take a few weeks to deliver. Fingers crossed!
More to come as work progresses. Hasta luego!
The crew has been hard at work since Oct. 20, and the outside walls are almost done for the new master bathroom. The guys should be starting on the plumbing in just a few days. Then the outside work will be finished and they can start converting the bathroom to a laundry room.
Architect Cristina Allera has been working closely with Leslie to make sure we get all the nice touches, like a vanity in the new bathroom where Leslie can sit to do her makeup. Similar to what we had in our Westmont master bath.
Our excellent carpenter, Heriberto, is building the kitchen cabinets in his Guadalajara shop. We’re excited about having more storage space and more counter space.
Here in Mexico there are no studs and no drywall. All walls are made of brick with cement/stucco over the brick. Trees are hard to come by here — bricks and concrete are cheap and easy. Plus, there’s no reason for termites to invade your home because there’s very little wood.
In another development, we both got Mexican driver’s licenses last week. Leslie’s Illinois license expired on her birthday (Oct. 16). There’s no chance we would go back to the States right now, so the option was to get a license from the state of Jalisco. So we both got brand new licenses, even though my Illinois license is good for a few more years.
We hired someone to get all the paperwork put together, then they walked us over to the license bureau where we took a 10-question test — all about road signs — in English on a computer. Then we got pictures made and in about 15 minutes we had our new licenses.
While the Lakeside area is still not seeing a lot of new COVID cases, the governor of Jalisco has clamped down because hospitalizations statewide are at a critical point. Leslie and I are still doing everything we can to stay safe — even avoiding friends we think are not being careful enough.
I will leave you with a few shots of the hummingbirds and butterflies that hang out in our yard. Our Canadian next-door neighbors Sharon and Quentin have two hummingbird feeders on their back patio. I’ve seen as many as 15 to 20 hummers over there, and most of them pause in our yard to dine on real flowers. They’re fun to watch.
More renovation updates coming! Hasta luego!
Leslie and I are finally getting the renovation started on our house — six months later than planned. We hoped to have all the work done in April and May before we moved in. Because of the quarantine, our homeowner’s association did not allow workers into the neighborhood. Later, when that was allowed, we decided it was not a good idea to have people we don’t know coming into our house. We’re taking extra precautions during this pandemic.
Also, as we’ve lived in our new home, our small project grew bigger. The original plan was to get the washer and dryer out of the kitchen to gain more storage and counter space. We planned to get stackable machines and squeeze them into a space in the master bedroom closet, then update the kitchen cabinets with new doors and buy new appliances.
Over the last four-plus months we’ve started thinking bigger, especially after we found a few issues in the master bath. Now we’re adding a new master bathroom onto the front of the house, reworking and improving the closet and other storage, and putting side-by-side laundry units where the bathroom is now. We will also get a new linen closet and utility closet, neither of which exist now. And we’re gutting the 12-year-old kitchen down to the walls. All new cabinetry, all new appliances, more storage and more counter space.
In fact, the kitchen is already gutted and the bathroom will be gone in a few days. Everything was removed carefully by Fernando, who works as a gardener for at least two of our neighbors. Fernando is building a house for his family in Chapala on a shoestring budget, and he can use all the cabinets and appliances from our house.
We feel fortunate to have hired Juan Alera and his daughter Cristina as our architects. Juan has done home building and renovation for years in the Lakeside area. Cristina studied architecture at the university in Guadalajara (where one of her professors was her father) and for a year at a university in France. She speaks English and French in addition to her native Spanish.
Construction begins Oct. 19. Juan says it will take two months, but we’re allowing for three just in case. And since now we have no kitchen and no master bath, and things are about to get very dusty and dirty, we’ve moved out for the rest of this year. Again, we’re very fortunate to have rented a home right here in our neighborhood, just two streets down the hill. It will be easy to go back and get things we need, and to check on construction progress. We hope to be back in our house before Christmas.
Here are a couple of “before” videos:
Leslie and I are finally home. After two years of being vagabonds in Europe and The Americas, and 18 months of renting apartments and homes in the Lake Chapala area, we have moved into our house in Ajijic, Jalisco, México.
We have a lot of work to do. First, a complete kitchen remodel. It’s a bit small, so we’re moving the laundry to a space in the master bedroom closet that we don’t really need for clothes. We’ll get a new stackable pair for that location, then move the refrigerator into where the laundry is now. That will open up room for more cabinets and counter space. There’s painting to be done (way too much purple right now) and new plants to add in the garden, and maybe a facelift for the front. But all of that will have to wait until we believe it’s safe to have contractors working in and around the house.
As for the pandemic, our little corner of paradise is no longer virus-free. As of Monday, July 6, there are 32 confirmed and 10 suspected cases in the Chapala municipality (similar to a county in the U.S.), which includes Ajijic. There have been two deaths. The good news is no new cases have been reported to the government in the past few days. There are roughly 50,000 people in the Chapala municipality.
The state government has loosened restrictions somewhat, but face masks are required in grocery stores, banks and other local businesses. Restaurants are allowed to serve dine-in customers as along as there’s adequate separation. We’re still getting food delivered to our house, though.
We’re debating whether to start in-person church services again in August at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, but it sounds like most of our members are fine with waiting until later in the year. We’ve been doing a Morning Prayer service — Episcopalians will understand that — every Sunday morning on Zoom, and it’s getting better every week. We have anywhere from 30 to 40 people signing in, some from the U.S. and Canada.
