A Facelift

Ha ha.  Gotcha.  Not going to happen, except to our house.

Here are Juan and his cousin repainting the front of our house.  It is still the original color, Mescal, but with a sealer and two more coats. 

They painted the new construction on the rooftop as well.  Such a lovely, buttery color in the sunset light.

And finally, we added the beautiful hammock we bought this last trip to 

Zihuatanejo.

Perfect!  Come visit us sometime.

Our new fireplace

The recent cold weather made us realize wanted a fireplace in our living room so we called in Edgar and his assistant, Jose Louis.  We decided to put it on the end wall where the light well is.

Edgar carefully sketched out the arc of the fireplace opening and then started on the brick and cement hearth.  My favorite part was when we come home and heard them laughing; they had managed to knock a brick in the back wall into the empty lot next door.

 

I thanked them for the new "window" and they patched it up with another brick and a firebrick lining.

Once the fireplace was done, we needed a mantle to complete it so we drove to Dolores Hildago, about 40 minutes away, where there are several shops that specialize in reclaimed wood.  This is where doors and other scraps and rusty things come to find a new life.

We selected the piece of wood that was aged just right and they cut it to our mantle specifications and delivered it. 

 And now we have a welcome new gas log fireplace.

The light above the fireplace is made of backlit handmade paper with cutout designs. We bought it in a suburb of Guadajalara called Tonola on our last trip there.  The ladder was made so we can light the water heater which is hidden above it in the lightwell.

Papel Picado

I am a big fan of papel picado, the traditional art of cutting or punching intricate designs in colorful tissue paper which is then strung to decorate a celebration or fiesta.  These are now commonly produced using stamped templates appropriate for the celebration:  flowers and birds for springtime and weddings, skulls and other death images for day of the dead, and Navidad or other themes. Sometimes they are made from plastic to resist wind and weather outside.

I discovered a little store that sells the flower/bird theme tissue paper variety and kind of got carried away putting them in my guest bedroom.

I also found a miniature version for day of the dead which I hung over the bed.

I love the delicate detail in each flag.

Oh no! She blogged her bathroom.

I'm so impressed with the beautiful workmanship of our tileman that I couldn't resist photos. Here is what our walk-in shower looked like when we completed the house 3 years ago. It was a flat cement floor along the back wall with a tiled enclosure for the shower.

With the recent cold weather I missed a tub for soaking so after the rooftop project was completed I asked our maestro to create a tub for me.

First he tiled in the entrance to the shower

and then he filled the floor with an elegant tile design and some corner triangles

Keep in mind that nothing in our house is square, including the trapezoid of the shower space. Each tile was individually cut to create the effect that it is a real rectangle.

Now are you impressed, too?

Our New Rooftop

We're building a Tajada! That's a tiled patio cover for a portion of our rooftop so we can enjoy our sunsets comfortably out of the wind that often blows in the late afternoon. This is different from when we had a supervisor for building our house; this time we're in charge of the ordering and hiring.

First the bricks are delivered
then the cement and rebar
then the sand, dumped in our narrow steet
The cement is mixed on the cobblestones in front of the house
and they "fly" it in a bucket to the roof, along with the bricks
on a simple counterweighted pully contraption.
One morning at 7 the carved columns and beam were delivered by Sr. Cruz and his wife. They drove all night from Tzinsunan, near Patzquaro, where we had ordered them from their workshop during our recent trip. They slept in the truck until 7am. Here were are at the unloading, almost awake. The two columns aren't visible in the truck, just the 4 meter carved crossbeam.
I was really worried how they would get the giant beams up the three stories to the roof and not have it fall onto a neighbor's house below while they were constructing it, but these guys are pros.
Here it is all together safely with no mishaps. wired with plugs for the margarita blender and ready for the walls to be painted. There is even a special place for Bryan's giant bbq grill from Texas. Come on over! If you're lucky you'll get a sunrise view like this.
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Mmmm Breakfast

This morning was chilly and we had the fireplace on. It all looked so cozy with our new little red rooster proudly crowing on the mantle.
He joined us during our recent trip to Talapaque, near Guadalajara.Just so you don't think we starve for fruit here, I took a photo of the fresh strawberries and bananas available most of the time we are here. We had been getting luscious blackberries in the market from Michoacán and actually saw the berry fields as we drove through there on our recent trip, but the season seems to be over until next year.
The napkins and rings are from the Sunday market in Tonala near Guadalajara and the table runner is from Ross in San Antonio Texas. The label says Made in India but it fits right in.
Our plates are a copy of an old Puebla design made and bought locally. My mother brought similar plates from Puebla during her trip to Mexico in the early 1940s and my family ate on them for special occasions. Nowadays tableware is clearly marked "lead free" but in those days, I wonder.

