Quarantine Projects

While we were in quarantine, we decided to work on the outstanding projects we have on the Ol’ Flores Ranchito. Much like the quarantine, these projects have gone on and on with no sure end point in sight. 

We had purchased the materials for these projects earlier this year or as a last minute dash to the ferreteria the first week of the #QuedateEnCasa campaign since everything was still open. Little did we know that, just like the work on the house, businesses would be open and closed in fits and starts. 

Quarantine Project #1 Tejas

Putting tejas on the pestana (overhang) on the front of the house was actually begun in February but was interrupted by this and that and it still isn’t finished here in July. There are 3 tejas that need to be placed yet. So here’s how that project went.

If you’ll recall, one of my house goals of 2020 was to finish the front of the house decoratively. The ledge on the front of the house that serves as an overhang needed to be covered with roofing material. We hemmed and hawed whether to get the old fashioned tejas or the newer flat ones that come in more colors. To determine which would be more economical, we went to three different places that sold them in Moroleon.

The first one has the two browns and one orange I was considering. I thought if we had multiple colors it would tie in the color of the doors, the color of the chimney and whatever color we decided to paint the house (which is still under debate). For pricing purposes, we went to two other places and found that the tejas were $100 per square meter cheaper there. 

The next day we went to the closer of the two cheaper places to pick them up. Well, guess what? They didn’t have the color I wanted even though we had asked the day before. So we went to the farther place. They didn’t have the exact color, but one was close enough and in stock. I gave up on the three-toned design. I was tired of hunting stuff down. 

My husband had done the calculations and we bought the amount he had calculated. It took about two days for him to install the tejas on the pestana. Only, he hadn’t included the length of penstana on the animal side of our ranchito. And that meant another trip to the ladrilleria (brick and roofing tile place) 

Only by then, the first period of quarantine started so the tejas (roof tiles) sat in the garage for several months. Meanwhile, we started on the second project.