Lady Baja

This cool “Los Cabos from Space” video will get you oriented to The Capes.  Todos Santos is the West Cape region shown on the video at about 2:20…

 
Todos Santos Walking Tour – Cultural Stops, Shops and Photo Opps

You can click through to “View larger map,” where links to further info is included in individual pinpoints (e.g., in case you want to see what a shop sells)…

 

And, I figured out how to see Cerritos Beach without the bumpy ride…

The items we shipped to Los Cabos – having left Las Vegas on December 10, 2019 – finally arrived mid-March. Actually, I should say that MOST of our stuff arrived, although quite a few items didn’t make it and some that did make it needed extensive repair. I won’t dwell on the details, but I will say that I hope Barron Worldwide Moving is a pandemic casualty. There’s not a doubt in my mind that the world would be better off without its incompetence.

We unpacked quickly, but by that time Los Cabos was under full lock-down (with folks only allowed out to procure food or medicine), and we had to wait until mid-July for finishing details as even things like hanging pictures requires assistance given the solid concrete walls here. It’s hard to express how fortunate we feel to have landed in a place with English-speaking management to arrange this help for us!

We’re also thankful that items which would have been difficult/impossible to replace here (e.g., the giant Scrabble board and the IKEA mini-kitchen) made it from Vegas and that we were able to use the lock-down delay to find Amazon replacements for some of the critical lost items (e.g., the lock-off bed). As you’ll see in the pictures that follow, The Lock-Off Studio is now (for the most part) ready for guests when travel resumes; until then, we welcome you virtually…

You’ll remember from the previous post how the lock-off studio looked when we bought the condo – with the old tile and dual vanity – and how we reconfigured that area to provide a mini-kitchen facility and a single vanity with a sliding barn door to delineate the two functions. Here’s what it looks like now with all the details in place…

Back in the living area, there’s a king-size bed with the Scrabble board opposite it…

…and then there’s the outdoor living space on the terrace…

It’s a wonderful place to catch the sunrise… or a moonrise, for that matter…

…and it’s even equipped with a screen that can be pulled to divide it from the Main Casa’s terrace spaces…

Okay, that’s probably enough for one post. I’ll plan to pick it back up with photos of the Main Casa spaces once the replacement dining room table that we ordered yesterday from Overstock arrives. It’s coming from the U.S., and the expected delivery date they gave us is about 10 days from now, but I think that may be a bit optimistic… maybe more than a bit, actually. Fortunately, the pandemic has strengthened my patience muscles!

We knew going in that the condo needed quite a bit of updating — and that planning/coordinating renovations from afar can be tricky — but we’re actually quite pleased with the result. (Now if our furniture would only arrive… soon, they say… maybe in the next few days…)

Our vision has (mostly) materialized, with the help of our real estate agent (who served as our general contractor since real estate is quite slow here July through September) and some very talented tradesmen assembled and managed by our conscientious sub-contractor (who was involved with building the Las Mañanitas complex 20-ish years ago and who remains of service here in many valuable roles). So, if you’ll please excuse the lack of furnishings, what follows will give a taste of what’s happened so far.

Let’s start with what we call “the Lock-off Studio,” the space with the most interesting changes, I think, and where our guests will stay when they visit. (That’s you, Conni and Scott, and thanks for motivating me to write this post!)

The most significant renovations occurred in the bathroom, since in addition to cosmetic changes (tile, paint and lighting) we hoped to transform the vanity into a divided space that would provide a dual kitchen-bath functionality. Here’s what the bathroom looked like when we started…

And here’s what the area looks like now…

The rest of the Lock-off Studio received new paint, lighting and a custom desk area. The TV will be mounted above the desk, with two stools underneath and a loveseat and small coffee table in the area across from it. We also have an IKEA wall-mounted table (will mount the same height as the desk) and a small bar cart for the walls on either side of the entry to the bath-kitchen area. The open door in this photo — which can be locked — leads to our living-dining room area.

This photo shows how the area near the terrace slider used to be set up, but in the new design it will have a king-sized bed (where the chair is below) flanked by custom wall-mounted nightstands (the same wood as the desk) with built-in lighting. The giant Scrabble board will be mounted on the wall across from the bed.

We found a new home for those old chaise lounges, and once our stuff arrives the terrace will be outfitted with a bar-height table and stools, a bar cart (has a big cooler area that will likely be used to store eating and drinking items) and the hanging egg chair we had on our Vegas lanai. The terrace is a pretty magical place most mornings as it has a front-row seat for watching the sun rise over the Sea of Cortez…

Now on to the Main Casa, which mostly looks pretty darn empty now as we gave away many of the old furnishings to the people who work here at Las Mañanitas. The kitchen is finished and functional, though, as our new appliances were installed last week. Here’s what it looked like when we bought the place…

…and here’s what it looked like after the cabinets and walls were painted but before the new appliances arrived…

…and here’s what it looks like now…

We kept a cabinet from the old place because it fits the space so well and provides some more storage, although we had it painted like the kitchen cabinets. Here’s the before…

And here’s what it looks like now…

I have one more space to share before I bid this post adios. This is what the master bath looked like before…

And here is the new-and-improved version…

Alrighty-then! I’m glad to have this behind me — both the renovation process AND resizing, optimizing and uploading all these photos! (I should have resized them a bit smaller, but I’m counting this post as a learning exercise.) And here’s hoping that I’ll soon be able to show you what the place looks like with our furniture in it! 🙂 Oh, one last photo… I snagged this off a recent real estate listing… we’re in the building to the left, on the fourth floor, and there’s another building and large pool behind… plenty of places to work on my tan, eh?