Trip Canceled

Bummer.  My trip had to be canceled due to the electricity outage of the hurricane.  We would have preferred to reschedule and fly out next week, but the change fees + price difference in the flights were a bit much to handle, so no Mexico visit this September. 

Heading Down to Loreto on 9/4

Just a quick post to anyone reading who would like me (Megan) to look in on anything.  I'm heading down this Friday for a couple of weeks (assuming there are no travel delays due to the hurricane).  If anyone would like me to look in on your homes or take pictures of anything particular, please let me know!  Leave a comment or email casadeturtle@gmail.com. 

May June 2009 Trip

We braved the Swine Flu hysteria and decided to take a quick trip down to our little casa by the sea. We were worried that it might be a little too hot this time of year, but actually as I type this at 11 a.m. on June 3, I am sitting with the doors and windows open and the AC off.

It does get hot between about noon and 4 p.m. - definitely too hot for any strenuous outdoor activity like walking around shopping with a toddler in downtown Loreto for example :), but the mornings and evenings are just perfect. We have made the most of those times by hitting the new community pool and the beach.

Avery (our 18-month-old daughter) loves being in the water and is constantly asking to go the beach or pool. Or as she says, "bee" and "bool". The new community pool in Founders is beautiful, but they are still having trouble keeping the filters and cleaners working.

As a result there is some slippery algae on the bottom in places and there are a few too many dead insects and leaves floating around. The shallow beach style entry is just perfect for hanging out with a toddler at the pool though, and the landscaping is great.

The other most noticeable changes since our last trip have been the progress on Agua Viva and some of the custom homes, and the maturation of the Founders' landscaping. Some of the courtyards are in full bloom and are beautiful. And the 'street' our house is on, Calle Santuario, is looking great.

Once again we are convinced this little community will be amazing once it's complete. It's just frustrating how slow progress is. The Posadas remain half done and there are still no shops or restaurants. As a result, you definitely need a car while you are down here as trips to Loreto to pick up groceries and supplies are frequently required. Luckily this time we were able to borrow a neighbor's car and that has helped us tremendously (thanks again, Rob!)

We have spent this trip trying to turn our casa into more of a home. We tried to by some art and decor touches but it's actually very difficult to do as there are so few stores that sell anything of any size - they all seem to specialize in stuff that can be packed and taken home. We did find a painting in Adwa (the same folks that did the blinds) and some smaller Diego Rivera copies in Conchitas Curios though and have hung those.

We also found a tapestry to use a table runner in another store and a few bowls and pitchers and things to dot around the place. The house still needs more color though; it is all very brown and white right now. We went looking for some bright throw cushions to put on the couches and beds, but nobody seems to sell them here.

Once again we will have a long list of items to bring with us next time. This time we managed to bring in a US region DVD player and a bunch of DVDs, a power drill / screw driver and a swiffer vacuum thing. Over time and several trips we will eventually have the place fully stocked up.

We probably won't be back now until next Christmas. So if anybody would like to use the place, please let us know. We would far rather it's used than sit empty. If we already know you, or if you are also an LBC homeowner looking to do a free house swap, there won't be any charge. All that we ask is that you pay for a check-in / check-out cleaning service on the way in and out ($80 each through LBC) and utilities (electricity, TV and internet) while you are down here. If we don't know you, we'll need to rent you the place throught the LBC Rental Program and that will include cleaning and utilities etc. Click on the e-mail link on the right hand side if you'd like to use the place.

Upcoming Visit - Anyone Need Anything Done?

This is a message for those fellow Loreto Bay homeowners out there:  we're heading down for a vacation at the end of May / beginning of June.  If anyone would like us to check on their house, take pictures of progress, and/or do any other little items while we're down there, please let us know!  We're more than happy to do so. The email address is located on the right side of the blog.

