Building in Mexico, from the ground up! It's Lawrie's turn to write

Finished, September 10th, 2007

Okay, so you've decided that you want to live in paradise, and you've found the perfect spot. Should you rent, buy or build?

If you are new to the island, I recommend that you rent to begin with to be sure you have found the perfect place for your dream home. 

Of course, if you have been a frequent visitor to the island, you probably have all that information, and you can go directly to purchasing or building. In our case, we decided to build, as we couldn't find the perfect place already built. 

Day one, January 15th 2007

If you are buying a lot, do your homework. It's a really good idea to have a recent land survey to ensure you are purchasing the correct lot and that you will be building within the actual boundaries of the lot.  

Mistakes do happen! We know of a few instances where owners started a house but on the wrong lot, or were in the process of purchasing a lot or a house and discovered the "sellers" did not actually have the legal right to sell the property. 

After purchasing a lot, the next step is to find a reliable and honest builder. There are a lot of horror stories about building in Mexico, but if you check references, you will find someone who fits your requirements and your budget.

Digging down 13 feet to bedrock.

It's always a good idea to see some of the builder's completed projects and talk to the owners to find out if they are pleased with the finished product. We were very pleased with the professionalism of Patricio Yam Dzul, and his crew.

Before you actually get to start on your project, obtaining a building permit and having your plans approved can take a while, but eventually, you'll be ready to start.   

Blocks are quickly rising up!  

Now permits in hand, you are ready to clear the property and construct a solid foundation. No, you don't have to actually do the work; the crew will do it for you.  

You can satisfy yourself by watching.  (But be sure to wear your supervisory hard hat and carry a clipboard. You want to project the right impression that you know exactly what you are doing.)  

On Isla, there are very few foundations dug with backhoes; instead, a couple of strong guys will dig a trench deep enough to hit bedrock.  

Pouring the roof

We shuddered when we first saw these young guys down 13 feet, in a narrow trench, with no reinforcements, filling buckets with sand and rocks, then passing them up overhead to other workers.  It's a hot, dirty, and potentially dangerous job.

  
As with most manual labour jobs in Mexico, there is no safety equipment: no steel-toed boots, or work gloves, or hard hats, or safety harnesses. Most of the guys work in bare feet or in sandals. That's it.

Pouring the roof of our casa

Mixing the concrete occasionally involves a portable cement mixer, but just as likely will be done by hand with a shovel and a bucket brigade to transport the wet cement mix to the required location. 

During a roof-pouring, we have seen as many as twenty-five guys working the site, passing heavy buckets of concrete from the ground up to the second floor, and up again to the roof. The empty buckets are tossed back down to start the journey over again. Most houses are created out of eight-inch concrete building blocks and rebar. A few large architecturally designed homes on the island have used concrete pumper trucks.  

Downstairs tile floors

When the crew finally starts constructing walls, it is amazing how quickly things progress. We had dewy-eyed visions of a three-month completion as our house was progressing so rapidly. Wrong!   

Once the blocks are up, things slow down dramatically as the first coat of plaster is literally thrown at the walls, then troweled, and smoothed.  Repeat for a second coat, and the third and final coat. It is a mind-numbing, but very necessary process that takes the edge off the initial excitement. 
  
Oh good!  More photos of plaster going on the walls.  That's so very exciting. 

Several coats of plaster

But wait, we need plumbing, you know, stuff like toilets and sinks. And electricity! Silly me, those services are installed after the plaster has dried. Chip-chip-chip. Slowly, paths are chipped into the plaster for wiring and pipes. Next are the windows, tile floors, and the final touches to the roof. 

At this point, the only wood that has been used during construction is to build a homemade ladder for the work site.  

How different than North American construction methods. But this is the tropics; hurricanes, humid weather, rainstorms, and voracious tropical insects have altered how buildings are constructed. Your typical Minnesota or Alberta home would not last a year in this climate.  

Finishing the tower

While all this activity was going on, we shopped. Choosing lighting fixtures that hopefully would not rust or corrode, or cost a bazillion dollars in electricity to operate. Picking out plumbing fixtures, tile, and kitchen cabinets. The easy jobs, the fun jobs, you say.   

