TalkBaja.com » Baja Mexico Forums » Building your Baja dream home

Thought I would share our construction project from beginning to present day. I will try to keep this updated with periodic reports and photos of the progress.

The first step in the process was deciding where we would want to build / live. We knew we wanted be on the Pacific side of Baja, just steps to the beach but quickly realized that to narrow it down we would need to be a lot more specific so we made a list. It looked something like this:

1. Clean / blue water
2. Minimum 10 miles off any paved road
3. Maximum 30 miles off any paved road
4. NOT listed on any tourist map
5. NOT been reviewed on any travel guide
6. NOT being pushed by 100 real estate agents
7. Blend of rocky and sandy beaches
8. Tide pools
9. Undisturbed marine life (starfish / sea urchins / etc)
10. Backdrop topography (hills/mountains/etc)
11. Good fishing
12. Good diving
13. Mild, year round weather
14. More than 3 hours from the US border
15. Less than 6 hours from US border

It was pretty easy to map out a section of Pacific coastline that would fit that criteria and we began our search at Erendira, which we thought would be about as far north as we would consider. It was nice but we didn't feel that "click". We kept moving south, looking at the Colonet area, Camalu, Costa Brava and then we hit San Quintin. A friend took us around the Bay area which was nice and seeing fishing charters coming in at El Molino full of fish definitely caught my attention. We then made a trip out to the beach to an area called Lomas de San Martin. It fronts San Martin Island and is just north of an old fishing village called La Chorera.

We immediately fell in love with the view, the beach and the tranquility of the place and staked our claim.

Now that we knew where we wanted to build, the next step was to come up with a design. We wanted 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and everything on one floor. Having lived the last ten years in homes with multiple floors we came to the conclusion that we ended up spending 90% + of our waking hours on one floor of the house so it just seemed to make sense to try and build a one story this time around. Besides, we had plenty of room on our lot to make it work. After several weeks of playing with some designs we came up with what would be our new home. We figured that we could build it in two stages with the second bedroom/bath/laundry and work shop in phase two.

Now that we had a design, we needed someone to build it. Did a lot of asking around and we kept hearing a name being mentioned - "Esquival Chavez". We met a few days later and the chemistry just seemed right.

Jack Smith had his Mr. Gomez, from his best selling book "God and Mr. Gomez".

Our new place now had its "maestro" to lead our new "obra"...

Chava!

Now we needed to situate our design on the property. Most were telling us to put it on the western part (front of the lot), closest to the beach. We chose to put it on the east side or the back of the property(away from ocean) so as to give us a big front yard for a large patio area, fire pit, walking path and gardens. The first phase was measured and staked. That pesky piece of volcanic rock would just have to be broken down and removed we decided. The marked square on the SE corner was for the footings to support the "losa" which would hold our water tank up on high. That way we could just pump from the pila to the tank up on top, giving us constant pressure even when the power was out.

So now we needed to get out the checkbook and start buying materials.

The footings would need to be dug, rebar tied and concrete poured. Uh, guys? So when are you planning on breaking out that big rock there in the middle of our new house???

The forms are off and things are moving along. Is that rock still there???

So now we are laying the 8" block for the base. We wanted the house built up about 30" off the ground. The drains are measured out and put into place. Are you not going to take that stupid rock out of our house???

So now that the underground plumbing is done the void is filled with a mix of sand, dirt and crushed volcanic rock. Looks like the big old volcanic rock sticking up was part of a much larger rock below and Chava says its best to just build the house on top of it. A lot of water. soil compacting and then more water and compaction and it already feels as hard as concrete, Now it's time to prep for pouring the floor.

And the floor is poured.

So now we begin to lay out the walls. The first row of block is critical that they be perfect. No fixing it after that! For the outside walls we are using cinder block which has better insulating properties than the standard cement block sold down in Baja.

The walls are going up and the rooms in phase 1 begin to take shape.

We are separating our toilet drains out from the rest of the drains. Toilet drains will go to the septic tank. Everything else is going to a buried grey water tank which will be used for watering the plants.

The toilet drains are connected to the septic tank and we created a clean out access for future maintenance.

The drains are covered and compacted.

Flexible conduit is used for running the wiring. You can buy the type that has a pull wire pre-installed to avoid having to snake it later. Taking lots of pictures of everything makes it easier later to remember what is what and where it all goes.

The view out our future bedroom window.

Now all the windows and doors are starting to take shape.

So here is where we made a change of plans. We decided to go ahead and build phase 2. At least the rough construction or "obra negra" as it is called down here. That way we can tie it all in together up on top. So we measure out, stake, dig and pour the footings.

The second phase will be a step lower than the first phase so only one row of the 8 inch block will be used.