When we had the house built one of the issues that I really should have paid a lot more attention to was the paint job on the house. Needless to say, the house is less then two years old and it could use a paint job in some places. We have come to find from a person who watched the house being built that they did not power wash the house before they painted it. That combined with poor paint quality you get a house that has peeling paint after 16 months. We know that painting the house was going to be an on going issue over time. The simple paint scheme for the house was chosen for this very reason...to make the repainting of the house as easy as possible.
We talked to Victor about a month ago and we cut a deal with him to repaint half of the house now (the south side facing the ocean as well as the west face), and then paint the other half in May or June. His plan is to power wash the house, prime the bad areas, and paint the house with a high quality paint.
We were down at the house this last week end and we needed to get the paint. At first I thought about bringing the paint from home, but we decided to get the paint down there; one to help the economy there, and two so we would have a local source for the color if we needed more paint. We chose a top of the line Sherwin Williams paint with a low gloss. The paint on the house now is almost a flat finish which I think helped contribute to the low durability. Our hope is that we can get this done now and we can buy us about three years before we need to do this again.
On another topic, with all the debate about medical expenses in the US this may be of interest. We thought we would stop by one of the larger pharmacies to see if we could fill one of the inhalers for Lourdes. Basic albuteral (sp?). They ended up being $4.00 each......a great deal. So we check on Allegra (sp?)....$22 for 10 tablets..not a good deal. We checked a couple other items and it is my opinion, like most things in life one needs to shop around, but all in all if one had to get your drugs in a pharmacy in Mexico I think it would cost you the same on average as it would in the states.....just my opinion.
As far as our stay at our house that week end.......like most weekends at the beach it did not suck. Many times the memorable things we do on a trip are common item like those of this past week end; going to the paint store and watching them mix the color not with a computer, but the old fashion way with ones eye, and experience. Going to the pharmacy. Buying great mango's (why we can not get the same quality mango's in Phoenix is just crazy)....these simple things can be fun to experience in a foreign place and one of the good reasons to have a house in Mexico; a chance to slow down; oh... and the beach is there as a great amenity.
