Okay so after our tragic first attempt at an outdoor kitchen finally got cleaned up we hired a mason to come and do the foundation and rock work for our second attempt at the project. The mason showed up yesterday to get started and I have to tell you it is night and day difference in quality of work. This guy is very good. The only problem is that he doesn’t speak much English and I speak very little Spanish. And of course none of my Spanish has anything to do with construction terminology! So needless to say we did not communicate efficiently. I tried to hire americans on the first round and that attempt crashed and burned so plan B is this guy. We did work decently to get all the issues hashed out and Jose was able to get further than the first guys in a day…take one had 2 days. There is one irritating thing about Jose…he always asking for more money. He did this all day, complaining that it was too much work for not enough money. I say that you shouldn’t have agreed on the price you did if that is the case. We went back and forth all day with him backing down little by little. At about 5pm (when they were almost done) I took Jose and his helper a couple of beers. Instant mood changer! These guys were suddenly good old friends of mine. We (sort of) talked about soccer, which I know nothing about, we talked about his work and other projects he is working on, and he was now happy to come back the next day to finish the rock work! I told him I would have some Coronas waiting for him when he finished. Isn’t it amazing how the gesture of bringing a hard working guy a beer when he finishes a hot day of work can completely change your working relationship? Amazing. Good thing I had some beer!

Well here are some updated pics from the project and as you can see this one is way better than the first. By the way the strange colored wrapping is a covering on our stainless steel doors to try and keep them from being messed up.

J