Casita Chuparosa

Over the weekend (Jan 18-20) we went back to Cerro. This time we stayed in the casita, just to see what it would be like, as is. It was a bit like camping. First, we had to chase a bat out, and clean out the pigeon nest. Those big wavy metal laminate sheets that make up the roof are open to the outside — it just sits on top of the walls, so there are plenty of openings for dust and animals. Se we slept inside mosquito netting.

Part of the plan is to put a cement roof on the place, and raise the laminate up seven feet to create an up-stairs patio. The current structure is about four meters wide, and we want to take out at least part of the wall facing the road and extend the building to the front property line, about three and one-half meters out. That would give us space for the bathroom, and living-dining space. In all the finished structure would be about  77 square meters of building, a rooftop patio of about 50 square meters, and a back-yard ground level patio with palapa cover of about 44 square meters.

That is the current plan, of course when we see the cost we might decide to cut back on that some. We contacted two architects to get bids — one said it will take about two weeks for him to get back with plan and cost estimate, the other said his plan should be ready in a day or two. They are to contact us by email.

We came back to Chapala on Sunday, and heard nothing from either of them, so on Tuesday I sent them both emails, to make sure they have my correct email address, and to make sure the junk-mail filter recognizes them as correspondents and doesn’t trash their mail. We will see when (if ever) they reply.

I took several photos, but will have to post them another time.

Here are a series of views of the Casita Chuparosa lot from the Google-Earth satellite views. First, we show the general region:

I’ve added a label for Lake Chapala, in the state of Jalisco. The white lines are state borders. The city of Colima is in the state of the same name, while the right side of the image shows the west edge of the state of Michoacan. The little red dot due south of Colima city, near the ocean and near the border with Michoacan, is where the little village of Cerro de Ortega is located.

Here is a view of the town:

In this view we see the entire town, though it does not go out so far as the ocean, which is about three miles away. There are some very nice beaches within five or six miles, with palapa covered restaurants. The border between Colima and Michoacan is a river, a popular area for the local crocodile population.

In our town-view, the Casita Chuparosa lot is marked by the little white rectangle with red corners. The center of town is that white spot about three blocks to the right (east), where forked roads converge. As you can see, the main streets are mostly diagonal to the map coordinates, since north is straight up on these views. Only the main highway runs north-south. Local buses run south into Michoacan and north-west to the city of Tecoman, about 15 miles away.

Finally, here is a close-up view of the lot itself:

The big green spot in the middle is that large fig tree. Trees in the bottom corner are Guamuchil trees. The big coconut-palm is just to the right of the fig tree, but the top lot-line partially obscures it. The existing structure is at the left corner. More about that in the next post…

Here is a picture of the existing bathroom, if you can call it that. It is about 5 feet high, divided into two sections, each about one meter wide and two deep. The front is covered by a hanging cloth. The toilet side has the bottom-part of a toilet, flushing is accomplished with a bucket of water. The other side is the ’shower’ though there, again, water is provided by a bucket. The only structural feature of the shower side is a hole in the cement floor to drain the water. The light red brick in the photo is the neighbor’s wall, which forms the back-support.

I call this the ‘duende baño’ or leprechaun bathroom, because you would have to be about three feet tall or less to use the darn thing. The Plan calls for removing the toilet, and cementing in the two drains, removing the brick wall between the two parts, and putting a brick wall over part of the front, plus a door and ceiling, to make a storage shed for garden tools.

Here is a picture showing the neighbor’s good truck, which he parks behind his house on his own property, but uses ours for access, the driveway being through the backyard of our property, which starts a foot or so in front of the truck. They also have a laundry line and other junk there — all just behind the so-called bathroom. There is another house on the opposite side, so measuring from the back of our ‘house’ there is a wall for 14 meters on one side, and 11 meters on the opposite side.

The Plan calls for fencing in the rest of the property from the ends of those walls around the back, using a typical local method of fencing made from slabs of coconut palm. When the coconut palms are cut for wood, they have to be squared off before lumber can be cut, and the resulting arch-profiled slabs are placed vertically, side by side, to form a solid wooden fence. It is only a few inches thick, but if tall enough will keep the animals and children out of the yard.

