Creating environmentally designed habitats for sustainable living in Costa Rica and beyond…
When I first started researching green building I found pretty quickly that the vast majority of material, books, websites, etc. are made for people living in the temperate zones of the US and Europe. There is a ton of material for them. When you look for green building resources for the tropics though, not so …
Continue reading "Green building in the tropics- thermal mass"
The house is now mostly finished, and we have an 11 week old baby girl named Luna. Little Luna has occupied most of our time lately, so I'm way behind on blog posts. Eventually I'll get a chance to take some photos of the finished house (which still does need a lot of detail work …
We are six months into building our new 2 bedroom 2 bath house in Northern Nicaragua at Brisas Del Alma in Aposentillo, and it's just about done! All we're missing is a few little details that should be complete within the next couple of weeks, but the good news is that we'll be moving in …
I can hardly believe it, but the house is nearly complete. Way back in February our contractor promised to have it finished by the end of July, but as anyone who has ever built in Nicaragua (or anywhere else in the world) knows, a better estimate is to take whatever they say and add at …
In Part 2 of our Nesting in Nicaragua series, Holly is one week shy of being six months pregnant and the house has been under construction for five months. The roof is mostly on and you can start to get a feel for what the house will look like. Take a tour of the interior …
Kim Obermeyer of hipEhabitat.com talks about his design for a cool roof - a double layer roof that will prevent heat from the sun from radiating into the living space. The roofing system features pre-painted structural zinc roof panels with 2"x2" spacers and Plycem cement board bottom layer.
After four months of construction, we have walls completed to roof height, the roof of the bodega is finished, and we're starting to install the alfajias (rafters) that will hold the roof of the main house. It's the end of April. The official start of the rainy season in Nicaragua is May 15th, but rain can be …
We started building the beach house way back in March - or was it February 2013? The point is, it's been so long that it's hard to remember. The main delay has been caused by an irresponsible carpenter with a lot of excuses (mostly lies) and a weak work ethic. We had been waiting for …
Continue reading "Beach House Progress – Plycem Walls and Bamboo Siding"
Ok, I know you can barely see the house in this picture, but it's just such a classic shot of me telling the dogs that they cannot eat our caretaker's pet squirrel "Simon" (named for one of the chipmunks). You can see a tiny bit of the house that our caretaker will move into once …
We are the proud owners of Lot #22 at Brisas Del Alma in Aposentillo, Northern Nicaragua. Since buying our lot a few months ago we've started making some improvements. The fence and some tree planting came first. Now we've hooked into the community water, have planted some non GMO corn and have begun building our …
Continue reading "Planting Non-GMO Corn and Beginning to Build at Brisas"
The next step in the saga to build a beach house in Northern Nicaragua is complete. We've got a roof! When building anything in this country, you've gotta have patience. Lots of patience! A big issue has been our carpenter. We wanted to work with local people and keep jobs in this area, so we …
The whole process has been really slow, but at least it's been steady. We bought a beachfront concession lot back in April of 2012. It wasn't easy and you can read the full story here. Since then we've been working to improve the lot little by little. We hired a caretaker. We dug a well …
We are nearly finished with building our teak and concrete block bodega up on the ridge at Tierra Del Suenos. We'll use it as a garage, storage unit, and workshop. Right now we're finishing up the details - painting and varnishing. We've also begun construction on our lot down on the beach.
Eco:Design:Life 