The final Stages of House Construction in Ecuador

Hi All,

It is Monday morning, Betsy's Birthday (Date) It happened 27 years ago today. We have the apartment clean. We are waiting for the laundry to finish and then will go to the store to purchase this weeks groceries. I have a few minutes so I thought I would finish the house across the way.

Here we are in July of 2007, It is about 7 months after serious construction began. See the pictures in the previous blog addition to see the beginning stages of construction. Here the Second story walls are up. The stairs to the area below the house are constructed. Some of the railing that is all cement is in.

Now in August or September timeframe they are adding more walls and railing.

The rains begin in December. So in late November they covered the windows with plastic and put on a steel roof. The ceiling joists are steel and covered with what looks like to be a metal tile roof. Also see that people are now living in the second floor. They originally had more windows on this floor but at the last minute they closed them up with blocks and painted over them. The also reduced the size of the ones still existing.

At this point the railing in front is basically finished. Though you will see that about 6 months later they will add some more.

In May after the rains have finished they also decided to finish the windows. So we believe that now the inside of the house is basically complete though we have no way of knowing.

Here we are in July of 2008. 18 Months after serious construction began. We are now getting a railing to prevent the children from falling off the ledge. Note that the outside fence walls and the wall that of the stairs down below have been finished to cover the cinder block with a nice finish. I don't know if they will try to paint it but it sure looks much nicer than the unfinished cinder block.

Now the rest of the neighborhood is being constructed. There are 3 more homes going up outside of this picture. At about the same rate that this home went up. Though we cannot and probably ever get to see the front of this house because it is at the end of a locked street that is not paved but has a locked gate with a guard at the entrance, we could kind of see the front at a distance. The front was very pretty. The cement work was rounded and had quite a modern look to it.

I hope you have enjoyed this little project of mine to document the construction of someone else's home.

Love,

Dad