-- Megan & Damian

Pictures From Our Stay - Christmas 2008

We finally got around to downloading some of the pictures we took of the house and neighborhood during our stay over Christmas 2008. Here they are:

Our Casa - FN 529 viewed from the common area behind the house

The common area behind our casa (our casa is the red house at the top of the picture)

The little courtyard inside our casa (baby pictured for scale :))

The Great Room off the inner courtyard

The bedroom downstairs (french doors lead to inner courtyard)

The roof terrace upstairs

Viewing tower looking towards the mountains

Viewing tower looking towards the sea

The beach

The beach on a windy day

Kayaks lined up on the beach ready for action

Our "street" - Calle Santuario

Our neighborhood at night

Our Maiden Stay

Casa de Turtle is hosting her first guests: us! After weather delayed our scheduled arrival, we flew in on Christmas day. Luckily, we had booked two weeks to come down, so we still get a 10-day visit despite the delay.

While it's all fresh in my head, here are our thoughts on the current state of things:

Community Progress
Founders' Neighborhood doesn't look too much different from our last visit in September, 2007. Certainly more of the courtyards are landscaped, there are more houses, and more sidewalks are put in, but the overall feel of it hasn't changed much. It's still a construction zone, albeit the zone has shifted a bit further away from our little casa. This is about what I expected. The other day I was in the lobby of the inn and overheard another homeowner giving a manager an earful on the state of the community. While everything he was complaining about was both accurate and legitimate, I found myself wondering why he was so shocked. Then I realized if you don't follow blogs and status updates from other homeowners, and instead depend solely on the updates coming from Loreto Bay/Replay, you'd be a bit shocked upon arrival.

The golf course looks amazing. We walked around it this afternoon. It was my first time really exploring that area and I was most impressed.

Agua Viva is coming along quickly! At least it's considerably further along than I was expecting. There are a number of differences in it from Founders' that can be sensed just walking around. For example, the houses in Agua Viva seem to be built more in a row like fashion, whereas, in Founders' they are at various angles. The construction in Agua Viva is far less haphazard looking - at least to a novice like me - than it was/is in Founders'. They seem to have learned a lot of lessons. There are fewer rounded edges in Agua Viva, e.g. their high boys are square, the new design of the cupola is square on top, windows are almost all square, etc. The color options for the houses changed for Agua Viva; their options are more vibrant, ours are a bit more muted with a few exceptions.

Our Choices - Regrets or No?

• House color: We got our first house color choice of red and I love it. However, it has its disadvantages. Red shows the dust way more than other colors. If you chip the paint, it's very obvious. If I had it to do over, I'd still pick red, but it's one thing to be aware of when choosing the darker colors on the palette. While we haven't yet tested this out, I am assuming that when we do paint touch ups, it will be more obvious with red than with a white or yellow.
  
• Interior package: I am pleased with tiles and colors of the interior package we chose. I can't really compare it to the other packages since I've not recently seen houses with other packages.
• Skipping the outdoor grill: We have no regrets because we are not big on grilling. As such, I can't imagine lugging all the stuff upstairs to grill. That said, those grills do look like good fun to enjoy when others are putting them to use.
• Appliance color: We went with black and I'm pleased we did. The appliances, overall, aren't of the best quality, but they're sufficient.
• Tile upgrade on the roof terrace: I'm so glad we didn't do this. It looks great, but the concrete is so much easier to sweep, and I expect (hope) it'll be easier to maintain.
• Pergola: We never even debated this one and considered it a must have. Nothing has changed - I still feel it's a must have.
• Granite vs. tile counters - I'm pleased with the tile as it looks now. Of course, I'm also already annoyed at cleaning it, as I knew I would be. I didn't want the granite solely because it stands out as "not Mexican." But on the maintenance factor alone, I would love the granite.
  

Vendor Review
I am fairly pleased with the state of the house. As can be expected with any new home, there are some issues. My greatest annoyance in this area is not with the developer. It is with TCC (The Construction Coach). They were paid to receive and inspect our furniture for any damage or issues. We have an obviously broken chair, a chair pad that doesn't match the other chair pads, and a refridgerator that you have to lean on in order to close properly. In addition, there are a number of things that I would have expected them to identify to be fixed. In fact, we were the ones who had to catch via pictures emailed to us that a door existed in a location that should have been a wall. One would think an inspection would catch an extra door, especially as we had given them plans for the house and had pointed this issue out to them before. Attention to detail is not their strong suit.

