Oh what a difference shade makes

Ever since we moved into this beach cottage, we have been dreaming of having a shade structure built. At one point the landlord said he'd put one up, but when they came to measure, and we told them what we wanted, the landlord must have said too expensive, because we never heard anything again. We asked Manuel once when he was here doing work for us, and his quote was around $400 (of course he would have done a beautiful job, with top notch wood) but for something temporary, we looked around for economico.

With Winter coming, so will our hot season, so we needed to get something done. We talked to our fishermen friend Fernando, who had the one across the way built, and he called his guy who came the next day. We settled on something in the $100-200 range and prayed he understood temporado.

It turned out to be massive! Way bigger than I expected, it actually dwarfs the house, but hey the view is the ocean. He did put the posts outside in the sand, so as not to attach to the concrete wall, or bust holes in the concrete courtyard and the other posts are in buckets of cement. Two days, $150 and SHADE!

Prettied up our windbreak fabric, no more black plastic, and with the roof I can keep the couch made up, and no bird poop! Yippee, that means no bird poop on my laundry when it's hanging on the line too, Bonus!

This will be my new "studio" the roof made the living room a little darker, so the light is better out here anyway. The roof will keep the front living room and bedroom cooler too, so it's an all around win!

Mike found his tools interesting, no power tools of any kind, machete and ax split all the bamboo, and they didn't even have a ladder! They found my trellis (from the old bunk beds) and used that as a ladder, I'm surprised it held. (Leaned up against the window). 

No question the lattice frame is sturdy...we do have a couple lighting projects in the works, with it being so tall, will need to borrow a ladder, you won't catch me climbing on a trellis. But stay tuned! The adventure continues!