It’s been a busy two years since we landed in Fort Lauderdale after being out of the country for 5 years. There were way too many boat jobs to list at the end of 12 years of ownership. Some of the highlights included new sails, new upholstery, new inner foresail on a furler, rebuilt espar heater, watermaker, windlass, alternator, engine starter, engine relays, battery charger, batteries…. – you get the idea – boat ownership is expensive. Fortunately, things break and wear out whether you use them or not, and we have gotten over 20,000 miles out of this stuff – so there is nothing to complain about.
This post is about building a house, however. In 2011 we bought a small acre on a hillside in the mountains of southern New Mexico. It is about 150 miles north and west of El Paso and at 6000 feet elevation..
If there is anything more demanding than working on a boat it is building a house. We got part of the money from Marianne’s mother, who passed away in 2010. This inheritance got us the land, a small trailer, a truck, and most of a foundation. We had never planned for this – but it seemed the right decision. We had been living aboard for over 10 year’s full time, and things were seeming a bit cramped. Also, I am getting old – not real old (58) but old enough to know that it would be a lot harder to build a house if I waited another five years. Naturally, we could always just buy a house – but most of what we liked was out of our price range, and what we could afford needed complete rebuilding. It is a lot easier to make your own mistakes from the beginning rather than try to fix someone else’s. For those curious the cost of construction, excluding the land, is about $80 per square foot. This is about $150 cheaper per square foot than similar custom construction- remember though – you get what you pay for and with my quality of work sometimes that is a problem – I have been way outside of my skill set for a lot of this
The house is 1400 square feet in a New Mexico Pueblo Revival design. It is roughly T shaped. It is build out of insulated concrete forms (ICF) called Mikey Blocks that you stack together. Channels are then filled with concrete. There is 15 yards of concrete and over 1000 feet of rebar in the walls. The walls are 10 inches thick and the ceiling 10 feet high.
Highlights of the first year building include installing the drain,waste vent system (I am a pretty good plumber, but this was my biggest job yet) moving 56 tons of fill into the site and compacting it – all done by hand with a wheelbarrow, digging the footers and installing the radiant heat system (1000 of 5/8 plastic pipe – pex) set into the slab, pouring the slab (contracted out), building the walls, framing the ceiling installing the roof, - you get the idea.
Anyway – this site is about sailing around – not home building. Let’s just say I have about 2 more years to go – we do this by cash not credit – and am happy to be back on the boat. We are preparing to leave the east coast this Dec and set sail back to MX – hitting Chipias about early May. Strangely – I seem to slightly miss the house project now that I am away from it for 6 weeks. It is a lot of work for a fat 58 year old.
footers, rebar , Mikey Block, view north ,Mikey walls
concrete lift for walls, shed, building parapits, north windows, EIFS (exterior insulated finish system)
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.interior framing, trenching, pex water supply, EIFS
Starting to look like something
Anyway - that is the last 15 months. Home construction is not for the faint of heart - but at least the house can't sink or drag. When done it should be a pretty nice place to hang out during huricane season. We plan to spend 6-8 months on the boat in MX, and the summer season in New Mexico. Its being a pretty good time and very satisfying for my retirement - but harder work I have never done.
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