| Back to Main Index |
JOURNEYS BY PAUL Building a House in Costa Rica (or go to page 2) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Costa Rica House Videos
(I'm Amadays1)
Click on Pics to Open Galleries
Links
Recent Comments
|
Page 1 March 7, 2008 After three visits to research house building (and a little surfing), I'm down here on the fourth visit (after buying the lots) to get the house started. During my last visit a month ago, I traveled around the country, and did the final research, staying in houses built by foreigners who'd been here quite a while, and had good advice. The consensus seemed to be to build a house that I wanted to live in, then if I wanted to sell it, it would probably appeal to others. I liked this advice because I don't know how quickly a house will sell right now with the (almost) recession occurring in the U.S. What I really like when I come to Costa Rica is to stay in a quaint tropical type small house that has cool vegetation around it and birds humming around while I hang out on the terrace reading, or studying Spanish, or making these entries. As Carlos Castaneda said, the house should have 'soul.' The lot I'm going to build on is sloped so I decided on my last trip that the house site should be cut so that I can really see what I've got before I design the house. So we did that last trip. It was a good decision because once we cut the lot a certain depth, I decided I didn't really want to go farther down the hill because the wall of dirt would be behind me was already tall enough, and the drive down to the house would be steeper. Since I didn't want to go down any further, I had less area than I had envisioned. But I can always terrace the hill down later if I want more flat land. (Or just build the next house on my bigger lot.) Back in the U.S. I started designing a one bedroom house, then changed it to a two bedroom-two bath, house with a front terrace overlooking the valleys extending down to the ocean (and the Nicoyan Peninsula). Since the house is small (840 sq ft. not including the terrace), I'm giving one bedroom folding French doors that open into a main forward room (living or dining room) which will allow an ocean view through two sliding glass doors that open onto the patio (overlooking the ocean). Click on the picture below to see house floor plan.
Yesterday, I marked off the lot with chalk, just like the police do around a body at a crime scene, and we discovered that the lot is much narrower at one end, so that the patio would be close to where the end of the firm land is. Now I'm working on a solution to that problem. I have a few alternatives but I'll let you know when I've decided. Firm land is dirt that was undisturbed during he cutting. It is hard and secure, and is where you can build. Fill is dirt that was cut away, and pushed over the edge, which gives more yard, but cannot be built upon for a year (for good reason). You can see that in the pics of my lot from the distance. It looks like a giant anthill. I inserted a few pictures of recently moved dirt on someone else's lot. Drainage wasn't factored in when the backhoe was there, so water came down the driveway and created a little mudslide after two hours of steady rain. I'm trying to avoid that by creating a temporary drainage route. AND I'm ordering sod to be placed all over the dirt that was pushed down the hill. You can see the area that must be sodded on the pics of my lot taken from a distance. Supposedly, that will cost a little less than $1,000. To have my lot cut by the backhoe cost me around $1,500. On Monday, we're going to start the building process by staking the lot for the cement walls. You click on the pictures below to enlarge.
Go to Page 2 of Building a House in Costa Rica
thanks, Paul Ogier
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
