A Teak Affair

Our lofty ambition is to buy second-hand hardwood furniture for our house as our renovation happens. To assist us in this, a new store importing antique furniture from India has opened in town called Puerta al Este (calle 60 between 45 & 47).

Much of the store is filled with pared-down simple teak furniture (durable and termite proof). There are no painted elephants, sacred cows or statues of Vishnu - just stuff that fits well with the colonial aesthetic of Mérida.  A good example is the set of drawers pictured above that will serve as a small credenza in our dining room.

To say this place is a godsend is an understatement. We have been in and out of the store over the last two weeks buying up a storm. Every time we go in we say “no more”, but end up walking away with something in hand.

Our best find (so far) is a three-meter-long bench made of solid teak that seems destined for our eat-in kitchen (incredibly, we were stressing over whether we would find or manufacture said bench just last week). Right now, it is working as a makeshift closet.

Also pictured above, in case you were wondering, is an antique rat trap that has received some very puzzled expressions when viewed by our friends.

Market Fresh

Today is our first big dinner party in over two years. We are serving eight plus two kids so it’s all go. We were up by 8am to beat the heat. A quick plate of huevos motuleños at Cafe Pop, and we hit the central market.

At this time of year, the market is at its peak. After six months of cooler weather, all the winter crops are in (think fantastic tropical goodies that evoke thoughts of summer for those above 23°N) and they are looking fantastic.

We bought yellow mangoes so ripe and fresh they were almost glowing. Paired with x’catik chilies and fried epazote leaves, we will have ourselves a delicious mango carpaccio. A stop at our fish guy landed us shrimp to grill and some grouper to ceviche. Back in the vegetable area, we scooped up avocados, cilantro and jicama for a coleslaw to pair with the shrimp and chives for the ceviche. Lastly, we found some wonderfully fresh scallions and crispy chicharrón that will cosy up with our tamarind-roasted pork belly.

Speaking of which, our hunka burning pork love is roasting away in the oven as we speak (the photo above shows how it looked after four hours). Only a few hours to go now, so it’s time for some serious chopping.

There’s Nothing Like a Big Hunk of Meat

Our butcher in the Santiago market is fantastic. Yesterday we told him we needed a four-pound whack of pork belly, and here it is, complete with nipples! What proud parents we are.

This is why we love Mexico. The marketplaces are full of purveyors connecting daily with the source of their wares. It’s not fancy and it doesn’t come with Styrofoam packaging, disinfecting wipes or lattes on the side. It’s simple no-nonsense butchery and it tastes great.

Each night, whole pigs (and other yummy beasts) are delivered direct to the butcher’s counter, where they wait until morning to be broken down for sale. We wander in around 10am, and are greeted by rows of meat hanging from hooks and beautiful livers, hearts and feet glistening in trays below.

In two days, we will dine on our pork belly with new friends. Until then, it will bathe in a marinade of tamarind, piloncillo, allspice, and garlic before being roasted to perfection. From farm to friends, with no plastic in between. Only one issue remains - who gets to eat the nipples?

Optimism, Redux

People sometimes say you have to be mad to want to build your own house. Such thoughts are often uttered, with exasperation, just when things are going terribly wrong. Well, now it’s our turn to emote.

We hired our general contractor way back in September of last year. Since then we have been working on finalizing the design with him. We say “working”, but it would more accurately be described as “waiting”. Waiting for information, waiting for construction details, waiting for answers.

There wasn’t that much we were asking our contractor to do, but after four months we could wait no longer. So we fired his non-delivering ass!

Where does that leave us now? With someone new of course. Granted, this will set us back another couple of months as we re-introduce the project to our “new guy”, wait for a build estimate and work to finish the final drawing set. But hey, it feels good to be moving forward again.

We are, lest we jinx ourselves, finally optimistic ground will soon be broken.

Through Yellow-tinted Glasses

Last weekend we visited Izamal, a small town about 40 minutes west of Mérida. Izamal is known as the “Yellow City” and true to its name, the town is as yellow as can be - right down to the signage on this stadium.

Viewing an entire town in monochrome makes for an interesting afternoon (see more of the town here).

Kitchen Craft

We are aiming to build a clean, welcoming kitchen that feels rustic and homely - a relaxed kitchen that is as much for living and entertaining as it is for cooking.  If not too stymied by cost, we aim to achieve this vision through the use of steel, lightly varnished wood and local limestone.

Similar to the b2 kitchen system from Bulthaup pictured below, we are treating our kitchen cabinets like furniture in order to create a space that feels more like a living or dining room than a kitchen.  We’ve decided to avoid placing cabinets above counter height and to fashion those we do have as modified credenzas. By lifting the cabinetry off the ground, we can also mitigate the numbers of rodents and cockroaches that nest in dark unreachable places.

System b2 from Bulthaup

Our fridge and pantry will be contained in a single wooden cabinet that we are designing to look a bit like a standalone armoire. We have the basic concept down and are now focused on massaging the details (who knew designing door handles was such a tedious task) and fine-tuning the overall look of our pantry unit.

Northwest perspective of our kitchen

As for sitting and socializing, a table and bench seat along one wall will give us a place to flesh out recipes and sip on a glass of wine without getting in the way of any dinner preparations.

Southeast perspective of our kitchen

There is still lots to do.  We’re not yet happy with the placeholder door handles we’ve inserted in the renders above, and have no idea where the compost bucket will go.  But all-in-all, we’re on the right track and can now put this aside for a bit while we tackle the bedrooms.

Scouring the Pantry for Ideas

The new year brings thoughts of our kitchen. With a high-sloped ceiling and original french terracotta tile roof, our kitchen is a bit rustic and charming. The question we are currently wrestling with is how to design a kitchen that fits the existing character of the room while blending well with the rest of the house.

