(Post 129 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

I can’t believe the day is finally here that I get to move into my refreshed master suite!

It’s crazy that I’m doing the master bedroom post before the office, but I’m still waiting on office bits. Such is one’s fate when one orders custom things! I’m actually still waiting on something for the bedroom, but it could take several more weeks, so I decided to do the post before I move in, while things are still tidy, and update later.

Of course, I never took a before picture, but this is a good representation of everything that was wrong about the room — too bright, too empty (so loud and echoey), and not cosy. The little bed eventually went into the corner under the picture when I started sleeping in the hammock.

And here it is now, cosy, comfortable, and appropriately furnished.

I picked up the shawl in Teotitlán del Valle when I was in Oaxaca last year. The bag above the desk was purchased in Baščaršija, Sarajevo’s old bazaar.

It was never my intention to do a complete master suite reno when I decided to change the flooring in the bedroom and master closet room, as well as paint them. Nothing happened to the bathroom, there were changes to the closet, but the bedroom itself, oh my goodness, that project’s scope grew! I haven’t had a proper bedroom or slept in my very own bed in five years. My sleep isn’t great. Maybe turning my bedroom into a proper sanctuary, one that is quiet and dark and climate controlled will help. It’s certainly the first thing my doctor wants to try before medication.

One thing that surprised me as I was shopping for furniture is how my taste has evolved to suit the dusty humid climate here. I wanted non-fussy furniture with clean lines that would be easy to keep clean. I also wanted new things, to walk into a store and say, “I want this, this, and this,” and just get those things. I haven’t had much luck with average used furniture here — again, damp climate — and the “good” used furniture, antiques made of wood like cedar or mahogany, is just too fussy for me. Being in a position to get new things was such a luxury. I can then add personal and handmade items over time.

I decided to go with custom blinds because I only have two rooms that need them, so it would be relatively affordable and save me the hassle of trying to find the right solution and then someone to install them. With the master bedroom being such a bold purple colour, a neutral for the blinds made more sense than another colour, and that surprised me. Turns out that while I do love bright colours, I don’t need bright colours everything. I hate to describe my taste as having “matured,” as that is colourphobic language, but my taste has evolved. And I certainly want my bedroom to feel calming, which the bright pink blinds I had before certainly weren’t. So when the decorator suggested charcoal, the room came together in my head. I love charcoal. It’s my favourite neutral and what I prefer in my wardrobe over black. It is such a warm colour.

The item that I’m missing for the bedroom is a padded headboard to match the blinds. I was at spending fatigue and low funds when I ordered the blinds and the headboard felt frivolous, so I didn’t order it. But as I started to furnish the room, I realised that the headboard was going to have a practical function beyond aesthetics — to help tamper some of the echo in the room. As soon as I replenished the funds after my very expensive Liverpool shopping spree, I sent a deposit for the headboard and was told it’ll come in early September.

Finding linens for the bed was work. It’s so hard to get good linens in Mexico, even if you’re willing to pay a lot for them! I tried on Amazon and the ones I got were garbage, not the 100% cotton advertised, and the colour ran. Augh. But I did find a use for them. The fitted sheet went around my boxspring and I used the pillow cases under my “good” pillow cases. I went back online to see if I could find something that wasn’t white. I’m so over white sheets. Sears ended up having a sale on all their “beds in a bag,” and I decided to have a look there even if all the beds in a bag I’ve seen here are polyester. So I wasn’t too optimistic. I read through every description. Polyester, polyester, and more polyester. When I found the perfect set, aesthetically speaking, I was so bummed because whatever I ended up finding could never live up to it. This was a complete set of a duvet, top and fitted sheet, two pillow cases, and two pillow shams, all fitted for a tall queen size bed. The pattern of pasta tiles in tones of grey fit with my colour scheme and also my locale. The description claimed that the whole thing, including the duvet was… 100% cotton. I couldn’t believe my luck. And the set was deeply discounted to around 2,000 pesos, less than the price of the sheets I was going to buy at Costco!

