Halfway Through the Renovation

For the past two weeks we have been at our ranch in San Miguel working with our contractor on the renovation of the house on the property. The weather has been wonderful, with most days in the high 80s to low 90s, and then nice cool evenings. We have even had some late afternoon thunderstorms which should help to address last year’s drought conditions.

Jo Ann and I have significant experience in working on renovations of older homes, but we have never done one outside of the US let alone working in a language other than English.

Well I have to say this has been one of the most enjoyable renovations that we have ever worked on. The crews are most professional and the quality of the workmanship has been great.

One of the first projects we needed to do was to fill in an old unused swimming pool. What we are doing is to turn the major part of it into a large cistern holding tank and the remainder into a root cellar (which will also be used as a wine cellar).



Then we wanted to completely redo the kitchen in the house. Here you can see the state of kitchen after the crew demolished much of the old counters and removed the old appliances.



The work on the kitchen was going much faster than we expected, especially considering that we were having to use the kitchen during the renovation since we were living in the house as the work was proceeding. Here you can see the kitchen now with most of the new tiles installed and the new appliances.



We also wanted to completely remodel the master bathroom which included demolition of the entire existing bathroom, replace the counters, the sink and the toilets as well as changing which side of the shower the shower head was one. One of the amazing things about construction in Mexico is how patient they can be when having to move things like water lines through the brick and concrete that is used in almost all of the construction. Here you can see that all of the tiles were removed and the water line was moved from the left side of the shower to the right. For me that would have been a major effort but for the crew it was just another day on the job.



When you are working on renovation in Mexico, you need to learn that most of the work on the structure is done in brick and concrete, so when the crew needs to move an electrical outlet or a water line, they need to chink away at the concrete and move the line. Well after two weeks of this chinking, I can tell you it is the only irritating part of the process, it seems that someone on the crew is always chinking away and it settles into your brain like brain sludge.

One of the last parts of the project was to paint the interior and exterior. Here is am image of our new exterior color.



As the image below shows, you can see the old white color of the ranch, which was faded and in need of an update, compared to the new color of the ranch.



So at the half way point we are excited with how the house is proceeding and impressed by the work done by the crew. Now it is only the half way point and much can go wrong as we work to complete the project, but I have to say it has been the best renovation that we have ever worked on. If you are looking to buy a home in Mexico and need to have work done on the house, don't be afraid, it is easier than working with remodeling contractors in the US.

We are excited about completing the work as I am heading down to live full time in less than two weeks, so hopefully the crew will be done and I can settle in with the dogs awaiting Jo Ann's arrival.