The holidays were very good for us here in Mexico. We enjoyed a visit from our daughter, Stephanie, and we had a great Holiday Open House to show off the home renovations and let Stephanie meet some of our friends and neighbors. Ziggy and Marley liked the attention Steph heaped upon them!
Having the Open House also forced us to get the artwork on our walls. Now we can show you the finished product — part of it, at least.
Here’s a short video showing the living room (no sound this time). We are particularly pleased with how the fireplace turned out:
You may remember there was a lot of purple in the living room, especially on the fireplace. We decided to make the fireplace the same color as the walls and add a row of tiles from our local vendor of Talavera style pottery and art. We hope to put more Talavera artwork in the front courtyard and on the patio. Love the colors!
Here’s what our office/TV room looks like now:
And here’s the guest room and guest bath:
There’s more artwork to install. Deciding how to decorate the master bedroom comes next. But with most of our art on the walls, Leslie and I feel much more “at home” now.
What’s next? Landscaping and an improved front courtyard. We know the fountain in front needs to be moved because it’s right in front of the door and a few people have come close to falling because of its location. We’ll be working soon with a landscaper to develop a plan, ensuring that we have blooming plants all year round and a nice herb garden as well.
A few photos below to show our Christmas decorations. And we hope 2022 will be a better year for everybody!
Hasta luego!
The stockings were hung and the tree was trimmed! A great place for our olive wood Nativity set from Bethlehem.
Villamartin 5 in Riviera Alta, an outstanding gated community.
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.
New upholstery, new paint job. Church is looking good!
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!
The outdoor space is great, with a super view of Lake Chapala looking west, as shown, and also east. We have all our meals out here. Bonus: The mural on the wall was done 10 years ago by local artist Efren Gonzalez. Extra bonus: The chairs swivel!
The kitchen is a little cramped. We have big plans for renovation that will provide more counter space and more cabinets.
A neat bar area. There’s a similar space directly opposite in the dining room. The mirrors make the space look much bigger.
Our living room. Not much of our art is on the walls yet. We hope to have painters come in soon, then we can put up more of our stuff. Did you notice purple here and on the bar area and outside? That’s going away. The sooner the better.
Ex-pats in Mexico 