I’m on Filipino Time. That’s my excuse, anyway, for not having any new posts in over a week. Sure, I could blame the Manggahan Festival now being held in Guimaras, the island province my asawa and I live on, but using “Filipino Time” sounds like a good scapegoat for my laziness.
Our glass company delivered some windows as they ran out of room at their local outlet to store them
But I did manage, however, to snap the following digital photographs using our new Sony CyberShot camera. Our old camera’s battery died and it would cost almost 3,000 pesos to replace it. So we opted for a new camera that cost 7.000 pesos and has 21 megapixels and eight times zoom. Our old model had 12 megapixels and four times the zoom.
Readers from “The Rooster Crows at 4am!,” my first blog I started over five years ago, a month after moving to the Philippines, might recall how I left my asawa’s favorite Sony digital point-and-shoot camera in the pocket of my cargo shorts. Our laundry lady at the time washed the shorts along with the camera. My wife wasn’t too happy with me. We purchased a new camera back then and it has worked great until now.
“The Kano” gets a close-up of the new windows.
The two pictures above gives you an idea of the windows we ordered for our new home. I was impressed that the glass company, Guimaras Glass, made a delivery in less than two weeks of ordering the glass. We’re still waiting on doors, which are supposed to be delivered this coming Saturday. The doors were ordered over two months ago.
Our foreman, Boy, is hard at work. making the precast concrete forms that can be seen in the above shot and in the next three pictures. This added architectural detail cost about an extra thousand dollars, US, but well worth the money in my opinion.
I have to give my asawa credit for this feature. She’s come up with a lot of good ideas that we’ve managed to get incorporated in the house, such as the arched windows and doorways seen in these photos.
Our front entry way
Take a peek at the granite slabs we ordered from A.M. Builder’s Depot in nearby Iloilo. We’ll be using these in our kitchen. And note to Bill S, I still forgot to measure the width of these slabs, but this was the only thickness we could purchase the granite in so we’ll have to make do with what we have.
Here’s the kitchen area where the granite counter tops will be installed.
This is a peek inside our living room where our bags of concrete are being stored. The ceiling installers are making good progress and the electricians have installed the recessed lights.
That’s my lovely asawa in the next shot, standing in front of our new dirty kitchen. Brother-in-law Joery and crew were installing the roof on the structure that day.
The wind-torn tarp offered the men little protection from the torrid sun but it didn’t slow down the guys.
The tile for our floors and comfort rooms have been delivered and work continues to progress at our new home in the Philippines. I would estimate that we might be able to move in this July. Construction began in mid-January of this year and my wife and I are looking forward to living in our new digs. Whether or not I’ll be posting on a more frequent basis at that time remains to be seen. I am retired and unlike some “retirees,” I excel at doing nothing.
Wow!A big thumbs up to your house Dave,so huge!theres a hallway if im not mistaken, its a mansion 🙂
The house is looking great Dave, those arches are a sweet detail. I take it you will be enjoying a few cold san migs at the mango festival this year. Beer & Mangoes not a bad combination I think, lol
Thanks for the update dave looks like things are progressing nicely. looks like most of the smooth finishing has been completed and a lot of the precast installed. so will you have painters starting soon on the outside? hopefully it won’t be to long before they are ready to start installing all the finishing on the inside. do you have your kitchen cabinets yet? just wondering…
anyway enjoy the festival. and i’m sure there will be some good pictures to follow from that new camra.
you would think they would want to order your cabinets and make the sell. but then that would only make since. or i’m thinking maybe the cabinets you like they can’t get them anymore. maybe the guy making your doors can design and custom build them for you.
Looks like its progressing just fine. Maybe it will be completed before the heavy rains start. We made it back alright. Just getting over the jet lag. Couldn’t sleep on the long flight across the water.
All I can say is your house is big Dave.i guess there’s a lot of rooms available for guests.congrats.
Very impressed with the quality of the construction, I like the pre-cast window casings especially, I definitely would like to do that also.
Cant tell about the thickness of the granite from the pictures since there is nothing to reference too, but looks like they may be thicker than the ones I saw there in a few houses that were only 1/2″ thick.
Do you know Dave, will they skim coat (smooth coat as they say there) the Hardiboard joints in the ceiling or just leave them visible. I have used a product here called Hardi-plank( which is same brand as your ceiling panels)
for exterior siding on 2 houses before, but have never used the larger panels before for anything.
Looking very GOOD though!
Hi,
We’re planning on moving to Guimaras in a year or two and would love to get in touch with your foreman Boy. We would appreciate any help you can give us as far as design. You have an awesome house. Would be sharing anymore finished photos? thanks again, Manny