Elizabeth and I had decided in 2005 that we would relocate to El Salvador when we retired. I had planned to retire when I was 65, but things changed. We ended up retiring in November 2011; I would turn 62 in December. We had been planning on building a home upon moving here. We had a lot of ideas and thoughts about how we wanted our home to be. Elizabeth had an excellent plot of land from her Father, so we had the land to build.
We arrived in November, near the end of the rainy season. We rented a home in the village near our land. We had made arrangements with a local builder named Stephen, whom we had chosen after interviewing many others. We broke land and started the construction in the first part of December 2011.
The following eight months would be full of mixed emotions for Elizabeth and me. Some days, it would seem slow; some days, it seemed to move fast. We were on the site almost every day; we had laid out our plans, but every week. We would have to modify and make changes for one reason or another.
We brought most of our materials locally. We brought much of our furnishings with us from the States. Regarding the ceramics, paint, roofing, and hardware, we went to Sonsonate and San Salvador for these. Many day-to-day decisions had to be made, which kept our emotions on a roller coaster. My son Matt was coming for a visit in July, and we wanted to be in our home for his visit.
I am happy to say everything worked out. Our ideas for our home come from our minds and from going through many books on home building. One book that was a great help is a book we brought at Lowes. I have added a picture of it below. We used many ideas from the many different homes in it and made many modifications to get what we wanted. This is truly the home that we designed.
We have lived here for over 12 years and love our home in El Salvador. We have a garden where we can grow most things year-round because of the warm climate here. Elizabeth raises free-range chickens; she enjoys that. We walk our property at least every other morning for exercise, 3.5-4 miles every other day. We have a perfect life here.
We have added a slide show of building our home.
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