December 2018 – Building a House in The Caribbean – Waitiki at Windchime Estates – St Croix

Additional Pool & House Renderings, A Couple of Changes

Day 232
Total Spent So Far: $59,140.16
30 Yard Dumpsters Filled: 3.5

We had a few adjustments made to the renderings of the plans for the pool and balconies. We also got a few additional views rendered out to see how the upstairs back patio flowed.

We adjusted the outdoor kitchen downstairs to ensure we had room for a sink, fridge, and grill.

We adjusted the scuba room storage placement on the back of the house so that it didn’t cover one of the few windows in the small studio apartment. (To make sure there was still good ventilation there.)

Alleyway for Entrance and Window on Studio Apartment

Scuba Room / Solar Panel Power-wall Room with New Covered Parking

We discussed a secret path (barely visible from the top view) through the jungle that would lead up to the upstairs back patio up the side of the hill to connect the back patio to the pool patio.

We added in the sliding panoramic doors on the South side of the house/balcony. Now both the South Wall and East Wall of the house open completely up to the balconies upstairs.

Slider Wall with Panoramic Doors on South Side of House

Finally we took a look at what the entrance to the balcony looks like from the back patio, and the placement of where they would connect.

We also discussed a few other things not shown in the renderings, such as making the fireplace outside gas driven since we have winds up here for both safety and smoke aversion.

I think we’re now ready to start getting quotes and bids from contractors on making this happen! Hopefully our designer captured our vision within our budget!

I started on the Nursery last week, prepping it for paint. I have to paint this weekend. Tile hopefully starting the next. Only 5 more weeks until Liam is born!

Another update soon when the nursery is finished!

Caribbean Pool Design with Infinity Edge & Balconies for Windchime Estates

We recently invited Shane LeBlanc of Selective Designs to fly out to St. Croix and spend the afternoon with us discussing the design and our dreams for our outdoor living space, pool, and major remodel to the structure of our house by adding a wrap-around gallery style balcony. We had all sorts of ideas, infinity edge on the cliffside, lowered bar on the cliffside with multiple levels of decking, fire pit, lounge space – lots of lounge space, wet deck, outdoor grille and kitchen area, and a room for my scuba gear easily accessible from our Jeep for cleaning, rinsing, drying, and storage.

Shane is an award winning globally known pool and landscape designer. His work is simply incredible. When he saw where we were, he immediately wanted to do the project because in his words, “With this view we can create an award winning pool, and that’s what I do, award winning pools.”

When he got to the house, Shane seemed to grab our vision immediately, and snapped some photos of the house and surrounding views. I sent him our survey so he had the setbacks and exact dimensions of the current structure. Honestly, for as short of a time as he was here (maybe an hour or so), I was a tad worried he wasn’t going to be able to have all he needed to create the design.

Boy was I wrong.

The design he sent over captured our vision almost perfectly! Sure, some doors are going to look a little different, maybe a plant or two, and who knows on the colors, but more or less everything is sitting in its place! It literally IS our dream backyard! He not only did the 2D drawings, which we’ll now be taking to contractors to bid the project, but a 3D model of which we got lots of still shots and a fly-through video to really show off the idea. We now have our eye literally on the prize. If only we could speed up the next two years that it will take to build it. So, who’s coming to visit?

Pool and Balconies 3D Video Fly Through

3D Rendering Still Images

“The Mermaid” AirBnB on the Island of St. Croix is Finally Finished!

I apologize for the time lapse since my last post. After two straight weeks of working on The Mermaid Villa to finish it for one of my companies’ superstars, Sebastian, and his big move down to St. Croix, I was so dead beat tired from “working on the house” that I switched gears physically and mentally and went back to focusing on my day job for a bit. The timing couldn’t have been better either as I really needed to focus on the Backwoods at Mulberry Mountain lineup announcement which happened November 30th. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I own a large multi-stage music festival in Arkansas, which sees up to 10,000 people a day who come for camping, art, and music in the Ozark National Forest for four nights a year. It’s a ton of work, and our lineup announcement requires a ton of focus to secure the right acts and get it distributed to the masses.

Anyways, we finally snapped a photo of Terry painting! She was such a huge help and we couldn’t have finished the place without her.

Dave also came down for another visit and we busted out the final plumbing in the bathroom, tile, ceiling fans, and electrical. The place really came out great. The bathroom was the most work, as we literally stripped it down to bare concrete walls, and redid all of the plumbing and electrical, framed out new 2x4s and installed concrete backer board so we could tile up the walls and cover the plumbing and electrical. I bought $350 worth of travertine “pebbles” to create an interesting look on the back wall and floor of the small shower we built from scratch. It needed something else given it’s size to make it unique and make it pop. I think it turned out great. After 4 weeks of waiting on Sears to get our fridge delivered (it can take a long time to get things on the island sometimes) it finally arrived after Sebastian did, and the place was complete. Well, after a tad more painting… We couldn’t let Sebastian get out of adding a bit of his own touch to his place.

I still want to replace the ceiling in there at some point, and of course when the windows and doors that we ordered 6 months ago finally get here, those will get installed as well.

Check out some of the Before and After photos!

This blog wouldn’t be complete without showing a bit of our lifestyle on the island. We’ve done a bunch of fun things in the last few weeks since Sebastian arrived. My brother and a couple of his friends also came down for Thanksgiving. Here’s some of our adventures!

Day 232 Total Spent So Far: $59,140.16 30 Yard Dumpsters Filled: 3.5

Pool and Balconies 3D Video Fly Through

3D Rendering Still Images

Day 232
Total Spent So Far: $59,140.16
30 Yard Dumpsters Filled: 3.5