The above picture is of a hen (I’m not even sure which neighbor it belongs to, though you can be sure they do) that laid her eggs in our backyard, and now has four or five chicks following her about as she forages. These and the pigs one neighbor occasionally has are the animals we want to keep out. The wild squirrels and other natural wildlife we want to encourage. We may even get some iguanas, which are native to the region, and set them loose in the garden.

The humidity is always high this close to the ocean, the rainfall is actually a bit less than we have in Chapala — about 3/4 meter annually is typical. So we will need to have gardener to take care of the plants and water them when we are not there. But with the humidity, it is an ideal environment for orchids, so we plan to have lots of those, which should need little care as they thrive naturally in that humidity.

To implement The Plan, we will first have to find an ‘ingeniero’ or architect, who can evaluate the current structure, and see if it is feasible to work with that, extending it both upward and outwards, or if it needs to be razed to make room for our planned structure. But more about that later. First, I want to show you the back yard:

The neighbor who takes care of the place has filled the back yard with his junk, including an old truck. He will have to remove all that. The big tree at the center is a fig tree, and attracts fruit bats when in season. OK, so there was one little bat in the house when we were there, and it is not the fruiting season for the tree.

After the house is structurally complete, The Plan calls for having this whole back yard dug up and screened to remove the stones marble-sized or larger. Those will be used to form footpaths through the garden. Then we will probably have to bring in a truck load of sand, since the soil is fairly heavy with clay. Finally, we will need to add one or two truck loads of organic matter to enrich the soil, or else plant legumes and then cut them down and mix those into the soil.

Here is another image, looking back toward the house:

Here we see the stump of an old coconut-palm Isabel’s father planted, and new palm toward the right. Overhead are a few fronds from the large coconut-palm still remaining, which was loaded with coconuts when we were there. The white ground to the left is an area where the neighbor’s son has been mixing cement, for use on his own building projects elsewhere. We will either have to remove that, or perhaps we will put a little gazebo there, we aren’t sure yet.

It is late New Year’s day and Isabel and I are just back from visiting with her mother and family in Guadalajara for the holiday. … But maybe I should back up and tell you about The Plan, and then get on with the introduction.

We went to Tecoman, Colima for Christmas, and spent most of our time there on the beach. But we also visited Cerro de Ortega, a little village near the border with Michoacan, where my wife’s mother has a small house. Isabel’s father lived there when he was working on his coconut palm plantation nearby, but it has been vacant for most of the past 20 years.

What a mess! Still, the location has potential, even if the house is a ruin. There are lots of interesting places within a short driving distance, and many are even accessible by bus. Of particular interest are the beaches, just a few miles away. Going inland there are mountains — one with a lake that has a whirl-pool into a subterranean tunnel that leads to a lower lake. The city of Tecoman is just a fifteen minute drive away, and beyond that Manzanillo and on up to Puerto Vallarta.

As we looked over the lot the house sits on, with its palm and citrus trees, banana plants and papaya, with hummingbirds twittering from flower to flower — a thought crept to mind and formed itself into The Plan. We knew Isabel’s mom was interested in selling the place, and knew just as well that we couldn’t afford it (this close to the ocean, property sells for about $50 U.S. per square meter). But wouldn’t it make a great winter-home, and maybe even a vacation rental-property the rest of the year? And the big back yard could be a wonderful tropical garden with just a bit of TLC.

So The Plan is: refurbish the house into a comfortable cottage, and turn the back yard into one large garden. It all depended on convincing Isabel’s mom to allow us very-favorable payment terms–like 5% down and ten years of monthly payments. Mexican’s do not like to commit to such long-term loans. The good news is, since it was family, she agreed!

So this blog will trace our progress (or lack there-of) as we try to convert this shabby shack into beautiful Casita Chuparosa (Hummingbird Cottage). After a few initial posts to elaborate a bit on The Plan further posts will be sporadic, as things develop — which in Mexico, means slowly…

I’m Andy, a gringo from Michigan (which sounds very much like the Mexican state of Michoacan) and my wife is Isabel, a ‘Tapatia’ (Guadalajaran, so-called as the home of what we call the Mexican Hat Dance and that style of dancing). We hope you will join this blog and post your comments and suggestions, as we endeavor to show all our readers what it is like to try to renovate a house in Mexico.