So, let me warn you first. Don’t let all those pictures of the view from our house fool you. We’re not rich people. We can’t afford to buy a beautiful perfect house in a resort.
We did get lucky and found a fixer-upper in our price range that has the most beautiful view and quite a lot of land. But that comes with a price.
Before you look at these pictures you have to ditch the idea of the Caribbean dream house. It will be, one day, but we’re on a very tight budget, so for now our efforts are purely aimed at making it acceptable to live in, not at design and style.
The house has been empty and neglected for years (we don’t know how long, but we guess over ten years). The owners did get rid of the thornbushes in the yard before putting it on the market and I suspect it has been sort of cleaned a few times. But most of the wiring was stolen, the waterpipes were taken too and there were bats living inside the house. That last part isn’t really worrying me, bats don’t like people, so they are already moving out, but they’re not the most housetrained pets you could have. So there are bat droppings all over the place. The place has also been infested by termites, wasps, bees and other insects over time and though those were all exterminated, the remains of it are still visible.
Anyway. This will be a great before to look at when time passes. Oh, also, these pictures were taken before we actually got the keys, so that’s why the front door is closed (we entered in the back).
So, this is the front room, where you enter the house. Those double doors go out to the front porch. See the bat droppings? Yuk! It’s also all over the walls.
When you come in there’s a bathroom/toilet to the right (so to the left in the picture above this one). It’s a nice size (there’s empty space to the right of the toilet, but a mess.
On the left (right in that first picture) there are these stairs. The left one goes up to the upper room.
They removed part of the floor to find a bees nest. The windows are missing, that’s why there’s wood in front of them.
I know… It’s a mess.
But this room has so much potential. It could be a master bedroom (there’s enough space to add a small bathroom), or a living room. We’re also thinking it might be a beautiful space for a home office.
Behind those doors there’s a big attic space, on a slightly higher level. The floor is where that wire is. We (we’re kind of tall) can stand up straight in about half of it, but we’re dreaming of raising the roof and opening it up to make a really big balcony. Someday. For now we need to get rid of the bats that seem to have moved into that space since we started working on the house.
You’ve already seen this picture, but that’s the view from this room. And that would also be the view from that big balcony.
When you go down from those stairs a few pictures back you find this little hallway. Two rooms to the right, bathroom straight ahead. Bat droppings again.
This is the small bathroom. No toilet, since the cesspit is on the other side of the house on a higher part of the lot (so connecting to that one won’t work). When we remodel this bathroom we might add a small cesspit on this side of the house, so we can add a toilet.
First (slightly bigger) bedroom.
Second bedroom. This where we entered that day. The window is missing and the bars are broken (they already were). When we got the keys, the first thing we did is replace those bars by more sturdy ones (from a window in the kitchen that you cannot reach without a ladder). We don’t want people to enter the house this way. We’re also looking for a window to replace the missing one.
Back to the stairs and up to the big entrance room.
This is the side porch, seen from the front. That door in the back goes to the big bathroom. The white thing is a water tank. It was full, so that’s what I’m using to clean. In the end I want all this gone and fill it up with plants and comfortable chairs.
Front porch seen from the side. You can see it’s a very big front porch, with an open kitchen at the end. We want to get doors for the kitchen, to be able to close it (you don’t want people to come and steal your equipment when you’re on the beach). You can also see part of the front doors on the right of this picture. Those will be replaced by sturdier ones. When we can lock the house safely, we’ll get rid of those bars on the front porch.
The kitchen, only five days before we got the keys. But one of the owners got to the house and took away the table, two of the chairs (you can see those in the picture above this one) and that lamp. They left behind a lot of other stuff (like the wine glasses in the green tub and a desk in the garage), so I don’t really understand why they did this. I would have liked to have that table and two chairs. They were weathered, but sturdy.
Oh well.
Our property (ending after the first row of trees) seen from the house (husband for scale).
And another corner (car for scale), with that amazing view (it’s even better in real life).
It will be so much fun to look back at these and see where we started!