Making muebles

Los muebles, is furniture in Spanish. When we moved into this house (almost a year to the day...) the sofa we bought from neighbors didn't fit. We bought a 3piece sectional, footstool, chair and coffee table, and we could only fit one sectional piece in the tv room! We dreamed of having something built, and finally had some extra cash to spend, so we called our carpenter Manuel.

He had recently built a beautiful banquette at our friends house, and outdoor benches for their patio space, we learned the word mismo which is supposed to mean "exactly". (When I translated it, it came up "the same") and so we tried to convey what we wanted. Manuel is good with our limited Spanish, he's been dealing with gringos for awhile, and between the English he's learned, pen, paper and sign language we get the point across...mostly

We had 5 things on our list, kitchen island/counter, couch/seating, two side tables and a footstool. He started on the kitchen island

Not exactly the picture I showed him, but it will have a bottom shelf for the big water bottles, and another shelf for some dishes. Counter height, far better than the plastic card table I'd been using, and much more flat surface.

Veronica checking to see if Manuel's still working. She also saw the neighbor cat back there the other day, so she may be on "cat patrol".

Two days and maybe $75 worth of materials, not bad. He trimmed it out very nicely, made my space for dishes a bit smaller, but like I said, it's mucho mejor. (Much better)

Now onto the next project, the seating for the tv room...we requested a large bench, with hinged lid for storage. We requested it be lower than the sofa we had in there, to accommodate for the cushions we would have made...we went over and over with the measurements, he understood about the cushions, we agreed on 30 cm, somehow the bench ended up being 36 cm, hmmmmm. We put interim cushions on it, but decided it wasn't comfortable enough, and maybe the sofa wasn't so bad, ugh.

We had agreed to Manuel for 5 days, it was the nearing the end, everybody was tired, and he still had my side table, and the footstool to build. We decided to end it with what he had done, we'd already purchased the wood, but really didn't want to go over budget for two more days of labor, he understood and was happy with it.

So we had $125 in labor, and $250 in wood, have waaaaaaay more storage than we did a week ago, and even tho the bench seating didn't work out for the tv room, it will be used. We will go to PortoViejo one of these days to the cushion guy, and who knows, maybe he can make really comfy cushions for us. Mike's side table turned out bigger than the measurements given too, but he's got it all figured out.

Manuel is 62 years old, and from now on I think we will stick to smaller projects. 2-3 days would be better, it also means we don't have to save up as much money. He's happy for the work, and is a good guy, but we can tell when he's tired. He was very thankful for our new shade structure, it made for better working conditions, we just asked for too much. (Typical American, right?)

All is good, another great day on the coast of Ecuador, waiting for the organic egg man and then it'll be walk on the beach time. Mimosas and brunch with friends mañana...so stay tuned, the adventure continues!

Finished Fence

We certainly can see why Manuel is considered a Maestro, he took our idea, and made it better than we had hoped. He spent two and a half days with us, and next week will be back over to finish some projects at Marty and Jaimes house, then in February we will have him back for phase two.

We already had Manuel tweak the fence, had to add a couple slats at the bottom so the dogs couldn't see everything and every stray dog that walked by. (Even tho they can smell them) We also asked him if he couldn't build a table frame, which he did with leftover wood, and turned out amazing!

The glass top was on the coffee table that came with our sectional sofa we bought second hand from our old neighbors. The coffee table was always too big for our rooms, but we saw the potential with the glass top, Mike figured it must come off somehow, so he got it loose, and then it was easy to tell Manuel what was needed. He did a wonderful job, and all this, fence, table, supplies and 2 days of workers under $300!

We had Joffrey over to see it, he thought we could get the landlord to help pay, but we said it was ok, let them have some rent money. The fence was something we needed, not something they needed to provide.

And speaking of Joffrey, we have another outing with him today. He has a lady friend in Charapoto who will go with us (double date) we think we are taking the bus to Montichristi, where they make Panama hats and wicker furniture, but he also said to bring a swimsuit and towel and we'll go to a water slide! The cameras charged and we've got the pocket translator, we're all set, so as always, stay tuned, the adventure continues!!

