House, pool and garage build in Mexico
Discussion
I mentioned this on another thread and was asked to give more details, so hopefully this will be of some interest to people. We're currently about 60-70% through a fairly big project we're doing in Monterrey, northern Mexico. The project consists of a 3 bed / 2.5 bath house, pool, garage, two BBQ areas and a few garden areas on a 3100m2 piece of land in a national park around 25 minutes from the city.
I'm in my mid 20s, and we're doing all this (including the land purchase) with no form of mortgage or loan, so don't expect anything remotely as beautiful or well built as some of the other projects here. It should however show what is (and isn't!) possible with a relatively small amount of money. This was quite a struggle financially: I had to sell everything from my Range Rover to my laptop to pay for the land, and we've moved in with my wife's family as I had to sell our previous house to pay for the construction of this one.
So far, we've paid the following (all converted to GBP for simplicity):
Around 60k for the land (about half the market value as it belonged to a customer who needed the cash ASAP)
Around 40k for the house, with around another 10k left for completion.
Around 3k so far on one of the BBQ areas, trees, landscaping, paths etc.
Around 3k for a 50m well with pump, tank etc
Around 1.5k for the fence for both sides of the land
And we still need to pay:
Around 25-30k for a pool suspended on columns which will act as a garage. Ironically, I'm going to have to sell one of my beloved cars to pay for it.
Around 2k for the front wall
All of the furnishings, AC units etc, which will all be relatively basic
Probably many other things I've forgotten
This was how the land looked when we bought it. It has one flat area at the level of the road, a lower flat area which will be my garage, and eventually the site of a tennis court, a sloped forest area, and a flat area at the top which we're going to turn into a kind of observatory / BBQ area / pellet gun shooting range.
We did all the clearing ourselves, and used old railway sleepers to make a path through the forest area, which left it looking like this.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/x9T8RyQk[/url
We then bought some plants to go around the edges of the land, to eventually cover up the fence.
And seeing as we still didn't have enough money to properly start the house, we started working on the upper garden. The fence is purely decorative, our actual boundary is way further down. It was also built by my father-in-law and I, so any professionals might want to look away now.
I bought around 15 palm trees as well: I couldn't say no at the equivalent of 25GBP each!
We also hired a well drilling company recommended by two friends who have country houses. They turned up in this incredibly old truck, which they slept in for several days. This was in winter, and it must have been freezing. Unsurprisingly, they ended up having a fight and one of them stormed off, but they got the job done eventually.
So, that's all for the preparations. I'll continue a bit later with some pictures and details of the house itself. This is how it looks currently, but it took a fair while to get to this stage. There is, of course, a long way to go.
I'm in my mid 20s, and we're doing all this (including the land purchase) with no form of mortgage or loan, so don't expect anything remotely as beautiful or well built as some of the other projects here. It should however show what is (and isn't!) possible with a relatively small amount of money. This was quite a struggle financially: I had to sell everything from my Range Rover to my laptop to pay for the land, and we've moved in with my wife's family as I had to sell our previous house to pay for the construction of this one.
So far, we've paid the following (all converted to GBP for simplicity):
Around 60k for the land (about half the market value as it belonged to a customer who needed the cash ASAP)
Around 40k for the house, with around another 10k left for completion.
Around 3k so far on one of the BBQ areas, trees, landscaping, paths etc.
Around 3k for a 50m well with pump, tank etc
Around 1.5k for the fence for both sides of the land
And we still need to pay:
Around 25-30k for a pool suspended on columns which will act as a garage. Ironically, I'm going to have to sell one of my beloved cars to pay for it.
Around 2k for the front wall
All of the furnishings, AC units etc, which will all be relatively basic
Probably many other things I've forgotten
This was how the land looked when we bought it. It has one flat area at the level of the road, a lower flat area which will be my garage, and eventually the site of a tennis court, a sloped forest area, and a flat area at the top which we're going to turn into a kind of observatory / BBQ area / pellet gun shooting range.
We did all the clearing ourselves, and used old railway sleepers to make a path through the forest area, which left it looking like this.
[url]
|https://thumbsnap.com/x9T8RyQk[/urlWe then bought some plants to go around the edges of the land, to eventually cover up the fence.
And seeing as we still didn't have enough money to properly start the house, we started working on the upper garden. The fence is purely decorative, our actual boundary is way further down. It was also built by my father-in-law and I, so any professionals might want to look away now.
