Close Quarters

As we move closer to living in Urubichá, our main concern has been a place to live.

Our long term plan is to find a place to rent/buy to remodel or buy a lot to build on.  But how can we do that long distance?  Where do we live in the meantime? 

We have been given permission to rent a 3-room apartment, built several years ago by former missionaries in the village.  When we went out there to visit, we stayed in 2 of the rooms, so we have some idea of what it is like.

Here's an exterior photo I took of the place on my first trip to Urubichá:

There is no running water.  The well is an "old fashioned" bucket-and-rope affair.  The bathroom is external and shared with the family next door.  It has a toilet, sink, and shower, but without running water!  Everything is plumbed and there is an electric pump at the well, but nothing works.

That's the well in the foreground; the bathroom is behind that bush:

When we found out we would be living there, we asked our coworker Emilio to measure the rooms for us, so we could start planning how we would use the rooms.  The first room is about 176 square feet and has a small cabinet with counter top and a single-tub kitchen sink.  The second room is about 232 square feet and will be used as the girls' room.  The third, our bedroom and office, is about 205 square feet.

So that's a total of around 615 square feet!

One of the hobbies that Kaylee and I share is house design.  Of course, we have been putting this to good use as we seek to plan an efficient future home of ~1000 square feet.  Ever since we came to Bolivia, I have been using my spare time (usually while listening to language recordings) to design more than 30 different renditions of a possible village house, complete with scale models of our furniture.  I use an old home design software that I picked up years ago, so it was easy to mock up this apartment the same way, just to see how things would fit.

We have also talked a lot about the bathroom.  Yes, it is inconvenient to not have a bathroom in the house, especially with 3 little girls that often still need help (especially with a bucket-flush toilet!).  However, our biggest concern was with the "shared" nature of it.  We want to be very careful with our girls, especially considering the high level of various types of abuse.  We decided that we would do what we could to build a bathroom into our already-tight space.  Maybe a shower too?  That would be nice, even if it's a bucket shower.

Here's what we came up with:

Living/dining room:

Kitchen:

Bath/bedrooms:

Our big plan is that Kaylee and the kids will stay in Santa Cruz for a couple weeks while I go paint, build a bathroom, and see what I can do about making the plumbing work!!

Project: Dog Mansion

Rainy season has arrived and our Biscuit is rapidly outgrowing the 18 gallon tote that she was using as a dog house.  She really needed a place to hole up in during the heavy storms we get here, so I decided it was time she had a proper doghouse.

After doing some research on native woods that I knew were available, I decided that I wanted to use Almendrillo, an impermeable hardwood.  It is more commonly known as Cumaru and is a major source of the anti-coagulant warfarin.  I went to the sawmill down the road, but they only cut it into 2" thicknesses for beams and such.  The owner told me about another mill that might have it and, sure enough, there was a stack of 1x6 and 1x8 in their pile of rejects.  The best part was that the owner sold them to me at about a 25% discount, since he wasn't selling them anyway!

That's partly why I refer to it as the Dog Mansion:  it's made from tropical hardwood!

The other reason I call it that is the size of the thing.  I want this house to last a long time, so I did a lot of research and drawing to figure out how large to make it.  That's hard to do when your dog is just a pup!  I basically ended up making it the recommended size based on the average female adult Rottweiler.

The reason I wanted impermeable wood is that I wanted to leave it natural, without paint or finish.  Of course, it's just rough-sawn so I needed to at least do something with the floor.  It was a perfect reason to use my planer (which I've had for over a year!) for the first time:

Once the floor boards were nice and flat and all the same thickness, I set about screwing them down to the skids:

The hardest (no pun intended) thing about working with hardwood is fastening pieces together without breaking screws.  I learned a trick in my remodeling days that helps a ton.  Obviously, the most important thing is to pre-drill the holes, preferably with a countersink.  Then, put a little wax on the screw:

The wax lubricates the wood and screw, which reduces binding and heat.  This results in fewer breakages.  During the whole project, I broke two drill bits (production drilling without enough breaks for cooling), but I didn't break any screws!

In Montana, I used beeswax due to its softness at room temperature, but here all I have is leftover candle wax.  I began by turning each screw into the ball of wax and then pulling it straight out, to load the threads.  The problem was that the wax ball would break unless it was warm in the sun.  Then, one night I got smart, lit a candle, and dipped about 20 screws in the hot wax.  Then I had a nice stock of pre-waxed screws at hand the next day!

I started putting walls up, and of course the inspectors arrived to check out my work:

I thought Lydia was going to figure out the roof layout for me:

If you thought it was a lot taller than it really needs to be, you're right.  I intentionally built it with an attic for the kitties.  They, too, need someplace dry to go in the rain, and I wanted a place to put their food where Biscuit wouldn't pester them while they ate.

Cat deck and front gable done:

I put in the beam to support the center rafters and the gable fascia.  My original plan was to put a post under it on either end (built into the truss), but it's so solid I decided to leave it open.

Fascia and cross pieces set, and it's ready for the roof:

I finished it last night and my dad (here visiting for a few months with my mom) helped me set it in place, right outside the kitchen door.  Anne took this picture for me:

 Lydia threw up all over herself around 2am, so after helping Kaylee take care of the mess, I checked to see if Biscuit was using her house.  It had obviously rained earlier (it did later, too), and she was cozy and snug!

This afternoon we kicked the cats back outside (they got neutered and spayed on Wednesday).  They immediately settled into their penthouse:

I wasn't sure how Biscuit would feel about cats in her attic, but I suppose it's better than bats in the belfry: