With the new addition of a front porch comes an update as to how our humble palapa is looking these days. For the longest time we have been wanting to add a little bit of cover for the front stoop and an entranceway for our future steps that will go upstairs. Currently we are still using the trusty aluminum ladder, but high on our To-Do List is a proper ladder up to the second floor. The new porch also makes it possible to hang our new mahogany swing that was a gift from my Dad during his visit last November. It was purchased at the Orange Gallery on the Western Highway here in Belize. The beach chairs that we did have there are now inside. This is now the favorite morning and evening spot. As you can see half of the house is painted blue and I think that we will continue with the same blue on the exterior of the upstairs. Downstairs we have a newly painted concrete floor which is a nice change from grungy, stained concrete to a fresh terracotta that matches the ever-growing plant collection. Finally, the cherry on top, is an original painting by Lucy McGowin of a toucan that hangs on a panel of Pocono Boy Plam above the kitchen sink. When we have the place lit up at night you can see the colorful close up of the toucan from a couple hundred yards away...To See More Paintings by Lucy McGowin Click Here

We have been working hard lately to keep improving our palapa. With the addition of a deck we are no longer climbing an aluminum ladder straight up from the yard into the doorway on the second floor. We do still use a ladder to get up but we have decided to wait until the new deck is entirely done before we build a more permanent staircase. We are about to add a thatched covering for the upstairs deck. The thatch will match the existing roof and it will stretch out over the three panels that the deck covers now. Also, the addition of the deck has provided a nice outside sitting area downstairs that is now fondly referred to as "The Beach". It is now a favorite early morning coffee spot and a perfect place to catch a sunrise. One of our good friends in a neighboring village built us two chairs that complete the beach experience. We have also done a lot to try to turn what was a field into more of a lawn. This has involved filling in the big holes, removing bushy vegetation, and trimming it regularly. When we first got here the field was growing right up over the foundation in some spots but now we have a nice buffer zone of pea gravel that is both aesthetically pleasing and practical.... Another future prject will be the addition of a 2 ft. deep shelf above the downstairs screens on four panels. These shelves will eventually be full of potted plants and will help keep some of the weather out of the downstairs. Even the battery box got a facelift!

After not having a toilet for the last 7 months, we finally stepped up and built ourselves an outhouse. We dug a 4.5 ft deep hole and casted a concrete foundation around it. With pine lumber, we framed out a simple rectangular, zinc-roofed outhouse. Like so many of our other projects, we included local bamboo and mahogany. Our new outhouse does not currently have a door, but we will be sure to add one before the mosquito season. We placed it about 40 feet away from the palapa, in the bush. The "throne" is made of local mahogany.              

We set up a shower shortly after arriving to Belize. We built a gravity-fed shower directly below the rain barrel and at first, we just bordered three sides with plywood. The shower stayed this way for months, but it was still an improvement over spraying yourself off with a hose in the yard. In the last couple of months we decided to finish the shower off, and do it right, which meant that we started working with the bamboo for the first time. We decided to use whole, round pieces of small bamboo, which meant that we had to find hundreds of lengths of reasonably straight pieces of babmoo, measure cut and nail into one exterior side and three inside walls. It ended up being a ton of work, tedious at times, and took forever to really call "done". We added a shelf and bench, both made of mahogany, a standing platform that sits atop of some local river rocks, and a mirror. The bench makes it easy to sit down and get your feet nice and clean. The mirror makes it much easier to shave, or at least better than using the truck window. We added some bamboo doors and it has been the most amazing shower EVER!