We ended up going the package route on our housewares, furniture, linens and AV. It would have been cheaper to buy these things individually ourselves, but I can't imagine finding the time or energy to do that with a 1-year-old. We'd rather start enjoying our house.

• Our furniture was ordered from Casa Mesquite. We are very pleased with everything related to this vendor. They communicated well and delivered exactly what we paid for. The stain on the furniture is darker than we expected, but the quality of the pieces more than makes up for that. After initially being annoyed that we'd ordered armoires for the TVs per the (then) requirements of being in the rental program, we are now glad for the armoires. The dust is constant and I don't see that letting up anytime soon. While the couch and chair for the living room don't look Mexican, they are very comfortable and well constructed. The dining room is attractive enough that I wouldn't mind having it in our primary home. We have six dining room chairs, which is a bit much for the size of the room, but we have figured out an arrangement that makes it feel much more open. The beds feel well made and sturdy, though the mattresses are a bit soft for Damian's taste. Overall, the furniture feels sturdy, thereby giving it a high quality feeling. I also like the lamps.
• The housewares package was ordered via Dahlgren Duck. This package is way overpriced for what it contains. Most of the items are of high quality (e.g. the toaster and blender are nicer than those we have in our primary home), but given the cost of the package, if you have the time and patience to gather all the stuff yourself, I would highly recommend that. A few more pots and pans would have been nice, too. Also a few very necessary things, like a trash can in the kitchen, are missing from the package.
  
• The linens package was via Loreto Bay. Like the housewares package, it is insanely overpriced. The items are of hotel quality; while they're nice, they're also made to withstand lots of laundering, i.e. the sheets and towels are a bit rough. Everything is also a very bland white, presumably so the rental program can swap between houses. We definitely need to add some color to this place!
  
• The AV package was via Road 9. Their service while we've been here has been very good and they've been responsive. However, once again, the package is overpriced for the actual goods you get. If you have the time, I would recommend getting the TV's etc yourself. The clock radios that come with this package are quite ugly, however, the cord that comes with them to plug into your iPod is very handy. Invaluable when you have a 1-year-old who likes music before a nap.

We are ordering our blinds from ADWA in Loreto. The owners of this business contacted us via email when the house was near completion. We like to give our business to those who are on the ball enough to pursue it. Adrian and his wife stopped by our house to measure the windows and allow us to pick the blinds for the various windows and doors. They were efficient and pleasant. Based on that interaction, all is looking good on this front. We'll see based on the finished product.

Items Needed

• Vacuum cleaner. When you live near a beach - or in a construction zone - sand and dirt is everywhere, including the dryer. I initially thought why would we need a vacuum cleaner with tile floors? Asked and answered. We need a vacuum cleaner with attachments to get into nooks and crannies. It's also tough to get the floors completely cleaned with a broom because the distance between each floor tile is so wide. A vacuum would work much better.
• Organization gear. Mesh basket for dirty dish towels, laundry basket, bin for recycling, trash can for kitchen, trash bins for bedrooms (they put just one bin in each bathroom, but I need trashcans in both the bathroom and bedroom).
  
• Light labels. Next time we come down, I'm bringing labels for the various switches. Yes, it may look a bit tacky to put up labels from a label maker, but damn it, these light switches are not intuitive at all. I'm constantly switching them on and off to figure out which one goes with what. I know no one else cares what labels I need, but I'm going to reference this post when I get home: island, sink, fan light (2), dining (2), courtyard, courtyard - stairs, fan on/off.
• Hook for kitchen towel. The oven handle doesn't work well with a 1-year-old crawling around.
  

We'll post pictures when we get back to Oregon.

Done!

Well, our casa is finally complete. It took about a year longer than we were expecting, and the final construction, furniture, AV, linens and housewares payments all came due after the US stock market collapsed...but we are now the proud owners of a second home in Loreto Bay.

