Casa Cascada Cozumel
Whew! So with four months of hard work and living quite differently, visits from family and friends to help out along the way (both with manual labor and gifts) Casa Cascada is finally finished. Stronger from the experience and thrilled to complete my dream…
I did it! My family did it! Cement block by cement block and years of paying dollars at a time...It’s done.
I would like to recognize and thank a couple of people, who without their help, this house would not have been possible.
My aunt, Barbara Gunter, for helping me design the house from scratch and seeing this crazy vision when there was nothing but rock and weeds.
My boss, Eben Pagan, whose awesome business allowed me to telecommute (from Cozumel) so I could continue to earn my keep and oversee the final building process.
My husband, Eric Bubniak, for helping oversee the crazy building methods in Mexico (not to mention braving the construction shops with limited Spanish and performing Charades with my mother and shopkeepers to find obscure items).
Blake, my son, whose precious smile kept me going through jack hammers, the relentless pounding on cement and the cement dust that I STILL find on things that I brought back from Cozumel.
Both my parents for believing in me and knowing that anything is possible even when it seemed that it wasn't. (Thank you also for the $help when we just plain ran out!) Mother, it was a long time coming...but we did it!
I hope the island moves you as it continues to move me every time I visit.
Mi casa es su casa. Enjoy!
Denise
PS: We have hopes of adding a 3rd floor master suite in a couple years. I know it’ll happen, but it may end up being another 10 years, and that’s ok.
Zoom forward a couple of years and we were blessed to have a baby on the way. We once again went into save mode and spent anything extra we had on diapers and baby stuff.
So in April of 2009….My son was 2 ½ years old and the economy in the States was faltering. My husband and I talked about it and decided to do something crazy before our son was in school and while the economy was slow. We refinanced our house in the states so that we could pull funds out of a home equity line to FINALLY finish my island dream house.
Fast forward to June 2009 and the 3 of us moved into a VERY bare bones house. We had running water in 1 bathroom (unfinished and with no hot water). No furniture (just 2 blow up mattresses) and no kitchen, no TV, no books. Nada. Zippo. Empty.
If you have a moment, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the history of the house...
The property was purchased in 1999 while I was living & working in Cozumel. I started building slowly, as money allowed, and for a little over a year it progressed nicely. Little did I know, that was about to change…
I went home to Georgia to visit my family for July 4th, 2000….and ended up meeting a man who is now my husband and father of my son. Well, I ended up staying in the States and needless to say, building my Cozumel house while living in another country proved to be VERY difficult and even more slow going.
For a while, I continued to send a little bit of money as a friend of mine on the island oversaw the building. Soon though, there were plans of marriage and buying a house of our own. Any extra money that I had, went into savings for my “new” life in the US.