Coast Guards and Carpenters

Today marks being in the new house (which we've named Casa Pescadores) a month, and during that time I have really noticed a lot about the boats and fishermen. Day before yesterday I noticed many of the boats that normally "park" out front were not in their usual spots, I wondered if they weren't finding other parking spots, so to not be in our way. But then I noticed the boats were out in the water, just a little offshore, not out as far as when they are fishing, or casting their nets, I found it odd, but continued to observe til later in the day when I found the reason. 

The Captain (for lack of knowing exactly the correct title to use) of the boats was walking towards his boats with a couple men in black and his "right hand man", the men in black (or rather Navy Blue) had clipboards and looked very official. I finally saw the back of their shirts said GUARDASCOSTA, they were doing inspections, going over every inch of the boats hull, motor, taking the cover off, checking for life jackets and fire extinguishers.

So, I've now come to assume the boats that were in the water, didn't want to get inspected that day, and the inspections did continue the next day. I observed life jackets getting transferred from one inspected boat to a non inspected boat, and chuckled. I decided to look up Ecuadorean Coast Guard, and this is what Wikipedia had to say.

The Coast Guard (Cuerpo de Guardacostas de la Armada) became fully operational in 1980. Their mission is to control maritime activities on national territory, including all river zones. The objective is the internal security, protection of human life at sea and environmental protection. 

It said they had 250 men, and quite a few vessels to patrol with, including helicopters, which we do see flying over head. They are part of the Navy, and there were some interesting info about them as well.

The Ecuadorian Navy is responsible for the surveillance and protection of national maritime territory and has a personnel of 7,258^[1] men to protect a coastline of 2,237 km which reaches far into the Pacific Ocean. The vessels are identified by the ship prefixB.A.E.: Buque de la Armada del Ecuador (Ship of the Ecuadorian Navy).  A website called GlobalSecurity tells us this tidbit...Ecuador claims a 320-kilometer-wide (200-mi.) territorial sea. In 1952, Chile, Ecuador and Peru issued the Santiago Declaration, the first international instrument to declare a 200-mile limit. The Declaration made a significant conceptual leap, however, asserting not merely jurisdiction for the purpose of managing natural resources and fisheries, but that each State "possesses sole sovereignty and jurisdiction over the area of sea adjacent to its own country and extending not less than 200 nautical miles from the said coast." Freedom of navigation was restricted to "the innocent and inoffensive passage of vessels of all nations through the zone aforesaid." The United States, in contrast, claims a 12-mile boundary and jurisdiction for the management of coastal fisheries up to 320 kilometers (200 mi.) from its coast, but excludes highly migratory species. Although successive Ecuadorian governments have declared a willingness to explore possible solutions to this issue, the U.S. and Ecuador have yet to resolve fundamental differences concerning the recognition of territorial waters.

So, there ya go, now on to the Carpenters...

As mentioned previously we have a street dog that has adopted us, she jumps over the short concrete wall at the new house and it makes our pups crazy. They can get along, we've taken walks on the beach before, but that is neutral territory I guess, but coming into their courtyard had to stop, so we enlisted a local carpenter to build us a fence. I drew up a plan, translated some key phrases and with a little help from our friend Marty tried to convey what we needed. After some confusion, we got the gist figured out and we waited for the quote. Manuel the Maestro came the next day with written quote and said it would take no more than 4 days, we paid for materials up front and he brought the supplies back later that same day.

He came bright and early yesterday with his son and they got busy. Had all the fence up by the end of the day, mostly sanded and today ready for gate installation and laquer. They'll be finished today for sure, with how fast it went up yesterday. 

I chose this design so we were not blocking our view, we really didn't need the fence for security, just for some wind break and to keep the street dogs out. We'll see how much wind break this gives us, and may add some more slats if needed for our plants to thrive.

Can't wait to see the finished project, stay tuned the adventure continues!