We are going down for our first official stay in our new home over Christmas and during that trip will get the furniture all arranged and the AV installed. We are really happy that right now at least we are able to see the ocean from our viewing tower...it's certainly not an uninterupted view, but you can definitely see the sea. Below are some more pictures:

Drainage Test

I have little time, so I'm just going to post a few pictures from the surface drainage test done a bit ago.  The first one and the last one are probably the most interesting to the average person, but I figured I'd just load them all.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

Done

We have been notified that our home is complete.  Now we are working on getting it inspected and jumping through those hoops, as well as getting the furniture moved in and all the housewares, etc.  And by "we" I mean Damian, who has done everything related to this house.  Except the blog.  That's all me.

We have more pictures of our finished home. Very exciting!

Our courtyard.  The little door is to a storage unit under the stairs.  The entrance to the house (not shown) is directly to the right.

 

Bedroom on the first/ground floor 

  

View of the kitchen.  I just love the extra window we added shown on the right side. I'm happy we went with black appliances.  

  

Our deck under the pergola.  The stairs lead up to the viewing tower. Second floor bedroom is the room behind the wall.

  

  

Second floor bedroom.  Those doors lead out to the Juliet Balcony shown in the bottom picture.

  

 Second floor bathroom

  

Viewing tower looking at the mountain view.  You can also see one of the posadas to the right.

 

Exterior of the house.  Good view of the viewing tower and the Juliet Balcony.

Almost there

We have some new pictures. It looks like our little casa is pretty darn close to being done! I am very happy with the cabinets we chose, as well as the stain. And the tiling looks really good from what little I can see. Regarding the color, D said it looks really red on his computer; on mine, it looks really orangey. As long as they used the same color of red they used for the other red ones I have seen down there, I'm very happy with the color.

A view of our house if you were standing in the courtyard

It looks like they have not painted the house to the left of us, so it looks a bit sloppy at the moment

The stairs leading up to the second floor - the front door is directly to the right (not shown)

A view of the kitchen. The window on the right wall is the one we added. You can see the outside of that window in the first picture above.

Bathroom on the first floor

Our pergola (the wooden structure) on our deck. The stairs lead up to the viewing tower. The entrance to the bedroom on the second floor is behind the stairs. The stairs leading down to the first floor are also behind the stairs.

The entrance and a view of the viewing tower at the top

Getting Close

Look, we have walls!   These are pictures of our house as of June 30th.   It should be done in August.

Also, we were informed that our exterior house color will be our first choice of Rojo Piedra.  I'm very happy with this.  It's one of those colors that people either love or hate, but we love it.



You can also go view some pictures of a completed Nueva Chica on the Stark Silver Creek blog. As with the one being toured, we're also in Founders' Neighborhood, so we won't have a gas stove as they apparently will in Agua Viva!   Some comparisons between the pictures of the toured Nueva Chica and ours are listed below.  Damian is a lot more familiar with these things since he's been tracking the house progress more closely than I; therefore,  I reserve the right to correct myself after he reads this post.

• We chose weave cabinets, so those will look a bit different. I can't tell if this is the stain we chose.  I think it probably is.    


• Like these picture, we also have black appliances.


• I think they have a different interior package, which means the tiling and walls would be somewhat different.  If they are, it's not a huge difference since I can't tell if it's even a different package!


• We'll have a window in the wall in the living room.  So, in the fifth picture down, we'd have a window in that wall. 


• We did not upgrade to get the outdoor cook top.  Neither of us enjoys grilling, so it seemed a bit pointless.

Facebook Group

So, I'm not sure if/how this might be used, but I figured I would add a group on Facebook for us Loreto Bay Homeowners. For some reason, it doesn't come up when I search, but if you're a homeowner, are on Facebook, and are interested in joining the group, I think you can click here and it should take you to the group. Edit: At the recommendation of other group members, I have closed off the group such that I will approve only homeowners to join. When you request to join, please let me know how I can look you up in the homeowner's directory on the Loreto Bay site. Thanks! I haven't added anything other than a basic photo (anyone with a better photo to represent the group, please feel free to send it to me and I'll upload it).