Fun with Trasteros

Last week we drove to a particularly handicrafty grouping of towns around Lake Pátzcuaro in the state of Michoacan. Our goal was to buy two carved wooden shelves, or trasteros, in the traditional Mexican style. These shelves are used for storage in the kitchen or dining room.

Entering the woodworking village of Cuanajo, we saw several being loaded into a truck. The charming driver, who was on his way to a larger town to sell them, insisted on unloading some for our perusal. Here are Yoli and Bryan supervising.

We bought two but Yoli wanted a different style. The driver left his loading crew by the road while he drove with us around town to peer into sawdusty workshops trying to locate one with a fish motif.

We were successful but the search took nearly an hour. When we asked the young man why he was being so helpful, he explained that he had lived and worked in Texas for several years and really appreciated the help he got from Americans there.


Here are our two purchases with their legs cut off, painted to go with our house, and hung to display some of my plates. Are we in Mexico yet?

Hot Air Balloon Surprise

I opened my eyes yesterday morning and this is what I saw from bed...a hot air balloon peering in our window.

I went to the roof and shot this photo of the balloon sinking over the central square for a spectacular view of the Parroquia, the pink spires in the middle left of the photo below. (Click the photo to enlarge it for a better view.)
Speaking of good views, for the time being we have this splendid and newly improved view of the city. Our neighbor was having a boundary dispute and ended up removing a large tree which blocked our view of the church spires and the second domed church in a direct line behind it. We just learned that the property has been sold and will most likely soon sprout a big house to block our city view, but for the time being we are enjoying it.

This is what the Parroquia looks like from ground level.

Milk truck 1, Casa 0

About three weeks ago we were in a nearby town when I got a phone call from Yoli. Calls that start with "I'm standing in front of your house" don't bode well. She told me a milk delivery truck had managed to crash into the front of our house, damaging the balcony and railing and 6 sections of cantera (the hand carved stone door trim). Oops. Fortunately there was no real structural damage to the house.

We rushed back with images of major costs for repairs and other not so great scenarios. We learned that our sweet neighbor, whose husband had actually done the original work on the cantera, had been on her roof hanging laundry and witnessed the crash. She knew Yoli was my friend and rushed down the block to get her. Fortunately Yoli was home.

Thanks to Yoli's diplomacy, the honesty of the truck driver and the kindness of a neighbor, within days we were talking to an insurance agent for the milk company and two days ago a team showed up to do a professional repair job. They even repainted the entire balcony railing while they were at it.

This makes me realize two things: that I live in a real neighborhood where people care for each other. We walk here every day and are about the only gringos on the street. Others who live here, if we do see them. are in their cars. Maria Louisa, who saw the accident, has come to our house numerous times to review her English homework and we greet her, and everyone else in the bario, with every opportunity. We feel so fortunate to have chosen such a special neighborhood.

Secondly, horror stories circulate with too much enthusiasm among the foreign community about run-ins with this or that accident or lawyer or neighbor and I realize that we can't rush to assume anything. We are fortunate to have the opportunity to live in this country.

The cabinet arrived

We ordered a custom made cabinet for our living room and it arrived. The milestone is that the whole process took place in Spanish and it came out exactly what we wanted. Surprise for us.









So here is our living room as it now looks. The TV was a new addition since the cabinet was built to hold it and the chairs came from a garage sale the day the cabinet arrived. We got lucky again because those were the chairs we had in mind.


Still have to get some things to go on the wall but it seems more like home all the time.

Finally, house pictures

When we started this project 3 years ago we had no idea what it would involve; we only knew that we loved being in San Miguel and we wanted a comfortable place to return to each time. We got what we wanted.

It is a 2 bedroom, 3 story home in the colonial style, with a garage for the Suzuki, in an out of the way neighborhood with a view of the city center and the lake and hills beyond. It began as a simple open-air 3 room house on two stories covering the entire lot. We first saw it with our friends, Anna and Milton, and we were a bit overwhelmed.  We brought our friend and a architectural "engineer", Alfredo, up to the highest point and asked him what he thought.  He said definitely and I am so glad he agreed to remodel it for us.  Just because he spoke no English and I had only some words in Spanish at the time didn't mean we couldn't make it work.

I would say we are about 2/3 through with it but basically it is finished. There are walls we want to paint and some more lighting fixtures to put up and a few more pieces of furniture we want. The stairwell glass covering still leaks. Good thing it is a tiny house!