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Building A House in Nicaragua

Casa Rio … Sweet Home Colorado!

This is the final post of the series in which David Steckler shares his experiences of building a vacation home at Hacienda Iguana resort on Nicaragua’s Pacific coast. Here are the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth postings. Just click on them to read each of them. The goal of this candid construction blog is to to reduce the anxiety of people who own property in Nicaragua and plan to build, but are afraid of making mistakes along the way.

With Lynyrd Skynyrd’s permission I’ve changed his song title to suit this situation since the river house we’ve been working on for the last 16 months just happenes to be on the Colorado River … in Nicaragua.

This is our final blog post and for those of you who followed us month to month I’m sure realize at this point that building a house is a complicated process no matter where you do it with many moving parts, human and otherwise. Our custom furniture maker took more time then we had planned for, but the finished product turned out splendid. We’ve had issues with the Alluver doors and windows, which have been resolved, but with the manufacturer located in Spain it can be aggravating.

Our property manager, Heather at NSR came to my rescue by getting everything completed while I was back in the states nibbling on my finger nails. She selected curtains, supervised installation, purchased small appliances and bathroom “stuff”. She even arranged to have a futon bed custom built for the Casita.

I ran out of time during my last trip to get a lot of the detail items, you think about later, done. All major appliances were purchased locally in Rivas so our vender would be able to honor our three year service agreement more easily. We also waited until the rains to bring in more zoysia grass, which helps to keep their survival rate high and the mud factor low. The front door “before and after” picture came out perfect and so far we haven’t seen any rains getting through our pseudo screen doors, just nice cool breezes while they’re closed.

Believe it or not I’d do it again … it was loads of fun and many of the folks who worked on this project I now consider good friends, which is really the best measurement of how it all worked out in the end.

I sincerely hope my blog helped some of you feel braver about taking the plunge and for those who need a little more courage … come stay in our Casita and we’ll talk about it. For more information on renting Casa Rio or the Casita click here.

In order to close this construction blog I thought it would be fitting to include a recent review on Casa Rio. It’s a fitting acknowledgement of all the work that David and his team put into the design and construction process:

The Most Beautiful Place!!!

“This home was incredible. The architecture was impeccable and the lighting inside and out was sublime. Laura and Heather made communication so easy and helped us with so many things during our trip. The patio doors and windows opened up so wide that you could make the whole house feel like it was outside. The kitchen layout was awesome and Hazel, our housekeeper, cooked gourmet dinners for us and every morning there was coffee and fresh cut fruit laid out for us. We felt like kings and queens! I blew out my ankle earlier on the trip so we rented a golf cart for the time we were there. I recommend doing this as it’s great for getting the surf boards down to the best surfing in Nicaragua. There is a terrace on top of the house where we did yoga every morning. Below was the pool. We would sit out and watch the Howler Monkeys in the trees in the yard and see huge Iguanas as well. In the morning there were so many different kinds of birds singing and it was truly amazing. This was the nicest home I have ever stayed in. Everything was first class. My sons were astounded at the quiver of surfboards available for rent. Nothing but the very best there. There were seven of us there and we had so much room that we could each have privacy if we wished. The sunsets were crazy beautiful. Go here, and prepare to be in the most relaxed beautiful setting in the world. Fit in a round of golf. The 7th hole is breathtaking. Thank you for making our stay the best ever!”

 

Blog & Overseas construction in Nicaragua

Overseas construction blog announcement: Stay at the casita and bend David’s ear in person!

 

David Steckler  [email protected]