Construction Update

So it’s about time for this long overdue construction update because a lot has happened at the Makarios House since I last did a full update about it. The biggest news is that house has been moved into and is operational. Construction is completed in the main portion of the house (bunk rooms, two guest rooms, kitchen, living area, etc.) except for some small finishing touches. Makarios hosted its first group at the new house over spring break; it was a large group of 36 high schoolers. It was quite the way to break in the house, but it was awesome to see the house being used for what is intended for.

So let me tell you about the part the house that is finished. The two bunk rooms are now finished, painted, floors stained and bunks moved in. The large bunk room can sleep around 22 people and the small room can sleep 14. The bathrooms in each of those rooms are also completed except for small items such as toilet paper holders and towel hooks. (Note to self: purchase and install toilet paper holders and towel hooks this week.)

The upstairs hallway is completed as well with paint, stained floors and lovely light fixtures. Also completed upstairs are the two guest rooms that share a bathroom.

Downstairs the large living/dining area are finished. Green painted walls in the living area and yellow on the walls in the kitchen. A white tile back-splash has just been added above the counters. Cabinet doors and hardware have been added to complete the cabinet project that I worked on my first week in the country.

Outside, the other half of the front wall has been completed along with the large, metal automobile gate and a pedestrian gate. The wall and gates need to be painted a brighter, happier color still, but that seems like great project for a summer work group. Some of the front yard has also been filled in with eight dump truck loads of river rocks (Yes, eight!) which will help prevent the front yard from becoming a lake whenever it rains and will be the foundation for a concrete driveway in the future.

A quick story about those river rocks and how the got spread out after the trucks dumped them in piles: Chepe, Abe (pronounced: A-Bay) and I started to work on spreading one mound of rocks out with just shovels in the hot sun, but work was quite slow because moving a dump truck load of rocks is hard work. Specifically the problem was that rocks varied in size from small pebbles to rocks the size of basketballs, so when I would thrust my shovel into the rock pile, the shovel would go in about an inch and then stop because it struck a giant rock that basically had to be moved by hand. But we worked on this pile of rocks for about an hour and we put a small dent in it.

At some pointed I really started to think about how great it would be to have a bulldozer or backhoe or anything that was powered by something other than my back and arms. Not too long after those thoughts, a giant bulldozer comes up the driveway. Turns out Chepe had called for one earlier that morning, but he wasn’t sure it was going to show up or not. Well, it did show up and it leveled all four mounds of rocks that were there on that day in about 15 minutes.

The floors in the main part the house have been stained and sealed by Chris, Charlie and I. It was a project that we took on as way to save a lot of money for Makarios because we used nothing but iron-sulfate, coffee and water to stain the floors, where as store bought stain or tile would have been a hundred times more expensive. The process was a lot of trial and error of finding just the right mixture and best way of applications. But we started in areas that aren’t as seen as much and by the time we did the main room and kitchen on the first floor, we really knew what we were doing and the floors look great. After staining the floors we put a clear sealant to protect the floor and to give it an glossy look.

The exciting news now is that Makarios received funding for the remaining portion of the house which includes the last guest room and host couple quarters (a two bedroom apartment attached to the house). Construction on the remaining portion of the house should be finished in two to three weeks which is just in time for the summer and is a huge blessing. This means there will be room in the house for Chris and Erika (the Makarios host couple), the summer interns and all of the large groups coming for short term mission trips over the summer. The walls are completed and the floors have just been finished being laid.

The electrician and plumber are also working in this area. Soon we will stain the floors here and the painter will take care off the walls. And hopefully my next update on the house will come quickly and with news that it has been completed.