For those curious about the construction of Casa de Turtle, so are we! I'm not sure what is going on. It seems to be at somewhat of a standstill. We'll post when we have news.

Construction continues veeeerrrry slowly

I just looked at the date of our last post. Just a couple of hours after I posted that, we received a call about a baby girl who had been born a few days earlier and whose birth parents had selected us to parent her. Less than 27 hours later, we became the proud parents of a beautiful, healthy, and adorable baby girl. How quickly life changes!

Well, life changes quickly when it comes to all things but the construction of our little casa it seems. We're actually not overly bothered with the delay of the progress. It seems the slow down on our house is due to a shift in resources and focus to the amenities within the community, so that seems a good trade off since having those done will make vacations down there much easier.

In our recently received newsletter update, it appears good progress is being made on both the Posada del Mercado Norte and the Posada del Mercado Sur. These are both very close to our casa, so this is excellent news.


TCC's latest photos of our house show minor progress. I believe we're now slated for an August 2008 completion date.

The front our casa. The front door is on the lower left; the windows are to the lower and upper bedrooms.

The kitchen

Taken from within the kitchen - a view of the living area, courtyard and lower bedroom.

Taken on our roof terrace - the steps leading up to our viewing tower

Ornament

While D is always on top of the furniture, the construction, the invoices, the latest rumors about changes in management and direction at Loreto Bay - you know, all the important stuff - I am always paying attention to other stuff. Namely the logo. So after months of getting emails from Loreto Bay, Miami Vice style, I was excited to receive an email from Loreto Bay with the old logo selling a Christmas ornament using the old logo:

Of course, it would have smarter to send this a tad bit earlier than 12/20, but they do not it's available for delivery by Christmas. I do try to buy an ornament from each major place we visit, so maybe I'll buy this to represent our trips to Loreto Bay.

62% Complete

Well, according to both The Construction Coach (TCC) and our latest invoice we are now 62% complete. Unfortunately the last two months have only seen 3% of progress. TCC are now predicting a completion date of early April 2008. If we hit April that will be just shy of two years from signing the purchase agreement at the buyers weekend in May 2006 and about 18 months after construction officially began in October 2006.

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The Kitchen

Based on the pictures and news coming from Loreto Bay, I think they are currently focusing their construction resources on getting the Posadas, Spa and custom homes completed ASAP. Although this delays the completion of our home quite dramatically, I actually think this is a good idea. Having spent about a week living in a neighbor's completed casa in September, it became pretty obvious that until there are more stores and restaurants open within the community, you pretty much need to have a car while you're there so you can go grocery shopping and get to the restaurants in Loreto.

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The Viewing Tower

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Hopefully by the time our casa is ready there will at least be a grocery store within Founders Neighborhood.

Furniture Ordered

We went ahead and ordered our furniture. Unfortunately it worked out about $7,000 more than we had budgeted, but we think we've got some good stuff. We ordered the San Ignacio package from Casa Mesquite and then added some extra pieces and swapped a few things. For example, we swapped the two love seats for a sofa and a chair and upgraded both from fabric upholstery to milk chocolate brown leather. We also removed the side towers and one of the king beds, added a second chair and side table for the living room, a desk and custom book case for the bedroom upstairs, two Queen beds and an extra nightstand for the room downstairs and some additional patio furniture for the viewing tower. We also upgraded the patio furniture for the roof terrace to the patio furniture and loungers that normally come with the Loreto package .

Casa Mesquite were very accommodating to all the changes we wanted to make and also made sure we weren't doing anything stupid layout wise. Hopefully everything will show up at about the same time as the house is completed and will fit :)

Now we need to work out our AV equipment (phones and TV's etc.), housewares (sheets, plates, pots and pans etc.), art and window coverings. All in all, we'll probably end up spending about $10,000 more than we were expecting on the interior of the house. Hopefully it will be worth it.

Furniture Plans - All Change!

After spending some time in Loreto back in September and walking around our casa we realized that we should change our furniture layout. The biggest changes are that we swapped the living and dining areas and are going for a sofa and two chairs combination rather than two love seats or a sofa and love seat. Our new furniture layouts, overlayed over the house plans are shown below.

