Category Archives: Rincon

500 Day Countdown to Move to Puerto Rico

We have started to talk about a date for our move to Puerto Rico. They definitely relate to the amount of money we need to save up, but also some things we need to take care of and line up before we leave (as you can see on the vine).

If our projections are correct, we will meet our projected amount needed to move to Puerto Rico sometime around the spring/summer of 2013. Then we figured we could get through another nice summer in Colorado and move to Rincon sometime before the winter of 2013. I calculated that we are about 500 days away! Five hundred days. That seems both short and long. I am now into the 5 digits of days alive on Earth so 500 days represents about 4% of my lifetime! On the other hand, that’s only about 18 months. Another cold winter to get through and then it will be Endless Summer if we want it to be.

Of course life can throw any number of curveballs at you, especially when you try to plan, so we are flexible. No need to worry or rush. But if all the stars align, it could make for some nice symmetry. By October 2013, we will have lived in our house in Greeley a little over 10 years! We will have written our blog for 5 years! We will have owned our property in Puerto Rico for 2 years. October 5, 2013 is exactly 500 days from May 23, 2012. May 23rd, 2012 is the 1 year anniversary since we bought the property in Rincon, Puerto Rico! Pretty cool stuff!

We have also been thinking about all the things we want to do in Colorado before the big move. Soon we will be making a Colorado “bucket list” so to speak and checking things off that list. Looking forward and counting down to making our dreams come true!

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Vintage Rincón

In this month’s issue of El Coquí of Rincón, there were quite a few old vintage photos of Rincón and its residents back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. It made me think how cool it was back in Vintage Rincón. And while we can’t go back to those days, we can recreate it somewhat in our photography.

I found this really cool site called Pixlr-O-Matic. It is like the Hipstamatic/Instagram app you can buy to make modern digital photos look vintage, but it is completely free and on the web. So I played around with a couple of pictures. I think they turned out cool, and I might use it again from time to time!

Here’s an example.

The before:


A picture we took in Rincon a couple of years ago of an airplane buzzing the water with Desecheo Island in the background


And after- a Vintage Rincón shot! I think it looks way cool!

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Photo Concepts of Wooden Tropical Houses

It’s kind of fun to start thinking about how the wood house could transform from a sort of scary (no help from bats, bees and a dead lady), dark and stale place to a light, airy, fun and inviting home. But sometimes I need a little help “seeing” the end result. It is for that reason that Britton and I make sketches and I also look for comparables. I found these photos of other wooden houses in the tropics and thought they were really cool. I could totally imagine aspects of these in our house in Rincón.


I like the deck and staircase in this one. Sort of a Swiss-Family Robinson look


I like the nice floors and the white contrast against the wood. I also like the open and light feeling and the ceiling fan would be a must in the current high ceilings of both the living room and the upstairs bedroom/loft


I like the way this looks underneath. Not sure where this would incorporate in with our wooden house though


I like the contrast of the tropical vegetation against the wood. Britton says he would like to paint the house a blue color, but I kind of like the stained wood look found in these pictures.

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Ideas for the Wood House in Rincón

Cassie and I have been brainstorming for what we’d like to do with the house.  We’ve told how we go back and forth on either tearing it down and building a concrete place from scratch or working with what we’ve got.

Lately we have been leaning towards working with what we’ve got.  It would move us quicker to our goal of moving to Rincón to keep what we have and simply remodel it.  There are a few things we would like to achieve.

  • A main floor bathroom.
  • A better bathroom in the master bedroom
  • More space / Separate living space
  • More light / brighten it up

We are pretty much certain that we’d take the bathroom that was built on the deck down.  It seems like too much of an add-on and doesn’t really fit.  So what we’d do is just move it to the side of the house and integrate it into the main house structure.  We can make an entrance to it from the inside of the house and from the deck.

The bathroom in the upstairs bedroom is only a toilet and a sink.  We can extend the room and reconfigure that bathroom to take up more space.  We can put in a shower or bath so that the master bedroom upstairs is a bit more complete.  We are thinking about also adding an upper deck off the master bedroom.

We can pour a concrete floor under the house, then close in the lower area and frame rooms and a bathroom.   This would provide more living space and/or a separate living area which could be used for visitors when they stay with us.

As far as more light, we will take out some of the shutter windows and put in more traditional glass windows on the ocean side.  We are thinking about also putting in a glass sliding door to let more light in.  I’ve seen some of them that are rated for hurricane force impacts.  I’d have to do more research on the windows available and how they hold up in high winds, but adding slots for storm shutters /plywood would be part of the plan.

Here is a rough sketch of what we were thinking.


Bathroom on side and deck off upstairs master

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