MOVING TO COSTA RICA XII
How to Build a Clothes Closet — Tico Style
A few months ago, back in August, I moved to Costa Rica, a place I have visited many times over the past two decades. Getting here was another story, but it all worked out just fine, poco a poco.
Once here, the first order of business was to find a permanent place to live, preferably a small Tico-style casita — affordable, in a rural area with little traffic, yet not too far from town, friends, and a really good margarita.
With the help of local expat friends, we found a cute place with two tiny bedrooms and an office, a respectable kitchen, a greenhouse (of sorts), and a chicken coop!
Not without its problems, the house is solid, about 10 years old, and everything works, más o menos. However, in typical Tico fashion, the house had no closets. Nada. No place to put anything away. For a gringa, this is a major disaster.
Enter my new friend Chito. I first met him at a local friend’s place where I was renting a cabina. Chito was the handyman who could do anything from rewiring a house to building a deck extended over the river to creating rock walls in the landscape. He can do anything.
After much discussion and planning, this week Chito finished building my desperately needed bedroom closet. I have yet to complete the touch-up painting, but I couldn’t wait to tell you about this job, which took only three days start to finish.
In desperation, I had purchased a temporary, put-together clothes rack from the local Walmart (yes, I admit to shopping there on occasion). Ugly and totally inadequate, yet somewhat functional, its new purpose would be to form the internal structure of the new closet, supplemented by a hanging area for long dresses, pants, and skirts.
Construction begins!
First step was to check the wood supply out back for usable bits left over from previous jobs in the house. In no time, Chito gleefully announces that we have everything needed except for the closet doors and a single sheet of gypsum (wall board) for the side and top. A quick trip to the ferreteria (hardware store) and work could begin.
Using wood left over from previously building window screens and office shelves, Chito pieces together the main frame for the closet, including supports for the closet doors. The tall piece leaning against the wall on the right in the photo above will become the support for the left-side closet doors.
Installing doors.
Louvered closet doors are essential in the very humid climate here. We found these at the ferreteria for a total of about $150. What were not available, however, were piano hinges, which would have been my preference for installing them. No problema, said Chito, and he installed these perfectly using regular small brass hinges. An exact fit!
To finish the look, Chito attached molding across the top edges, the molding he had removed from the floor being repurposed for this job. But we still needed a way to hang my long items, so off trots Chito back to my storage bodega behind the house in search of materials.
With joy equivalent to what I would experience when finding a 3-pound gold nugget, Chito bounds in with a long, sturdy piece of seasoned bamboo. Perfecto! he shouts!
And here’s the result:
I found Chito’s support structure interesting, shown in the following two photos:
“Finished” product
Well, it won’t be finished until I get my paint brushes out, get rid of the nasty Thorazine green color in my room, and paint the new wallboard bits on the closet, but you can see what an excellent job this is, how creative Chito can be, and how little new material was used to make this structure. Only the wallboard, doors, hinges, and door handles were purchased. Everything else was salvaged or repurposed for this job!
Tico Ingenuity
The cleverness and efficiency of the Costa Rican workers I have met so far is exceeded only by their inner joy, love of life, and thrill of finding solutions to anything… their sense of Pura Vida.
And especially their generosity. At the end of the workday, I drove Chito home and helped him unload all his tools. He introduced me to his beautiful young wife and his delightful, grinning mother-in-law, who wrapped her arms around me as if I were her long-lost daughter.
And as a parting gift for letting him help me solve my problemas, Chito grabbed his machete and hacked off a bunch of coconuts from the tree in his back yard for me to take home.
I’ll spend the weekend learning how to use my own machete to open these and extract the delicious, sweet pipa inside. The trendy coconut water you can buy at Whole Foods these days tastes like swamp water compared to what’s inside these beauties.
Home, sweet home
It’s not just about building a closet or having fresh coconut water. It’s about finding a way to make things work, about finding joy in the simplest of pleasures. It’s la Pura Vida.
But, yes, sometimes it’s about having a new closet.
Thanks for reading! — Adelia Ritchie