Update: House project in Jaguey, Perú - Post 6
Holy delayed posting, Batman!! So it’s been over a month since my last post. October has been a completely CRAZY month, but we’ve had a ton of fun. It started with the Algonquin Mill Festival where I entered a small piece in their annual Art Barn competition (Oct. 7-9, 2022). Spoiler alert, I didn’t win anything or sell the little guy, but it definitely felt good to at least varnish, frame, and share a piece with the public. It felt like progress for sure. That same weekend we had a birthday party to attend over in western PA, a church family night at Carrollton Church of God, and worship team fun on Sunday morning.
This is the little 8” x 10” oil painting on canvas board that I created from a photo I took from the Panamerican highway between Arequipa and Camaná. I entered it into the Algonquin Mill Art Barn for fun and to get over my fear of putting my artwork out there.
We processed our last batch of 50 meat chickens Oct. 21, 22, & 23, and we attended a wedding reception party for my cousin Max and his lovely wife Audrey, so I baked them a small wedding cake.
I’ve always wanted to try to make a little wedding cake, so I went ahead and gave it a go for our family celebration of my cousin’s wedding.
Josie turned 3 at the end of the month, so we had a small party with family and friends on the 29th. We’ve had to renew Dylan’s passport, and we also had Trunk-or-Treat, which means I painted a fun photo board for kids to use. I am just praying that November will be a bit more tranquil.
Two of my kiddos posed with one of their best buddies from church at our annual Trunk-or-Treat event.
Meanwhile in Perú, the house project continues. We just worked on selecting colors for the painting scheme, which is surprisingly difficult long distance. We looked at two different websites purporting to show the colors of two brands of paint ostensibly available in Camaná only to find that either the colors chosen were not actually available or that they supposedly didn’t exist. I’m not going to lie, at one point I was so over it, I cried. In the end, I’m just going to trust that it will work out, and the reality is that if there’s a color that we hate that’s on the wall, I can always cover it with artwork and/or paint over it at some point when we have money saved up for additional decoration.
This is the second website that we checked out with possible colors, but not all of the colors are available local to our house project. We shall see what we end up with on the walls.
To catch you all up on the construction process, I wanted to share these photos of the house with its gesso coating and the tile on the floor in the main areas. The painter we hired is part way through the outside base coating in these images. Again, special thanks to my brother- and sister-in-law, and my mother- and father-in-law for continuing to oversee the project down in Perú and for sending photos to keep us updated on progress and pitfalls!
Here’s a 3/4 view of the house from the Lima side. The walls were cemented and then stuccoed. In this image the sewage/grey water line can be seen heading down to the biodigester.
The biodigester in the ground!!!
Rear retaining wall to keep the sand from rolling down into the back of the house.
The tile Jhan chose is fabulous!!! Here’s the view from the first floor guest bathroom. To the left is the Living Room, and to the Right is the Kitchen/Dining Room. The color is actually muted by grout and construction dust. The walls have been stuccoed and have received a base white coat. (Pictured are Papá Miguel, Mamá Irma, and I think Stiven…which makes me unsure who took this photo. :o)
This is taken from nearly the same spot viewing the Kitchen/Dining.
Here’s the Kitchen tile transitioning to the Dining area (wood-style tile), and the door to the left next to the exterior door is the pantry.
This is the Living Room from under the stairs.
This is Papi’s room. And the wandering canine is Rayo, the faithful companion of my BIL Stiven. (Rayo also loves to pal around with Papá Miguel and Mamá Irma.)
This is the bedroom directly above Papi’s on the Camaná side of the house. It will probably be one of the boys’ rooms.
The Master Bedroom from outside the window on the porch.
The Studio with a neutral grey tile. This is from an earlier stage pre-stucco of the construction, so you can see the clean tile floor.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this whirlwind update on the past couple of months’ progress. I’m hoping to produce a free printable for a family Thanksgiving activity and/or a printable Advent Calendar with craft/creativity ideas. When I figure it out, I’ll be sure to post the info here in the blog. Please sign up for my Newsletter at the bottom of this page if you’re interested in receiving this freebie!