I bought around 15 palm trees as well: I couldn't say no at the equivalent of 25GBP each!
We also hired a well drilling company recommended by two friends who have country houses. They turned up in this incredibly old truck, which they slept in for several days. This was in winter, and it must have been freezing. Unsurprisingly, they ended up having a fight and one of them stormed off, but they got the job done eventually.
So, that's all for the preparations. I'll continue a bit later with some pictures and details of the house itself. This is how it looks currently, but it took a fair while to get to this stage. There is, of course, a long way to go.
t, its for a huge cocaine plantation isnt it?RichTT said:
Crikey, good effort so far. How far are you from the nearest town/village/city?
Around 25 minutes drive, and we also have a small historic town around 15 minutes in the other direction. I'll post some pictures at some point.DSLiverpool said:
Why Mexico ? Wife ? How’d you meet - set the scene please.
I met my wife whilst working in France, she's from the city nearest to our land. She originally planned to stay in Europe but once she saw the cost of living etc she agreed it was worth going back to Mexico and seeing what we could do. I started a small business here which will probably never make me rich but pays enough for a quality of life far better than what we could have had in the UK / France.normalbloke said:
That truck has some stories to tell. Any bandito issues being out in the boonies?
Surprisingly, no. The part of the Mexico we live in is actually quite safe: I've felt far more in danger in the US than I have here. That said, I wouldn't fancy driving to remote places in our state late at night - you still have to exercise some common sense.Edited by normalbloke on Sunday 25th July 07:34
Austin_Metro said:
Looks epic. Do you have that tremendous view from what looks like a 1st floor terrace?
We do have a nice view from the first floor terrace - I'll try to remember to take a photo today and post it later on. It's not quite the same view that you see in the pictures though, as the "view" pictures are taken from the upper part of the land, which is a fair way above the level of the house.DonkeyApple said:
Enjoy. Looks like an amazing project. I believe you can get guard hippos quite cheap in SA? 
I think you can get them in Columbia as well - they have a fairly large feral population as they escaped from Pablo Escobar's ranch. I'll probably stick with our two pigeons and dog though: quite a bit easier to look after!I set up a foundry in Apodaca, Monterrey about 15 years ago.
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
mike9009 said:
I set up a foundry in Apodaca, Monterrey about 15 years ago.
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Interesting - I know Apodaca very well as two of my clients are based there. The “Barrio Antiguo” are around the canal is indeed great, although not so much now with the whole COVID situation.Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
In terms of danger, my wife tells me that around the time you were there, the president at the time “declared war” on the cartels, when actually he was in agreement with one cartel to remove all their competition. This caused a lot of issues, as you can imagine, so I’m not surprised you needed an armed guard. As I said, it’s honestly very safe now, although some states such as Sinaloa and Chiapas are still places I’d personally avoid.
The land might look far from the city, but it’s about 5 minutes from a major highway so it really doesn’t take long to get there. With the traffic right now this second, Google says it’d take me 30 minutes to get to Barrio Antiguo, and it’s only about 10-15 minutes from my nearest client.
mike9009 said:
I set up a foundry in Apodaca, Monterrey about 15 years ago.
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Glad you mentioned this. I had similar and mentioned it on a thread and was accused of being a Walt. I was there early 2000s commissioning a mobile phone network and we had armed guards. Think it was Axtel if I recall. Lovely part of the world but wasn’t keen on some areas we put masts. Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Geek man your house look great.
Geekman said:
mike9009 said:
I set up a foundry in Apodaca, Monterrey about 15 years ago.
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Interesting - I know Apodaca very well as two of my clients are based there. The “Barrio Antiguo” are around the canal is indeed great, although not so much now with the whole COVID situation.Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
In terms of danger, my wife tells me that around the time you were there, the president at the time “declared war” on the cartels, when actually he was in agreement with one cartel to remove all their competition. This caused a lot of issues, as you can imagine, so I’m not surprised you needed an armed guard. As I said, it’s honestly very safe now, although some states such as Sinaloa and Chiapas are still places I’d personally avoid.
The land might look far from the city, but it’s about 5 minutes from a major highway so it really doesn’t take long to get there. With the traffic right now this second, Google says it’d take me 30 minutes to get to Barrio Antiguo, and it’s only about 10-15 minutes from my nearest client.
I think we set up on the Finsa Industrial estate (?) - sadly the plant shutdown a couple of years ago.