New logo?

Did Loreto Bay get a new logo? I noticed the change in a recent email and had a very negative reaction to the email, but couldn't quite place why it was so strong. Upon seeing the two logos compared by a marketing VP, I realized why. The new one seems so cheap and the old one is so solid. What are they thinking?!

September Visit

It's taken a while, but finally an update on our house after our visit down there at the beginning of this month. We flew in right before Henrietta hit, so we hunkered down in our rented casa for the first couple of days. Once the storm passed, the weather was beautiful and we had a wonderful visit. I did not want to come home. I love being down there. It's like life just slows down and all the little worries melt away. I'm very happy we bought the house. That is not to say there aren't issues, but I'm still thrilled with our leap of faith of this adventure.

Click to enlarge - dolphin jumping with Loreto Bay in the background

Progress

All of our walls are up and we were able to walk through the house. There are still layout issues that need to be addressed. Things like a door where there shouldn't be one, a place with no door where there should be one, a window where a door should be, etc. We also found an extra privacy wall had been put up mistakenly on our tower. Apparently, the privacy walls are now called courtesy walls ... I would imagine because this is because they're not for your own privacy as much as to protect your neighbor from you looking directly into their bathrooms.

The extra window that we added to our living room makes a big difference to the feel of the room, so I'm pleased we were able to do that. The biggest challenge will be furniture and layout of that furniture. I think the key is to buy proportional furniture, which means smaller than what we were envisioning. Some of the pieces in the packages you can buy are just huge and disproportional to the space. However, now that there are multiple vendors offering furniture, this is less of an issue.

I was most pleased with our tower. While we didn't get the unobstructed sea views that D was hoping for, we both loved the feel of being up on the tower and can envision many an evening there playing Scrabble and enjoying the warmth. We do have a wonderful view of the mountains (once the mistaken courtesy wall is removed) that is absolutely gorgeous in the evenings.

Seeing and touching the Performwall was very interesting. Everyone we've talked to with construction experience says it's an excellent material and very reliable.

Frustrations

Right now, we're still struggling to get our electrical and plumbing plans to us. Loreto Bay has finally sent them to us this morning, but they are done using the original layout. Since they changed the layout and moved walls, this would impact the electrical plan, too. Very annoying.
Edit: Turns out she attached the wrong plans, so this little annoyance is cleared up!

We also received an email when we were down there that our house was 50% complete, but the finish date has been pushed back to March of 2008. I'm not sure of the real reason for this delay. It's not due to the stated reason of a shortage of Performwall since we already have all of our walls. I'm not too upset about the delay, but the reason they are giving for it are clearly not accurate in our case. This could be because it was a form email sent to a group of homeowners and the shortage does indeed affect a lot of those homeowners and we're in the minority of those impacted by other factors, or it could be something else. I'm always amazed when people and/or companies are not simply upfront about the reasons for issues and delays. Most people are slightly annoyed with bad news, but deal with it well when it is delivered with candor; however, dodging the issue only creates suspicion and distrust. You'd think they'd want to minimize that sort of thing.

Where We Are

We did decide to change our first choice house color when we were down there. We're going to request the red color as our first choice, rather than the white. We both really liked the red homes with the green plants against them. The bolder colors also make a big difference to the community as a whole. Most are a form yellow or tan, so the ones that are the bolder colors really make things pop a bit.

We're also requesting a change to our interior package, I think. It'll cost us an administration fee, but I think that is worth it. This time, we were actually staying in a casa and visiting other casas, so we got more a feel for the various packages.

With the delay, we have a bit more time to ponder the furniture packages a bit. I think we'll still do a package, rather than attempting to buy each piece on our own. I was very impressed with the craftsmanship on some of the stuff we looked at. It was solidly built and aesthetically pleasing.

Photos

We did take lots of photos, but I haven't sorted through those yet. I will post them when I finally get around to it.

53% complete!

We are now being told our house is 53% complete. Pictures!