First step - look for inspiration. One obvious idea is a hacienda-style kitchen typical of the grand houses built a few hundred years ago. Used predominantly by servants, in a time before running water and microwave ovens, these kitchens functioned very differently to the way we cook today.

This, of course, should not hold us back. Couldn’t we adapt this style to our modern life? Certainly plenty of people have.

The kitchen at Los Dos cooking school in Mérida

For us, the problem with such kitchens is that they are re-creationist dreams. Dressed up with intricate Puebla tile (thanks Frida Kahlo), ornate extractor fans and polished copper pots dangling from the ceiling, these kitchens are dramatic set pieces. Dressed up to woo guests with high drama, they create the fantasy of a hacienda lifestyle. A lifestyle of what - a rich servant perhaps?

Granted, there are many examples of such kitchens that look great and work well. It is, however, not the right idea for our stripped down, relaxed minimalist design ethic. We spend a lot of time in our kitchen and need a functional space to whip up a nice meal while remaining relaxed enough to suit our hideaway aesthetic.

We also want a space that won’t drive us mad with ornateness. Maybe we should consider a modern gourmet kitchen with clean lines and plenty of counter space?

This sleek gourmet kitchen screams modern minimalism and we love it. Although we’ve dreamed of hiring the designers at Boffi to bless our kitchen with their products (and pay an arm and a leg in the process), we know in the end this style of kitchen is simply wrong for our house. With its sleek lines and 21st-Century materials, this kitchen is anything but rustic. It would, in the end, sit uncomfortably in our house, scoffing at our old-world terracotta tiles.

Our kitchen is rustic and we need to respect that. At the same time, our house is modern and minimalist, so we need a kitchen that reflects that as well. So perhaps it’s time for some modern rustic inspiration?

A kitchen in Perigord Nord, France by Greet and Armand

This kitchen represents where we’re heading. It’s relaxed and clean with a whiff of rustic. The open shelving and lack of high cabinets give it a relaxed, livable feeling. The lightly varnished wood and stone floor evoke the idea of a slower time without being specific. The cabinetry feels like furniture, equally at home in a dining room and the kitchen. It is in such a space that we imagine ourselves comfortably passing the time of day.

Let There be Strip Lights

We’ve spent the last week trying to produce an image of what our living room might look like at night with all the lights on. After setting up our 3D model and hitting the render button on Tuesday night, we went to sleep expecting the thing to be finished by the morning. Seven hours later, the damn thing was only 20% complete.  We knew renders with multiple light sources took a long time, but we weren’t expecting this!

Time for a new plan.  To convey the idea of what we’re thinking in terms of lighting, we’ll go with these images from one of our favorite UK architects, John Pawson.  This master of minimalism achieves some great effects without clutter.

In a similar vein, we plan to embed lights (in our case, LED strip and fluorescent tube lights) along ventilation gaps between our walls and ceilings.  Like the images above, we are aiming for subtle lines of overhead light.  Combined with floor lights cut out of the base of our walls and more light hidden strategically behind various shelves and furniture, we should have sufficient ambient lighting to guide you comfortably through the house.

To achieve this we project that we will install nearly 200 feet of LED and fluorescent lights.  The benefits here are many.  By hiding our primary source of ambient light, we don’t need to buy expensive bulbs or fret over the aesthetics of fixtures (which in our case tends to swing us toward very expensive units).  The embedded lights will also provide even lighting throughout, allowing us to avoid the harsh spots that come with overhead halogen cans.

And finally, LED and fluorescent lights are up to 10 times as energy efficient, leading to significant cost savings on our electric bills.  They also emit far less heat than halogens and incandescents.  Given the climate here, not having to put a dozen “halogen heaters” into each room will lower our AC bills and make living more comfortable.

Down a Lighting Rabbit Hole

When we started two months back, creating a lighting plan for our house seemed simple.  With a sprinkling of recessed halogen cans and a pendant over the dining table, our first draft was complete - an even wash of mostly overhead light from around 100 fixtures. How fantastic were we.

(Un)fortunately, a trip to our favorite architecture bookstore corrupted our innocence.  Works such as Lighting by Design told a tale of complexity that spun our heads.

After much reading, we realized our plan was basically crap and we needed to start over.  This time around we calculated our lumens, created interest in the shadows and struck a good balance between ambient, task, accent, and decorative lights. We felt good again.

Next task - find the fixtures to fill each spot in the plan.  Hitting the road, we found a lot to like.  Highlights included a gorgeous green pendant from Eurofase ($1300 US)

along with a wall sconce ($450 US).

After our third lighting store, reality was starting to set in.  Our plan had 8 to 10 fixtures per room.  At the rate we were going, our entire budget would be blown on the living room alone.

Back to the drawing board.  Our new task - assume the lights we buy will be cheap and ugly, and then figure out a way to hide every single one of them.

After a week of lighting hide and seek, our new best friend was LED rope light.  As well as being super energy efficient, you can buy 150 feet of it for under $500.  By running it along ventilation shafts and above rafters, we were able to remove nearly all the expensive fixtures.

We also decided to cut square holes in the concrete walls of our house and tuck lights up into the cavities (see below).  As they will be completely hidden, we can use unsightly compact fluorescent bulbs.

After two months down the lighting rabbit hole, we have finally done it.  A well-illuminated house for around $1000 worth of fixtures.  This should give us a little money to spare for a pendant or two - a pretty green one perhaps.

And We’re Back

Okay, so we’ve actually been back a while now, but after traveling across the states and entertaining family and friends here in Mérida, we’ve been too lazy to update our blog.

We can now safely say we’re rested and moving full-speed ahead with finalizing our drawing set and getting construction started.  More to come soon!