The surrounding mountains are beautiful and the wider population were so welcoming and friendly -i think being a Brit helped! I would love to visit again, but don't think I will get the opportunity.... I loved the local delicacy, baby goat..... I wish I could remember the names of the places we visited.....
mike9009 said:
Geekman said:
mike9009 said:
I set up a foundry in Apodaca, Monterrey about 15 years ago.
Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
Interesting - I know Apodaca very well as two of my clients are based there. The “Barrio Antiguo” are around the canal is indeed great, although not so much now with the whole COVID situation.Spent a few months there over the course of a year - great city. The nightlife was excellent, down near the canal in the centre - loved it.
How dangerous is it there now? Last time I went (about 2011) I had two armed guards escorting me everywhere.....
Nice build, looks like it is quite far from the city though....
In terms of danger, my wife tells me that around the time you were there, the president at the time “declared war” on the cartels, when actually he was in agreement with one cartel to remove all their competition. This caused a lot of issues, as you can imagine, so I’m not surprised you needed an armed guard. As I said, it’s honestly very safe now, although some states such as Sinaloa and Chiapas are still places I’d personally avoid.
The land might look far from the city, but it’s about 5 minutes from a major highway so it really doesn’t take long to get there. With the traffic right now this second, Google says it’d take me 30 minutes to get to Barrio Antiguo, and it’s only about 10-15 minutes from my nearest client.
I think we set up on the Finsa Industrial estate (?) - sadly the plant shutdown a couple of years ago.
The surrounding mountains are beautiful and the wider population were so welcoming and friendly -i think being a Brit helped! I would love to visit again, but don't think I will get the opportunity.... I loved the local delicacy, baby goat..... I wish I could remember the names of the places we visited.....
The baby goat is great, my father-in-law does a particularly good one. He did it for my parents when they came over - I went to get it from the market and they immediately regretted joining me.
Anyway, onto phase 2:
As there's only my wife and I, we wanted the house to remain relatively basic and not too huge. The fashion here is to build enormous places, and only have a small garden, which was pretty much the opposite of what we wanted. So, we found an architect, and made a plan for a house of 200m2, or around 185m2 excluding the terrace.
Things progressed relatively quickly:
While the builders were busy working on the house, my father-in-law and I were busy trying to improve the upstairs garden. The only real issue with this was the obvious fact that it was upstairs, and carrying the materials up there was difficult to say the least. At one point, I had to carry around 70m2 of turf up there by hand, which was genuinely the hardest physical thing I've ever done. It was worth it in the end though, as the garden started to take shape.
We started with the basics, and stuck a few cacti in the dry, stony area at the end
I then hired a couple of guys to build a basic metal BBQ area.
My father-in-law has a contact who owns a lumber yard, and he said we could have as many old railway sleepers as we wanted: no payment necessary. Getting them in my truck was the easy bit, getting them up there was more challenging.
We managed it though!
Then, we started bringing the grass. Turned out I'd under-ordered which meant we needed to space it out more than I'd have liked. This didn't end up being a problem in the end, as you'll see in later posts.
I also found a couple of cheap palm trees to put at the entrance to the BBQ area, which are currently doing really well. These were another thing that almost killed me in terms of bringing them up there, but I managed it with the help of an ice box full of beer.
I'll stop there for the moment: I hope it's been at least vaguely interesting so far! For the poster who was asking about the view from the balcony, here's how it is currently. Not as nice as the view from the upper garden, but still not too shabby.
We started with the basics, and stuck a few cacti in the dry, stony area at the end
I then hired a couple of guys to build a basic metal BBQ area.
My father-in-law has a contact who owns a lumber yard, and he said we could have as many old railway sleepers as we wanted: no payment necessary. Getting them in my truck was the easy bit, getting them up there was more challenging.
We managed it though!
Then, we started bringing the grass. Turned out I'd under-ordered which meant we needed to space it out more than I'd have liked. This didn't end up being a problem in the end, as you'll see in later posts.
I also found a couple of cheap palm trees to put at the entrance to the BBQ area, which are currently doing really well. These were another thing that almost killed me in terms of bringing them up there, but I managed it with the help of an ice box full of beer.
I'll stop there for the moment: I hope it's been at least vaguely interesting so far! For the poster who was asking about the view from the balcony, here's how it is currently. Not as nice as the view from the upper garden, but still not too shabby.
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