Baby Steps...

New seating area furniture

We returned from our December/January visit with a new appreciation for what rainy season means in the Caribbean.  It means 4-8" of rain daily!  I think back to the drought in 2015 that the whole Caribbean was experiencing and then hear about the landslides and 100-Year-Flood on the North Coast and think, "Woof! You have to be prepared for everything!"  So, we're up-scaling our water storage plans.  If you had 30K gallon storage capacity AND a 20K gallon pool. You could last through any drought.  Everything we build will have water capture and/or water storage built into it.  And eventually, with solar and wind power, we should be pretty self-reliant on our hill.

Seating area with bar height table leading to kitchen

So, we now have a relatively stable water supply and a small but sufficient battery back up system. We have fans in all the rooms and with the exception of our August trip (tenemos calor!) they seem adequate in terms of keeping things comfortable during visits. We STILL haven't installed the tankless propane water heater.  That will be a step up from the electricity hog of an electric water heater we have with the capacity of my normal coffee cup.  Believe it or not, a hot shower is even a necessity in the Caribbean as far as I'm concerned. Solar water heaters are also common.

Kitchen with addition of IKEA's GRUNDTAL shelving

For less than the price of the IKEA sofa sleeper we found a little couch, 2 chairs and coffee table at Inoa y Reyes (the store outside of Sabaneta de Yasica)  Not the most comfortable but fit the space and could be used later in an outdoor seating area if we wanted to upgrade the furniture in the living room to something more comfortable. At the very least, the little bit of furniture adds a pop of color and cuts down on the echo in the all cement house!  It is basically a bunker!  Which I love...I never worry about what a hurricane/big storm could do!  We are totally sold on concrete as the optimal roof style.

I also highly recommend getting the IKEA mosquito netting sheers they sell at every store. We close those at night, keeping the doors open but the gates locked and it's lovely.

We took apart the bunk bed to accommodate my step daughter and her friends coming for a visit in late January for about a week.  So we have successfully had guests stay at the house!  That was a first. We are already staging what needs to be brought down on the next trip (in our guest room! 😜 Look out folks! She's found the emoji function!...) and developing a system of taking checked duffle-bags down and stuffing them inside one another for the trip home thus

back bedroom with bunk bed taken apart...needs curtains

saving room and money if we fly an airline that makes us pay for checked bags which we often do.

We have a king bed frame and mattress just waiting for our master bedroom renovation and we have a bead on a cheap used car to use when we're there.  Everything in order to achieve the "hop on a plane and just go with nothing but the plane ticket to pay" vacation option.

Other than my better half's contribution to the house actually being a modern home with water and electricity, I got us working closets! Sadly, I can't show you a picture here because

front bedroom with door to pool

the phone I used to take the picture had to be left behind in the house for our step daughter to use in case of emergencies.  But, I'll sneak a photo into some future post.  Seriously, the house has adequate closet and storage space, but inside those huge closets it's just space...no shelves or racks...??  So we just throw things in there and then there's basically no room...just a lot of  'head room' for our tools and suit cases. Thus, I utilized our friends at CPS shipping and voila! There were the closetmaid systems  purchased on amazon.com waiting for me over Christmas to install! Thanks Santa! 😉 ← Yay!  My life is now complete.


I've been looking through my old posts.  I think it's time to hold my own feet to the fire and talk about some of the 'issues' I've mentioned before:  Driving in the DR, buying used appliances (soon to add a used car), and the reality of break ins when you own a vacation home that is often unoccupied.  

Look for those topics coming soon to a blog near you. (I'm purposely NOT putting an emoji here...haha)