Category: Mexico houses Page 1 of 4

Tío Lauro took this panorama which is about a 210 degree view from the second floor balcony of the house up the hill. The apartments only require a few finishing touches now, so Tío Lynn has moved his workers up there to get the first floor ready for us to move in within a couple of months. We are amazed how quickly it is taking shape now. For a long time, it did not look like much was happening, but there was a bunch of hard structural work and tons of infrastructure that needed to be put into place before the more cosmetic, but less labor intensive cosmetic work could start. For us to move in, the first floor has to be complete along with the open stairway to the azotea and some work in the basement so we have more than just one bedroom for visitors. We are looking forward to seeing the progress after we return from a week away to see Christian and Kelly for Christmas.

We are kind of amazed about this. My sense is that this is not a common turn of events.

Lorena and I decided to walk from you apartment up to the house on the hill and found that it is quite a steep walk. I have decided I am going to do that every day for a couple weeks, then gradually work myself up to further walks. If I can get through the pain of not having walked on any serious inclines for years, it will be a great way to get into shape and, hopefully, stay there. The views up there are amazing and only getting better with the work Lynn is doing to make the house more open with more views from more floors. The picture below is of the new picture window in the first floor living room/office.

This is the view from the apartment’s azotea looking toward the Huasteca this morning. If you turn about 60 degrees and look up the hill on the other side of the valley, you can see the house Lynn is remodeling where we hope to be living within the next 4-5 months. The four window balcony is very distinct.

This is the view out the front window (over the kitchen sink) on the side of the house opposite the beautiful valley behind the house. It is amazingly quiet compared to many similar neighborhoods we have been visited throughout Mexico, but in the evening there are lots of people around with kids playing football (soccer) and other games on the street and sidewalks. The smell of Mexican food cooking and the sound of Latin music of a million varieties are ubiquitous. We are truly enjoying it, but realize that the street that runs by our house up the hill is significantly less active. I am enjoying the non-quiet for now.

The running like crazy has now slowed down to the running like mildly neurotic. We are very happy to be ensconced in our apartment where we can see this (and a much broader view) ourselves rather than through pictures sent to us. I took this picture Sunday morning in 75 degree weather with a light, cool breeze blowing. We are still getting set up and, after seeing everything, have changed our plans about what we want to do with the Mexico properties. We absolutely are going to love living here.

Lynn sent me some images of the area around our house in San Pedro this weekend. There has been some much ran there, that the park that is about a block away from our house and they mountain in front of our house where there are no other houses look like they could be in Oregon. It is all very green and overcast. We cannot wait to get down there and experience it in real life.

The first floor window on the valley side of the house up on the hill is taking shape. The whole first floor was dark before the window was punched in–it completely changed the atmosphere of that floor. We were supposed to live there when we move to Mexico in August, but it won’t be complete for a couple more months so we are going to live in one of the apartments in our building halfway down the hill until this house is more complete. Probably it does not make sense to move in up there until one or two more large projects are completed that will create a lot of noise and dust. We hope that happens by November this year so we can celebrate Thanksgiving there, but we think there is about a 50/50 chance of that happening.

The plan is to live one floor up from where this window is located when the house is fully complete. It has an even more amazing view with a balcony. Above the floor with the balcony Lynn plans to build a roofed entertainment area with a kitchen, bathrooms, and other facilities.

We made the hard decision to move into one of the units in the apartment building rather than the first floor of the house up on the hill. We would just get in the way up on the hill and the apartments are completed and ready for move in. We need a place to live in Mexico until this time next year and there is some chance the house on the hill will be ready for occupation before we live, but we thing there is an over 50% chance we will not get to move into that house until a year from this fall. Even then, it might not be complete. We can hardly believe it but, God willing, we will be living in Mexico by this time in six weeks.

Lynn rented the first apartment today in our San Pedro renovation building. The tenants are scheduled to move in on June 23. We hope to have the whole thing filled up by mid-July, but who knows. Hopefully, it will not be too long after that before we can sell it and move on to the next project.

Lynn sent this picture of the upper azotea of the first house we bought in Mexico. The mountains are the same ones we can see from the front of the house we bought further up the hill, but the view of these mountains (Cerro de Las Mitras) is really better from the lower house because you can see more of them and at a little bit of a distance. Both views looking at the valley and the mountains on the other side of the house are pretty spectacular. Honestly, I am somewhat surprised at how nice this all turned out. The only work left on Casa #1 is clean up and a few minor details. Hopefully, it will sell soon and we can start again.