Furniture for the room started with a similar list to what I had before — a bookcase, a desk and chair for journalling, but two night stands rather than just a little table. It was impossible to find night stands tall enough for my bed. I was surprised that there was literally nothing at any price tag. I asked my decorator and she confirmed that they would have to be custom items. Or why not consider console tables, which would be the perfect height, fill out the back wall, and, again, help with reducing the echo in the room? After spending time looking at design blogs, I realised that this option would work well. Liverpool had the perfect pieces to fit the space, and deeply discounted too. I also picked up there a small desk and a chair.

I decided to add a blanket chest to have another padded piece. This one was from Coppel and very inexpensive. I gravitated to it because it had feet, so it felt airier than the pricier and custom ones I’d seen, and the rich teal colour would go well with the purple. I’m super happy with how it looks and fits in the space.

Finally, the bookcase. I wanted one with glass doors so I wouldn’t have to constantly be dusting. I couldn’t find anything in stores and found one on Facebook Marketplace. It was rustic but not too rustic and super affordable. I’m glad that I have one piece that was commissioned of a local carpenter. I have a near matching one downstairs as my new curio cabinet.

I didn’t do anything in the master bathroom except upgrade to better towels and tidy up. I’m not showering up here until I redo this bathroom, so the new towels are going to be enjoyed in the future! I just took advantage of a sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond (I had no idea they exist in Mexico. Thanks, Facebook ads!).

Finally, the master closet room got new floors, a fresh coat of paint (same purple with white mixed in), and I removed the cabinets that turned out to be very smelly! I kept my dresser, just orientated it differently, and brought in one of my three pine bookcases for extra storage. I really don’t need more than that. Maybe if I start going out into the world again and have a bigger wardrobe I’ll want to invest in a custom closet, but for now, this is just fine and better than the mess than I had before!

I can’t wait to go to bed tonight. I just hope all the improvements live up to the hype and send me into a blissful slumber!

(Post 128 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

Today was the day I’ve been waiting for for weeks, Décorama guys came by to install the new window coverings in the upstairs landing/mezzanine and my bedroom!

The direct sunlight this space gets made it unusable during the day. A new tower fan helped a lot, but replacing noisy vertical blinds with curtains is going to make the biggest change.

This space was a catch-all of good intentions for the longest time, with a table and bookcases holding LEGO, art supplies, and all manner of things I didn’t know what else to do with. I have to say I’m starting to regret not redoing the floor at the same time as the bedroom, but I also have some pretty grand plans involving the roof over the living room and I didn’t want to risk having to start all over with the floor. Painting is also on hold until some exterior issues are dealt with. So this might not be the prettiest new space in the house, but it is comfortable and functional. I love having a dedicated reading space again, away from my office, like I did in the motorhome!

Some sharp-eyed readers might wonder about lighting. I mostly read on my iPad, so a reading lamp isn’t a huge need. I have a little book lamp that I can clip to a paper book, which, frankly, provides better lighting than most “reading lamps” I’ve ever had! I do think that the next ceiling fan will have a light since the only other lighting in this space is at the far end, above the staircase (I hope that light bulb never burns out).

(Post 127 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

I had an epiphany recently about my belief that I have a black thumb. It’s something I’ve always accepted about myself and never questioned. Even when I had great success as a plant sitter in Spain and in Chelem, I never made the connection between having a black thumb and ignorance. And I’m ashamed to say that I also never made the connection that a plant is a living, breathing thing with its own unique needs. I wouldn’t adopt a dog without doing research on dogs, so what was I doing adopting plants and then treating them all the same? The reason I had success in my assignments is that the plant parents took me at my word that I was a complete noob and left me super detailed instructions and schedules. I needed to do the same thing with any plants I brought into my home.

I’ve had a couple of plants for about a year now. One thing that I’ve found helpful is to give them all names, to remind me that they are individuals. So I have a snake/mother-in-law’s tongue named Bob, a little cactus named Larry, an aloe vera named Vera (original, I know), and two of something named Darryl and Darryl no one has been able to identify that had small leaves and spread and shed like crazy. What I learned from those plants is I like neat plants that stay in one place, have thick leaves, and don’t shed. The cat who comes in and out of the house ended up murdering Darryl and Darryl, so that left me with Bob, Larry, and Vera. Bob is unkillable, but Vera has been struggling.

