Our Bahamas Tropical Building Story, Including Photos!

Sooooo, in January 2010, we sailed back to Long Island, Bahamas. The first thing we did was submit out house plans to the local architect for approval. The building code in the Bahamas is similar to the Miami Dade code. The house needs to be hurricane proof, termite proof, and flood proof. It is a tropical island after all! Our plans were passed at a local building committee meeting. We picked up our building permit from the local government office and got to work!

In fact when inquiring about a material list quote, Causeway Lumber was the only company who responded in a timely manner and was 100% correct. When working on a remote island where all your materials must be shipped on a boat, this type of customer service is of extreme importance. These reasons, in addition to the fact that every time I had a question I was put in direct contact with Mr. Parham made our decision to work with Causeway Lumber easy.

We worked with a local shipping agent to facilitate the process. Everything was delivered right to our building lot by them. It all went very smoothly. Funny, we thought tropical building in the Bahamas might have been more complicated!

We did much of the work ourselves. We landscaped the whole property. We planted coconut palms, mango trees, avocado trees, citrus trees, and lots of other fun, edible plants! Brian made a cool limestone wall as a border. We noticed we had all sorts of birds making their home there, too. They sung to us every day. Once the building materials arrived, we were able to build the house to the point where it was "dried in," roof, walls, and foundation, in less than 60 days!

Brian is an incredible carpenter! He did it all using just a few tools and his own two hands! This first building stage cost us under $10,000... pretty amazing!