JUNGLE HOMEBUILDING

A HANDBOOK

Chapter 1
Who Needs this Book

What You Will Learn

Chapter 2
Beach vs Jungle

City vs Pueblo

Chapter 3
How to Choose a Lot

Gated vs Open

Development vs Individual

Chapter 4
How to Choose a Builder

Nationality

Price

Popularity/Recommendations

Experience

Chapter 5
Contracts

How Much Should It Cost

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What Should the Contract Include

Chapter 6
Who Will Design Your Dream Home

DIY vs Architect

Design/Build

Pre-planned Developer Design

Design Consultant

Chapter 7
Important Design Concepts

Make It Cool

Make It Last

Make It Environmentally Sound

Make It Economical

Make It Beautiful

Chapter 8
Working With Your Builder

Who Buys What

Supervision

Mistakes

Chapter 9
Finishes and Appliances

How To Choose

Where to Buy

Peculiarlarities to Watch Out For

Things You’d Never Think Of

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Chapter 10
Electrical and Plumbing

Chapter 11
Moving In

Furnishings

Landscaping
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Chapter One

Who Needs This Book

You do IF:

You’re actually building a home in the jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula right now;

You’re actually building any kind of home anywhere in any jungle right now;

You’re in the planning stages of any of the above.

You’re considering or dreaming about doing any of the above.

Although this book details the experiences and advice of real people who have actually built real houses in and
around Tulum, Mexico over the past 10 years, much of what that entails can be transferred to the building
process of any home in any tropical region with high temperatures and high humidity using indigenous people
as workers. In other words, most homes built in most countries near the equator except those directly on the
ocean or within a fair-sized city- both totally different circumstances with their own unique requirements.

So let’s assume you fit into one of these categories. What will you learn by reading this book?
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Chapter Two

What You Will Learn

My husband and I decided early on that we didn’t want our senior years to end up like our parents – his in one
of the thousands of indistinquishable “Over Fifty” planned communities in Florida. Mine in the same small
town they grew up in. Both living very comfortable but very constricted lives without excitement or challenges
and little in the way of mental stimulation. Their daily lives followed a pretty set routine seeing the same
people they’d known for years, driving the same roads, shopping in the same stores, eating the same foods,
wearing the same clothes, living in the same house. As they got older, they did less and less and their lives
became even more restricted. And in the case of my father, developing Dementia and ending up living first in
Assisted Living and finally a nursing home, after we could no longer care for him at home. This didn’t seem
like “golden years” to us, but more like a long and drawn out death sentence. We wanted something different.

So we started thinking about our options. If we could live anywhere in the world we wanted, where would that
be? What would our daily lives be like? What kind of home would we have? We read countless books and
magazines, joined International Living, did extensive on-line browsing, made endless lists, and traveled to all
the places we could – and we ended up here in the jungles of Tulum Mexico in the dream home that we
designed and built.

Though we had built and renovated many homes in the U.S., this building process was a totally different
ballgame. What we wouldn’t have given to know then what we know now. But in spite of all of our reading
and research, there was nothing that prepared us for what we experienced.

You don’t know what you don’t know, so it never even occurred to us to ask others who had built here what
we should look out for in contract negotiations or that we needed to specify the exact brand of paint to use or
that plans are often not followed. As we journeyed through the building process, I don’t know how many times
I said to myself, “that would have been good to know beforehand.” But of course, we didn’t know beforehand.

Hindsight is great except when it isn’t as is usually the case with building. A handbook such as this would have
saved us many thousands of dollars and many added weeks of building, not to mention getting exactly what we
wanted rather than settling for what we sometimes got in the interest of more time and money.

And we are one of the lucky ones. We had a superb builder! Not all of our friends have fared as well. Some are
still waiting to move in after years of so-called construction. Others spent far more than planned to correct
mistakes. Others got a beautiful home that’s beginning to self-destruct. This is “buyer beware” territory and
many of the consumer safe-guards that Americans and Canadians are used to having simply don’t exist in other
countries. It behooves the buyer to become as knowledgeable as possible prior to building.

We continue to meet so many people who ask us so many questions about the whole process. I realized that a
handbook such as this to help people navigate the ins and outs of the entire building process from choosing a
lot to choosing furniture would be very helpful. I wish I’d had one when we started.
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