We now manage two vacation rentals. You can find more details and availability at the links below.
Ocean Vista Cottage – Our original rental which is the guest house on the property where we live in Judith’s Fancy.
https://airbnb.com/h/stxcottage
Ocean Vista Condo #203 – A condo less than a 1/2 mile from Judith’s Fancy.
https://airbnb.com/h/ocean-vista-condo
I should have posted on here that our show was airing on June 12th, but forgot. Sorry. So for those that have not seen it and want to, our episode is airing again on July 27th at 11pm.
Here is the link to showtimes: http://www.hgtv.com/house-hunters-international/a-caribbean-quandary/index.html
Chad, Emily, and Alexandra Bentley
Eco-Innovations (see update at bottom of post) installed 13 panels in December. They wired us up in early January. In early February, DPNR came out to do their inspection. DPNR finally signed off on our system in early May. Paperwork immediately handed to WAPA. WAPA engineers finally came out to inspect this week. Yesterday they changed out my meter so I can send the energy I produce back into the grid. After nearly eight months I finally flipped on my panels for the first time this morning.
You can see my system here: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/Ab6g68379
Solar Panels installed 12/15/2011
I found this net metering flow chart on the WAPA website. It gives you an idea of the complexity of the permitting process.
Update 2014:
When choosing a solar provider here in the USVI do keep in mind that the company mentioned above disappears after the install and is unreachable should you have any issues.
Well, it took nearly two months, but we finally received our CO (certificate of occupancy). Yeah, not sure what to say other than I suppose it isn’t surprising it took so long. DPNR, as with most government agencies here, are not in much of a hurry.
In mid-March HGTV’s House Hunters International was here to film. We really pushed hard to have the house mostly complete prior to their arrival. We got quite a bit complete but we lacked decorations and outdoor furniture, and we had bare walls. Our architects (and interior designer), Hera and Eduardo of Design Lab, lent us a bunch of decorations and asked a few St. Croix businesses to borrow some items. Pat from Sweet Lime Furnishings lent us some awesome outdoor furniture and some other decorations and Ted Davis from D&D Studio Fine Art Photography in Christiansted lent us some amazing photography for the wall.
Ted Davis came by to take some photos the day of the HHI shoot. Below are some of the photos he took. He made our house look incredible. Thanks Ted.
Guest House Bedroom
As always, this post arrives a bit late. We moved in 4 weeks ago. It was probably a mistake as it has been a bit stressful trying to do “work work” while people around me are doing “house work”. But each day we are getting closer to having all the essentials completed. All the interior doors are up and the trim should be completed in the next few days. We had to build all our door frames because of all the crazy sizes. All counter-tops, vanities, and sinks are in except for the powder room. We are still waiting on some things from the Marble Shop out of San Juan that really should have shipped 2 months ago. It has been extremely difficult to work with them and I won’t recommend them to anyone. The AC units are finally all in. Not all functional yet, but all installed. They started installation in December and proceeded to come work on them in one hour increments since. I don’t get it. Main kitchen cabinets, same thing. They started before Thanksgiving and we still have a few drawers that don’t function as they should. The company seems to send a different worker each time they come out.
After finishing our pool we found we had a leak. The concrete work wasn’t done properly around the skimmer, so we had to remove all the tiles from that area, rework the concrete, apply a sealant, and re-tile. My pool guy does a decent job….when he shows up.
The house is a bit of a mess at the moment. Boxes everywhere. Dust everywhere. Dust dust dust. Everywhere. Fun stuff.
We put in for our final inspections last Tuesday. The plumbing inspector came out that same day. Structural and CZM (Coastal Zone Management) both came out Wednesday. We are now just waiting on electrical inspection. By getting our Certificate of Occupancy we can move off of the construction electric rates, turn on our solar panels, and move off of our construction loan to our 30-year loan.
The dogs and cat have settled in well. Besides the barking at all the people in and out of the house all day, they do seem to enjoy it here. We don’t have a front gate yet so I can’t let them out in the big yard without supervision, but they have the fenced back area for the time being.
Our first guests (my mother and her friend Deb) arrive next Wednesday. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear that the furniture is going to arrive on time for the guest house. Sorry Mom. 🙂
Front Door Finally Completed. Some grass growing.
Our newly planted Christmas Palm Trees (and newly planted grass)
Kitchen
The dogs enjoy the deck
Pelicans have been cruising by my office window non-stop the past two weeks and dive-bombing for their meals right in front of the house.
I kept telling myself that we weren’t moving in until we were completely finished with everything. I didn’t want to live in the house during construction. But, we have decided to do just that. We aren’t far from being complete, but there are some things that will take some time. Our interior doors and 2 of our gates arrive next week. The granite for the main kitchen arrived today and that will hopefully be installed in the next day or two. So as of today, we lack interior doors, countertops (everywhere), and sinks (everywhere). We do have power, water and internet, which are all the essentials. In the end, it made financial sense for us to do this now.
Needless to say, the stress has kicked up a notch over the past weeks. We have had some bad experiences with some of our suppliers and some of our hired contractors. Hired help goes missing, scheduled deliveries do not show, etc. But soon this will be over. One of our friends, Jouni, has been helping finish quite a few things on the house since early November. Without him we would probably another month away from moving in. He has helped so much. Jouni is a jeweler by trade, but decided to take some time away from that business and has become my utility guy. I had the hardest time trying to find somebody with experience installing garage doors. In the end I handed it to Jouni. He figures things out. Thanks Jouni for alleviating some of that stress.
Also a shout out to Mike and Laura for stopping by in August and again last week on their trips to St. Croix to check on our progress. That bottle of champagne will be opened on Friday. 🙂
I had promised to post photos from October through December when I got some time, but instead of doing that right now here are a few photos from this week.
Desperately waiting for that sigh of relief.
1/20/2012 - Emily cleaning the newly finished pool
1/20/2012 - AC units being installed
1/21/2012 - Plants
1/21/2012 - Front entrance - no grass yet, but we did plant it
1/23/2012 - Main living area
1/23/2012 - Main living area/kitchen (still missing countertops and island light)
1/23/2012 - Yoga room
1/23/2012 - Master Closet (missing countertop)
1/23/2012 - Master Bedroom
1/23/2012 - Entry Way
1/23/2012 - Guest Bedroom
1/23/2012 - Office
A few older photos:
1/14/2012 - Spent a large part of two weekends getting the grey water system operational
1/10/2012 - Appliance Delivery
1/6/2012 - Rainbow from the pool
1/24/2012 - Water purification system, solar hot water tank, and water pump