Well, not exactly.  Cancun building supply stores do not carry a lot of inventory.  Very little on the display floor is actually for sale; instead, items must be ordered with a wait of ten days to eight weeks. We needed three matching bathroom mirrors, and only found two. We wanted three matching bathroom sinks, and again, only found two. We learned to be very flexible in what we had envisioned, settling for the easy solution instead of a long wait in most cases. 

December 2007

And finally our dream home was finished; just seven months from start to finish.  

We are very happy with the results as the house was completed quicker than promised, and cost less than what we had budgeted. 

Damn, one small detail we forgot. 
Now we need furniture. And that is another trip and whole other story!

Hasta Luego
Lynda & Lawrie

Stuffing a king-sized mattress through the doorway

Lawrie, concrete bases for beds

Murder. Mayhem. Revenge. Romance.

Isla Mujeres Mystery Series

Death in the Vineyards Mysteries

The Adventures of Thomas and Sparky

Our Robinson Crusoe tree house, Isla Mujeres, Mexico

Our second-floor ocean-view tree-house perch

While sharing a bottle of wine (or two) a few years ago, we sketched with pen and paper what we envisioned for our new home on Isla Mujeres. 

Our design included a Robinson-Crusoe-style palapa for our upper deck.  Palapas are thatched-roof, open-sided structures made of either dried palm-tree leaves or grass. We love our palapa. 

It's a cool, inviting, romantic place for staring at the ocean, reading books, stargazing, or sipping wine by candlelight. Last year, we asked Patricio Yam, our builder, to re-furbish the palapa as it was starting to look a bit ragged. 

Benito, Manfred, and Miguel removing old palapa

Day One: Patricio and his crew of brothers, sons, and nephews arrived to dismantle the existing thatched roof. 

Patricio decided that the original job done by a crew from Cancun was not up to his standards, particularly since some of the wood was already bug-infested and starting to disintegrate. He had his crew remove most of the original framework, with plans for new crossbeams. 

Day Two: They peeled, sanded and varnished small logs before attaching them to the larger beams using stainless steel screws. The rust and corrosion on the windy side of the island create havoc with all things metal, so stainless steel screws are a perfect choice for building wooden structures.

Re-thatching the palapa

Days Three to Five: The new thatching was applied. Angel and his brother Ishmael spent 8 hours per day, working shoulder to shoulder, balancing barefoot on the small wooden crossbeams. 

No safety harnesses, no boots, no hard hats. They hand-sewed each small bundle of thatch onto the sticks using a very strong twine, the same type used for making fish nets. 

My hands ached, watching them work. 



Re-thatching the palapa



Day Six: Patricio's brother, José, was in charge of attaching the fish netting to the outside of the thatching. 

The netting is necessary to keep the grass from blowing away during windstorms, and it gives the finished product a smoother look. 



José - balanced on board adding netting.

Late in the afternoon of the sixth day, I went upstairs to the roof deck to take more photos of their progress. I discovered that José was balanced on a 2 x 8-inch plank thirty feet off the ground, on the ocean side of the palapa. 

The plank was inserted through the last rung of two ladders lying sideways across the new thatching. 

The two ladders were then held in place on the roof side of the house by a 4” log. Juan and Manny were leaning on the log - holding José and the entire contraption in place.  

Both Juan and Manny were exhorting José to hurry up as their arms were getting tired holding the combined weight of ladders, boards, and José. 

I hopped up onto the log, adding my weight to the counterbalancing efforts, and sat there for the next hour while José dangled three storeys up over our stone patio, his bare toes gripping the edge of the plank. 

José thought it was pretty amusing that I was so worried about his safety.  Joking and perpetually smiling, José is usually the one who takes on the worst and most dangerous jobs. Angel, his nephew, was balanced on his stomach, wedged in under the top of the palapa - passing José the twine to sew the netting in place. 

My stomach was doing flip-flops, thinking about their lack of safety equipment. 

A few final touches!

The next night, we sat under the finished palapa, enjoying a glass of wine, the full moon reflecting off the rolling waves, and we were very, very happy that these wonderful, and slightly crazy, people build such romantic structures.

Hasta pronto

Lynda & Lawrie

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