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Officially Done in Vallarta - Casita
Encantada Is Open for Business! |
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11/26/05 - Puerto
Vallarta, MX
Our renovations are
complete! Time to move on with our lives.
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Just (?) seven months
after starting our condo remodeling project, it's finally
complete. Although there were several rough patches along
the way, we're very pleased with the results. It was a
pretty major transformation, so we thought it would be fun to
put up some before/after photos to show everyone how different
it looks now than it did in May.
Click Here to see the
'before' and 'after' photos.
To see more pictures
of Casita Encantada, go to
www.scottandcaroline.com/casitaencantada If you know
anyone looking for a great vacation rental in PV, be sure to
send them the link! |
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Happy Birthday, Scott and Happy
Thanksgiving, Everyone! |
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11/24/05 - Puerto
Vallarta, MX (Photos)
Scott turns 33 as we
celebrate a great American holiday
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It was strange to
wake up this morning to the sounds of construction in our
building floating through the open terrace doors, just like
every other day (except Sunday!), on a holiday. But
although the tourist restaurants are all offering a traditional
Thanksgiving dinner for us gringos down here, otherwise it is
just a typical Thursday, business as usual, for most people around here.
In honor of the
holiday and Scott's birthday, we sat on our new balcony sipping
bloody marys and enjoying the tranquil ocean view, while our
housekeeper cleaned the condo. Then we went out for
Thanksgiving dinner on the beach (photo at right), complete with
pumpkin pie. Mmmmmmmm!
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We've Come A Long Way, Baby! |
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11/22/05 - Puerto
Vallarta, MX
Celebrating the
beginning of our second year of this crazy adventure (and the
completion of our renovations)!
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Well, if you can
believe it, today marks the first anniversary of our
departure from San Francisco, and oh, how much we've seen and
done! What a year it's been! We've slept in more
hotel beds than we can count (some better than others) and
stayed with at least twelve generous family members and friends
(thanks guys!). We've traveled across the US three times
and across a big chunk of Mexico, too, experiencing the warmth,
generosity, friendliness and patience of a people with an
amazing culture and history. Although we've suffered the
loss of our palm-sized, almost-niece Gabriella and our dear old
Lucy-cat this year (may 2006 bring better things for Jen &
Ivan), we've had the priceless opportunity to see two vast and
beautiful countries and countless friends and to meet lots of
new friends along the way. It hasn't always been
easy (perhaps never easy!!), it hasn't always been what we
anticipated, but it has been more rewarding and enriching than
we ever imagined. This IS what we came for (even though
Caroline sometimes has had her doubts!). Maybe we're
feeling sentimental since the holidays are drawing near, but for
this opportunity we are grateful. And we're ready to start
Year Two of the Big Adventure, so stay tuned!
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Resting in New Orleans, one of our favorite stops along the way. |
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The Light at the End of El Tunel! |
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11/14/05 - Puerto
Vallarta, MX
The end is so close
we can taste it!
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After a hectic two weeks and two days of crazed furniture
and housewares shopping and back-breaking, sweaty and exhausting
sweeping, scrubbing, scraping and sealing 'til our fingers
blistered (to clean up the incredible mess the workers left us
with), while living in a Brisas Del Mar Hotel room, we spent our
first night in the condo. Yesterday (Saturday) in a sudden flurry
of activity after weeks of waiting, our wood furniture and
wrought iron bed were delivered within minutes of one another.
Our carpenter, Antonio (that's him in the photo at right), and his crew spent much of Saturday and
all day Sunday (is this really Mexico??!!!) installing
the custom vanity, armoire, kitchen cabinets and terrace doors
and windows he made for us. And after a long, tiring day,
they even installed our new wrought iron curtain rods and
holdbacks, for free! They were willing to stay even later,
but were unable to get the glass delivered, it
being Sunday, so we spent our first night sleeping on the floor
(the bed was delivered without adequate supports so when we sat
on the mattress, it fell through to the floor!) with no glass in
our large doors and windows. It had the effect of luxury
tent camping and would have been kind of romantic, had we not
been so utterly exhausted! The insects weren't troublesome
and we fell asleep under the watchful gaze of the tiniest little gekko, only about an inch-and -a-half long, perched near the
ceiling. It's now Monday morning and Antonio and the guys
are back with the glass. The only major thing left on our
dwindling to-do list is getting the bathroom sink plumbing
installed and fixing all of our small plumbing leaks (everything
in Mexico leaks!). We are almost there, and boy does it
feel good! And in case you were concerned for our sanity
after all this crazed activity, no need to worry; the beautiful
views, ocean breezes and dolphin sightings have kept us sane
during the tail end of this crazy process! |
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One Last Remodeling Trip to PV |
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10/26/05 - 10/30/05 -
Guadalajara & San Miguel de Allende, MX
Finishing our PV
condo, with a furniture shopping stop in Guadalajara
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With our car up and
running like a champ, we departed for our two-day drive to
Puerto Vallarta. We decided to break the eight-hour trip
into two days this time so we could do some furniture shopping
in Guadalajara - the halfway point. As nice as Leon was,
Guadalajara is much bigger and also has a large variety of
furniture stores. We were in town for about 24 hours, and
I think we hit them all (okay, maybe an exaggeration, but it
felt like it). It was a very American-style 24 hours, with
lunch at McDonalds, dinner at Applebee's, and coffee at a
beautiful new Starbucks in the morning (after staying at the
pleasant Crowne Plaza hotel).
After seeing tons of
inexpensive furniture in various showrooms, we decided to have a
sofa custom made for our San Miguel place (I guess that's what
we do). We spent a couple of hours at Sofas y Sillones
furniture showroom selecting styles and fabrics, and figuring
out our custom measurements. When all is said and done,
we'll be paying just under $1,000 for a high quality ultrasuede
sofa delivered five hours away to our place in SMA!
Caroline, the custom furniture expert (plenty of experience
ordering these things at her last job), believes it would've
been closer to $10,000 in the U.S. We also found some
great furniture for our place in PV. It's more than we
wanted to spend (our budget allowed for a couple of overturned
milk crates), but we think it'll be worth it for us, our
renters, home-swappers, and eventual buyers. The good news
is they have a showroom in PV as well.
After ordering our
couch in the morning, we made it to Vallarta on Thursday
afternoon,
where we were able to order our custom bed from the iron-worker
and check into the Brisas del Mar hotel - the hotel in the same
building as our condo. Friday and Saturday were spent
furiously shopping for final items for the place, picking out
paint colors, and walking the contractor through the remaining
steps. It's looking great, and we think we'll be able to
move in as soon as they finishing painting (maybe Monday?) and
we pick out a toilet (very important).
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Our newly finished terrace
(the post is a temporary construction support for the small
terrace above us) |
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