All my efforts to find a plant mentor had thus far failed. It’s like “plant people” don’t get that it’s not an instinctual thing and that noobs need hand holding. But now that I’m in my own house permanently, I really want to figure this out. House plants would help with air quality and noise control, while softening sharp corners, and would eventually let me graduate to a vegetable garden.

My office is just about done, and I wanted to add a plant, again, for air quality, but also aesthetics, to hide a bunch of cables in a corner. I spent ages on Marketplace looking for a plant seller who might be patient enough to take time to discuss my needs and abilities and find me the perfect plant and planter for my corner. There are lots of plant vendors around my house, of course, but I needed a complete solution, so looking on Marketplace made more sense. I was pleased to find someone very near me after all. I sent her a picture of the corner, explained that sunlight comes from the skylight, and was honest about my lack of plant nurturing skills. She told me that, frankly, the snake plant was made for folks like me and that there’s no shame in not being suited for something that needs more attention. She suggested a chocolate planter to blend in with the floor so as to not draw attention to the cabling there as well as an oak trivet on which to put it. She could deliver the perfectly potted plant to me that evening at 6:30. Sold!

His name is Doug (Thor Ragnarok joke that plants wouldn’t find funny, but a good reminder of my shameful past behaviour).

I couldn’t believe she put little feet on the trivet, to make it easier to glide across the floor.

I also want some cactus and succulents for my bedroom. She had this little guy available for an additional $180, so I added him to my order.

My name is Korg. I’m not made of rocks, but rather am a cactus.

She arrived around 7PM and spent close to 30 minutes talking about the plants in my front garden (same family as the snake plant, to my surprise) and my Madagascar palms that seem to take everyone’s breath away, and giving me some tips to keep Bob and Vera happier — Bob needs a bigger planter and Vera needs more sunlight, so I moved her to my bedroom. Finally, we talked about a veggie garden and she confirmed that I’ve suspected — it is REALLY hard to grow tomatoes in this climate because there’s just too much sun. She said I might be able to manage cherry tomatoes started inside and then put in an area with shade half the day, like my rear patio. Late August or early September is apparently a good time to try for tomatoes, so I’ll add that to my to-do list.

(Post 126 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

Naming your house is a thing here in Mexico, and, frankly, I’ve always named my homes. I had The Shack/House of the Cedars in Quebec, then Miranda, then Haven. I could not find the right name for this property. I kept coming back to Casa de los cedros, because of the three magnificent (and rare for this locale) cedars, but I’ve already had a House of the Cedars, plus the name didn’t speak to me on a personal level.

The perfect name came to me in my dreams last night! It is… Casa del Camino Largo — house of the long journey.

I am going to have a name plaque made to match the address plaque!

(And, *sigh*, I know I have to put this disclaimer before the emails land, that I had the Spanish confirmed by a Mexican friend who is fluent in English. She said it perfectly conveys the English. My subconscious sure knows its Spanish!)

(Post 125 of 263. Thanks again to those who participated in the Fundrazr. As I mentioned in the post announcing Bast’s passing from COVID, I thank everyone for your generous donations to the original Fundrazr campaign, which resulted in sponsored 263 posts. I will continue to honour the commitment to write those 263 posts, but I will not commit to more. The link above is to a new campaign to help Bast’s family.)

Phew, today was a big spending day, but I think that takes me to just about the end of the big expenses for this phase of the house improvements. I was thrilled that all my stops were within walking distance. I set out around 9:30 and was home just as we started to get the full noon sun.

First stop was a framing place to drop off the picture I want to put on my accent wall in my office and which informed all my design choices for the room. It took forever to find the right frame and I was 99% happy with my final choice. I also had framed my painting of Bonita, and that was a much, much quicker frame to find. Not sure where I’m hanging that one just yet, I think up in my new reading corner.

