Dreaming about, designing and building our house in Merida has been a long process. There have been many ups and lately, many lows. The ups come from the excitement of thinking through an idea, sketching it, debating it, re-sketching and then overseeing the documents and the construction. We went through about 12 iterations of the design and each one was better. Now that the house wis nearly done, we are in the midst of some “lows.” These lows relate to what I can only attribute to “cultural.”
These past 4-6 weeks have been very grueling as we have tried to “finish” the house. In the past few days, we reached the bottom of our “low” barrel. We essentiality had to fire our wood worker who messed up several aspects of our doors and windows. One of the front windows and all of Lea’s studio doors will have to be remade by someone else. When we began, we were assured that the person was “the best” and we even “paid a premium” price. The marble on our floors was damaged during construction and the “fix” to the scratches damaged the stone more than if we had just lived with the scratches. Since each of these items are very visible and essential form part of the final gestalt, it is especially disheartening.
We are now in the process of letting our local architect come up with a “fix” for the stone and looking for a new carpenter to remake the windows and the doors. So, despite our best efforts, we will likely not be done with the house for several more months. I thought it might be useful to share what I learned in the process:
Listen, forget and remake (in 3 easy steps)
We found that almost no one writes anything down during the construction process. We would discuss things and even provide follow up sketches on what was “discussed and agreed.” We would return to the site and things were incorrectly done–and our sketches were nowhere to be seen. When we showed them the sketch, they would either not have received it from the contractor or simply ignored it. I have no earthly idea why. For example, I met with the metal worker who was building our hand rail. He produced a sample of the vertical support bracket; we discussed adjusting the angle (so that it aligned at a 90 degree angle to the line of the rail) and making sure the connection point matched the riser of the stair vertically. I followed up with a sketch that was sent as an RFI to the contractor. When I returned to the site one day, the rail was completed and laying on the ground to be installed. It did not even remotely match the original document or the adjustments agreed to. Their reason: the original metal worker did not give the drawing to his brother who was making the handrail–apparently he only gave him a vague verbal description. They happily (their solution to everything) remade the handrail after we discussed it at length on the site with the contractor, our local architect and the metal worker and installers. When it came back finished, they could not install as designed and agreed. So, they took a acetylene torch, removed the brackets, temporarily place one bracket, fixed the rail with wood and the re-welded the bracket in place at the correct locations. Because it was field welded, they had to use metal filler to make the vertical transition between the bracket and the handrail smooth. This is one of dozens of examples. I think parts of our house have been built and rebuilt 3 or four times. Lesson: don’t fall into the memory game. Even if they ignore it, write down your instructions.
We Aim to Please (and please and please)
As I mentioned above, the process seems to be to “guess” at what the intent is rather than ask or follow-up with a formal request in writing. If they “guess” wrong, they happily remake it or try to fix it. The problem is the fix can be worse. We have basically resigned ourselves to, over time, fixing imperfections ourselves (especially in the woodworking). At one point, the local architect said that we were asking for “too much precision” and described finished construction in Mexico as “a free hand sketch, not a precise drawing.” This works fine in traditional construction (done, I might add, at traditional prices) when there are moldings, etc to “cover up” the imperfections. We contracted, and were explicit in our stated intentions, for precision. This has resulted in a year of back-and-forth between acceptable and not-acceptable construction. The saving grace is that they happily redo things. Lea suspects that the Mexicans are so anxious to “please” the client that they don’t push back, ask questions or say “no we can not do that.” Lesson: be very clear and expect things to be wrong.
Work with What They Offer
There is little to be gained expecting the local craftspeople to do something that they have never done before. They are exceptionally good at masonry, plaster and concrete work. Expecting them to do things outside of their experience is futile. There are exceptions. We discovered an exceptionally gifted metal worker late in the game. Jose Gaston Gonzalez (bielgo@hotmail.com) has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in industrial design. He thinks through everything and is very precise. Luckily for us, he is making our closets; just finished our mail box (see photo); made the custom stainless brackets in our kitchen; and will be making a custom LED channel under our quartz shelf. Very smart person who really knows his work. Lesson: find craftsperson first, see their work and then stay within their limits.
At the end of the day, we have a great “final resting place.” Lea and I joke that this is “our elegant coffin.” While this may be sick humor, it is a fact. We expect to stay here until we go to that great modernist shack in the sky. The pains and sadness of these last days will ease. We will get settled in. We will make this our home…and in the end, we will be happy. While we will always wish for somethings to be better, it is life. Imperfections are just part of the path.
Yikes! I will be some construction on my new house and have filed your commentary in that house file. How did the furniture retrieval go?
Judy– true to form they did not show up. Supposed to come tonight. We will see…