Beachshack: Tropical Building Page

St Barts Renovation:
Azu Villa

Anguilla Construction:
Guest cottage.
Tech center.
Residence.

Mary Ann's Tropical Building Page

This is the web site for the three villas that I built on Anguilla and the villa that I am renovating in St Barts (see Azu Villa Renovation Page), plus tropical construction tips and resources as well. These construction projects started in 1997, although land acquisition and architectural planning started in 1995. Every stage of the construction is recorded here.

We rent the villa in St Barts and the guest cottage in Anguilla (La Vanda) and the villa at the top of the Anguilla property (Mimosa), but we keep the beachfront house and pool for our own use. And we have created a name and web page for the overall completed property: Bellamare

For details on the main Anguilla beachfront house, visit the Residence Construction Page.

For the technology center, visit the "Clubhouse" Construction Page.

And finally, for the guest cottage, our first attempt at construction on Anguilla, visit the La Vanda Construction Page.

-- Mary Ann Green

Construction Tips

Sunday, August 20, 2000 Permalink

The Wooden Floors.
Although the other buildings have concrete and tile floors, we decided to try a teak wood floor in the main house. The main reason was too reduce the harshness of the floor on knees and joints.
The master bedroom has a split level wooden floor, with a single curved wooden step up.
The entry way to the master bedroom is around a corner and up five steps (where the bookcases were added later).
The tongue and groove teak from Trinidad was quite rough and had to be sanded before finishing.
The wooden floors are trimmed with base boards. Designing the custom base boards was a challenge for the wood workers, since the corners are all curved, rather than sharp 90 degree edges.
Finally, the wood was finished with a paint wash. In spite of the plywood subfloor, the finished floor has quite a bit of spring in it - much easier on the old knees that hard concrete.