Next stop was Decorama to order custom blinds for said new reading corner, as well as my bedroom. All the current blinds in the house, as well as the patio awning, come from them, so I knew the quality would be super high. To my surprise, I got service in English! I’m happy with my choices. The sales attendant will be dropping by tomorrow tomorrow to double check my measurements and confirm how much bigger than the windows we want to make everything. They said that they can have an upholstered headboard made to match my new bedroom blinds, so I’m definitely going with that option. I ended up going with a neutral I hadn’t thought of for my blinds and which will look great against the purple. I’ll leave it at that until the bedroom reveal in a few weeks!

Final stop was Super Colchones for a mattress. I have now been sleeping in a hammock for three years.

I started to sleep in a hammock for two main reasons:

• the beds that came with the house weren’t that comfortable and, being in a rental and on a super tight budget, buying a mattress didn’t make sense
• the hammock would be cooler in summer weather as I was really trying to minimize AC use, again, due to that super tight budget

I continued to sleep in a hammock because:

• it was hella comfortable — I have no natural padding on my pressure points, so I need a very specific type of mattress to be comfortable. The hammock is like floating, being absolutely weightless
• in relation to my last point, my sleep improved dramatically
• it was good for my back and even straightened out my spine a little

Things that annoyed me about sleeping in a hammock:

• while it is great in hot weather, it absolutely sucks on cold nights. We get plenty of those here in the dead of winter — my room can get down to 10C/50F in late January/early February. I never let the RV get that cold! No amount of adding insulation below me helped me get really warm and I’d end up in this ridiculous burrito of blankets with a hot water bottle
• the aforementioned burrito made it hard to get up for those nighttime bathroom trips
• it always felt like I was camping, never truly sleeping at home
• it spoiled me for the average bed — I had a hard time getting used to a bed in Oaxaca and slept poorly that whole week. I’m going to start travelling again, it’s inevitable, and I want to be reacclimatised to sleeping on a mattress

I’m now also at the point where I’m so used to sleeping in the hammock that my sleep isn’t as good as it was when I first started sleeping in one. Before I start on a full on sleep study and consider medication, my doctor wants me to sleep about three months in a bedroom that feels like a proper sanctuary and which is sufficiently dark and comfortable. Hence the custom blinds and my ending up at a mattress store.

Super Colchones seems to be the MVP of mattress stores here, so I didn’t even look anywhere else. Like in Canada, mattresses are always “on sale” and it’s hard to find a real deal, so I was most focused on getting out the door with something comfortable on budget.

I told the salesman that I’m a side sleeper who needs a bed that can relieve pressure on my hips, shoulders, and knees. The first bed he had me try out was fantastic. It was also 22,000 pesos with the box spring. If that was it, budget be damned, but surely he had some other options? I asked him about a cooler bed — I’d heard about some sort of gel technology for that. He went “Ah!,” and led me to another bed, which was a little too firm under the gel/memory foam top.  He had another similar option, and the third bed was amazing, even better than the first. Before he would tell me the price, he had me try a fourth, the absolute bargain basement mattress that fit all my criteria. After beds one and three, it felt like a one-inch piece of cheap memory foam over plywood (sorry, bed!). He went off to his computer to price bed three for me. 25,000 pesos for the mattress alone, but I’d caught a “sale” and I could have the mattress and box spring for 15,000 pesos. Right on budget, so sold!

I’ll have the bed tomorrow, but blinds, cooling pillows, and sheets will be a while, so I’m not going to get to try it right away.

I had no sooner gotten home, had a quick dip, and changed that the doorbell rang. I almost ignored it, but then heard a big truck outside. I had ordered from Coppel last week, so could that be them, without calling first?! It sure was, with this absolutely stunning and perfect final piece for my office

I want one for my bedroom, or at least something similar! I can’t believe it took me this long to think of putting my books in a glass-doored cabinet. Coppel had this piece sold as a buffet (trinchador) in their dining room section, so well spotted by me. It works perfectly as a bookcase, correctly sized and meant to take a lot of weight. It was a bargain, too, at only 3,500 pesos.