Decisions and Details

Decisions and details...

As Alyano, my plumber/electrician has begun work, it is now time to start worrying about some details. Some are not so small, like where the 2nd floor kitchen sink will be. Others are numerous and picky, like exactly where to put light switches and outlets. I'm afraid I won't be asket those and if I feel strongly enough to make changes to the assumptions Alyano makes it will probably require him to do it wrong first. As for the sink, that has been a struggle. The original plan was for that kitchen to be (eventually, not this year) in the NW corner, as it is on the 1st floor, with the bath again in the SW corner. The door to the 2nd floor is along the south part of the east wall, which brings foot traffic across the original bedroom, and the kitchen in the middle of the best views, which seems a waste, both since we aren't in the kitchen all that much and since the view windows then have to be higher, above the counters and appliances. We looked at packing the kitchen into the SE corner instead of the bedroom, but it really is a squeeze. We looked at making it along the bathroom wall, maybe moving the bath door to the other wall to make a L-shaped kitchen (also eliminating the west door to the deck.) Or we could make it a straight-line kitchen along the west wall, also losing the west door, and moving the big slider door to the deck to the west, so the best views would be unobstructed and the kitchen sink window would have a view too. That is looking like the best plan now, though there will still be the bath plumbing nearby if I change my mind again.

Part of the problem is that I don't really know how we will use the space. It is being built to be possible to rent out the three levels as three separate and self-sufficient little apartments, each with a bath and kitchen, but as a house for one family it obviously does not need 3 kitchens, so one or more levels should also be divisible into bedrooms, offices, studio space, etc. If I was to put the kitchen on the south wall, near the door, it could more easily have two (smallish) bedrooms which both have nice views and access to the kitchen, bath, and deck. Maybe I should have him put the pipes back there too, just in case.

He is doing some other extra plumbing already. I've got this idea to put some tubing in one of the slabs on the south wall as a sort of solar collector, with the water headed for the gas water heater routed through that slab first, hopefully getting warmed enough along the way that it takes little or no gas to bring it up to hot-shower temperatures. That requires some extra pipe and valving. Also I have asked for two sets of drain pipes, one for the toilets and another for the bath, kitchen, and laundry sinks, so this gray water can be sent not to the fosa septica but directly to irrigate some of the plantings. Some of this is probably why he needed 600 pesos more in materials yesterday.

Derek and I have also been making changes to the concrete plans this week. We were looking at the level of the parking slab, which is also the lid of the fosa septica, and the level of the planned beam holding up the slab above it (the terrace outside the first floor), and the contours of the street, and realized that the entry to the parking area might too steep, and the beam too low, to get even a small pickup or tall car under the beam on the way in to park. The plan now is to shrink the terrace a bit to increase that clearance, though it will mean only a small car will fit completely under the terrace. We also made some changes to the stairway up to the terrace from the parking area, and added a few steps down the other side to grade level on the west.

December 19 AM update: We went over to the site yesterday to meet with Lencho to review things, pay him, and to make the decision about the upstairs kitchen known to the plumber. In the moment, I reversed myself and decided to put the 2nd floor kitchen on the south wall rather than the west, thinking that if that level got re-purposed into bedrooms or something it could easily be divided in half, east and west, with the bath, kitchen and entry as shared space. We'll see... Well at least the pipes will be there if we stick with this plan.

PM. Liz and I went over this morning. The plumber wasn't there but the crew had already poured the three round columns that will hold up the 1st floor terrace over the septic tank and the parking area. They were starting to build the rebar reinforcement and the forms for the large beams that will span the columns and the the space to the 1st floor floor beams. The picture above is that work.