The church is not wasting this time, though. We’ve already had big mirrors removed from the north wall of the sanctuary and the whole sanctuary painted. Instead of pews, we have moveable chairs, and until today they had brown upholstery that looked worn on most. Now they’re all a nice dark blue. We got 175 chairs recovered for 300 pesos each. That’s less than $15 USD each.
It’s rainy season here, so heavy thunderstorms roll through almost every night. If they hit before bedtime, we get to see the light show. If it’s 2 a.m., like many nights, then we roll over and go back to sleep.
I’ll leave you with more photos of our house.
Hasta luego!
Leslie and I will be moving to our permanent home just a few days from now. You’ll get to see it soon!
But first, an update on the coronavirus here in our little corner of México. Officially, there are still no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the Lakeside community (as of 19 May). Good news: Our favorite liquor stores are open again, as is the dry cleaners. But we’re still doing church via Zoom, and we still can’t get our hair done — or for Leslie, get nails done. Soon, we hope.
Grocery stores are mostly open, but going there is not a very good idea. And you definitely don’t want to go to Guadalajara (where Costco and Home Depot are). So some of the locals with entrepreneurial spirit are offering food delivery. They bring groceries right to our door and Leslie can disinfect them as needed. Our new friend and taxi driver Paulino shops for us at Costco in Guadalajara. No problem getting toilet paper. And when the liquor stores in Ajijic were closed, Paulino could get wine from Costco — our favorite Apothic Red. Gracias, Paulino!
Locally, one food delivery group is called “Bogo (buy one, get one) Box.” If you buy a box of vegetables from them, they donate a similar box to a local family. We like that. The virus has hit this area hard, economically at least. Operation Feed, a local charity that gets food to the needy, has seen its client base more than double recently.
Also, Leslie’s Mexican friend Hana has started a food delivery service. We’re getting things we never heard of before, all grown locally. Have you ever seen a “watermelon radish”? We’ve got ’em, and they’re terrific on salads. We have a big salad for lunch just about every day. No, they don’t taste like watermelon — they just look like watermelon. They taste like a radish. Very crunchy. They’re colorful and huge, just like regular radishes here. Local radishes at the tianguis (street market) can be as big as golf balls!
I may have said before that one of the few downsides to our local paradise is the condition of the Lakeside streets. But over the past few months, the Jalisco (state) government has pumped lots of money into restructuring the carretera, which is the primary east-west Lakeside road. It’s been fully resurfaced and the bicicleta (or ciclopista) (bike lane) has been upgraded to the point that I’m thinking of buying a bike!
Before, the road was full of potholes and the bike/pedestrian lane was not well marked and potentially dangerous. The road has been resurfaced with asphalt from Chapala west to Jocotepec, and the bike lane now has a concrete barrier to protect bike riders and pedestrians. There are also street lights, new plants and crosswalks that didn’t exist a few months ago. Gracias, Gobernador Alfaro (thank you, Governor Alfaro).
Of course, most streets in the village are still cobblestone. And that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Hasta luego!
At times like these we have to laugh to keep from crying! I’ve seen lots of great stuff on Leslie’s Facebook account, and on a variety of websites I frequent. Since we’re here in México, this is probably the best, and most accurate:
I heard this week from the CEO of US Global Mail, the Houston company that handles what little snail mail we get in the States. I’ve done a few commercials for them here in the past because their service is great. Now they’re helping in the current situation, even for people in the States.
“Earlier this week we made an announcement that we would be offering our virtual mailbox for free, to all seniors and people with underlying health conditions for two months,” Daniel Spyralatos wrote in an email. “This will ensure that people with weaker immune systems avoid crowded post offices but still access mail, critical medications and goods without leaving their home.”
You can see the full announcement on their website.
UPDATE: The move to our new home is coming, but not soon enough! We’ve sold or given away some of the excess furniture and we’re hoping to be gone from the rental house by mid-May. More to come!
Hasta luego!
¡Hola, amigos y amigas!
This is just a quick post to let you know Leslie and I are just fine. We think we’re very safe here in México, and we’re actually worried about our friends in the U.S. and Europe because of the coronavirus.
As of this writing, there are 316 cases of the virus in all of México and only 27 in the state of Jalisco, which includes Guadalajara with nearly 1.5 million people and Puerto Vallarta with over 200,000. It also includes the Lake Chapala area where we have made our home with hundreds of other ex-pats. Of those 27 Jalisco cases, 10 were in a group of people who went on a ski trip to Vail, Colorado, and contracted the virus there. So far, only two people have died from the coronavirus in México.
We’re hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. We know those low numbers will go up, and maybe soon. In Jalisco, schools are closed, concerts and plays have been cancelled, and churches have suspended all activities. Even our bank will only allow five people in at one time. The governor has asked non-essential businesses to close for a week. Even the weekly outdoor market, the tianguis, has shut down. My Spanish class is now being conducted via Skype. Many restaurants are offering take-out orders, and one of our favorite places will even bring your order right to your car.
Our community, Riviera Alta, has suspended weekly social hours and closed all common facilities (pool, library, gym, tennis court) for a week. We have a number of high-risk folks here. Some are merely among the “elderly” group and a few have compromised immune systems. Some of our Canadian friends have already gone back north
My old buddy Jerry — back in our Army Reserve days — used to remind me of the ancient curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times.” Now I have a better understanding of that line.
Leslie and I wish you continued good health — now and when we are once again living in uninteresting times. We’ll keep in touch!
¡Hasta Luego!
Ex-pats in Mexico 