Pool House Expansion Project - Day One 20/09/15

Somewhere along the line, Dianna and I decided now was the time to get serious about expanding the pool house so that it could actually become our house. The drawing you see below is actually number thirty-five or thirty-six of a progression of drawings, once we decided that the addition would be all on the same level. There are probably another thirty or so with the addition going upstairs for a second level to the house.

The numbers are somewhat skewed because there have been a few where I forgot to 'save-as' and overwrote an existing drawing. There might be an additional ten or so drawing that simply vanished as a result of forgetfulness. Oh well. Here's the end result.

You might ask, "Dave, what software did you use to make such a fine drawing from?", or something like that.

Well, I'll tell you. "I used an open-source (as in totally free) program called Sweet Home 3D ® Version 5.0.1 (www.sweethome3d.com/)." Eteks is the company, and the founder/driving force is Emmanuel Puybaret, info@eteks.com. He's French, but don't hold that against him. For a free software program, it is pretty cool and it's easy to learn as well.

Final and Working Drawing of the Proposed Addition

Ok, so a few words about our contractor, Carl Raney. He was introduced to us by Charlotte Lanore, which is a pretty high recommendation in itself, in our estimation

Carl is relatively new to contracting, but is not new to Corozal and Belize. He has a very good crew working for him. Between Carl and his lead man, Omar, it's hard to tell who is more of a perfectionist. If you like what you see here and in subsequent postings as the construction process unfolds, I suggest you get in touch with Carl. You can call him at 501-636-5270, or email him at tauceo@yahoo.com.

We like working with Carl and his men very much. In the eight, going on nine years that we've lived here in Corozal, we've worked with a few contractos, so we can speak from some experience.

Day One - 20 September, 2015

Getting things started, since we had an empty crate of Belikin bottles just hanging around, Carl and Omar took advantage of that and did a rough layout in the yard of the proposed addition, using the bottles to mark the boundaries of the project.

Belikin Bottles Set the Boundaries for the Project