Build Your Own Retirement Home in Costa Rica

Build Your Own Retirement Home Part XXIV. 24 weeks and US$75,279.91 invested in construction so far.

Scott Oliver - June 2009

This week continued to be a very wet week so we have not made the progress that we had hoped however, we should have everything done by the end of June.

We're really not bothered that it has taken a little longer than we anticipated and one of the reasons we are not concerned is we are paying the contractor by the square meter of construction.

If he and his crew take a full six months, he gets paid his money and if he takes a full seven months, he'll get paid the same amount of money...

Yup! It's been raining....

But thankfully our maestro de obra - our foreman - Juan Carlos tracked down the spare part he needed for his truck and he's once again mobile...

As you can see from the photos, this week Juan Carlos made and installed the bathroom cabinet and used the same ceramic tiles on the cabinet as we have on the bathroom walls.

The large bathroom mirror has been fixed above our hand painted quetzal sink and we found and nice, old fashioned style faucet which seems to fit in there quite nicely. It's a rustic log styled mountain home but has a tropical flair to it...

My lady came up during the week with her eldest son (nearly 30) and his wife to bring up some furniture for the terrace and to make some adjustments to the curtains so it's looking a bit more comfortable although, there's quite a bit to do yet to make it feel really cozy.

Juan Carlos has also started making the kitchen cabinets which should be done by the end of the week. The idea is that he will put everything together and, since my lady decided a while back that she wants an antique look to give it more character, she decided she would paint the kitchen cabinets.

The master bedroom is looking more comfortable and we love the forest view.

Thankfully she is quite artistic and I'm delighted that she's so excited about our vacation home in the mountains of Costa Rica.

The first home I built in the mountains which you can see at Mountain Home For Sale By Owner had a green kitchen, our new kitchen will be reddish colour.

This weekend we had 250M2 of grass, fertilizer and earth delivered which we are also hoping will have been laid by the time we get there later this week... So Juan Carlos and his crew had a lot to do over the weekend in cleaning up the area and carrying off all the rocks and other debris that have been laying around.

Hand painted quetzal sink keeps the rustic feeling with a tropical flair.

The main entrance to the house is just about done. This front door and stairway has caused us quite a bit of concern as we could never make our mind up exactly how we wanted it to look but we're pleased with the end result and I am delighted with how much I have invested so far in this Costa Rica vacation home...

I also bought a refrigerator and stove this weekend but have not added this to the spreadsheet since these are such personal items, some people love very expensive appliances, others make do with more affordable appliances.

Just so you know we bought our appliances from a chain of stores called 'Gallo'. We bought ours in their Santa Ana store and since I do 90% of the cooking in our family the following items were chosen:

• Black Frigidaire FRT18S6JS (18.2 cu.ft) refrigerator for 529,090.42 colones and a
• Whirlpool NWF30945RS gas oven with six burners on top for 311,419.54 colones and with sales tax that total for both appliances is 840,509.96 colones or US$1,456 for both the oven and the refrigerator

You can see the exact appliances in the photographs of below.

Build Your Own Log Styled Vacation Home - My costs in USD so far:

Construction began during the first week of January 2009 and as of the 18th June 2009 the total cost so far in building this vacation or retirement home in the country has been US$75,279.91 plus the cost of the 5,000 square meters of land.

Plenty of room on the terrace for our outside dining room table too...

You can see the home we built (and sold) previously in the same geographical area at: Mountain Home For Sale By Owner - Fully furnished with one acre of land. Three online videos.

Build Your Own Retirement Home in Costa Rica For Way Under $100K

You can see the 20+ articles about how you can Build Your Own Retirement or Vacation Home In Costa Rica here.

Written by Scott Oliver, author of How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa and Costa Rica's Guide To Making Money Offshore.