Our dear friend, Dulce (dool-say) was in need of a bit of assistance at her hair salon. It needed a makeover. She's been in this location for a while, but she's got some competition moving in close to her salon and needed a 'new look'.


She's ready for her team!

She and her family have several 'gringo' friends: Tom and I; Jan and Rick, from Lake Cushman, WA; Mike from Compass Rose, Seattle; Scotty of Los Angeles; Olivia, Dani, Dulce's son and Daniella, her granddaughter got together on the Sunday before Easter and 'made-over' her hair salon. Her mother, Mariella, and friend Carina, supplied us with fresh juice throughout the day.


Olivia works on the doors

We had three high priority goals: 1.Clean the walls and apply fresh paint, 2. Wire in a new light fixture above her station, rewire the outside lights and fix a problem outlet, and 3. Give her pressurized water at her shampoo bowl, and possibbly the pedicure chair. Up to this point, she'd been bringing in a 5 gallon bucket and using a plastic cup to rinse hair.


Scotty on scraping detail


Mike on pink paint detail

So, with our plan in place and tools and needed parts gathered, we all met at her shop at 8am. Several of us tackled the walls, scraping and wire brushing three of the walls which are concrete. Meanwhile, Tom was wiring when we weren't in his way or working on the plumbing.


Shhhh don't break his concentration!

She has lovely glass doors into the salon that have been covered with iron filigree curlycues. They're pretty, but some dumb- S*** had painted them and hadn't bothered to slide a piece of paper between the iron and the glass. Jan and Rick spent ALL day working on scraping the paint off of the windows. Olivia, Dulce and I helped when we needed a break from our other jobs!

Jan worked ALL day on these frickin' windows! bless her!


Mike, Dani and I took care of the painting – rolling the walls and cutting in and around the stuff. She choose a light pale skin tone for her walls, with an accent wall behind her mirrors of a fuchsia/bougainvillaea pink that she and I 'scrunched' on. We were covering over white walls, that had cracked and shattered off chunks of paint. Underneath was sort of a sea green. The transformation was very fun to see.


What 5 year old kid doesn't want to vacuum?


Dulce the 'artist'!

Throughout the day she had people stopping in to ask about prices and to see what was going on. There definitely was lots of activity around. We had several of her pieces of furniture out on the sidewalk, people coming and going, saws, drills, music and thank goodness – I only dropped 1 quart of paint! - yep had to be the fuchsia, and had to be right in the middle of the floor!


thanks for documenting this Tom!

She only has access to water every other day. She keeps a 55 gallon cistern in her bathroom to collect her water. Tom mounted an 'on demand' 12v pump, that we had as a spare on board, over the cistern. Dani is a welder so he went off and made a bracket, then welded it to the wall!. In order to run his welder, he just took the wires right off of the meter and tied into those! And, for those electricians or 'do it yourselfers' out there, the wiring in this building, like much of the town is just 2 wires – no ground!

How to hot wire a building!


Tom then added a small AC/DC converter, ran some water hose through the door frames,and along the salon floor to her shampoo bowl. She still has to use a 5 gallon bucket to collect the run off in, but she can use that out on the sandy planting strip to help keep the dust down! She was thrilled!


we did stop for a donut break!

We opted to delay the plumbing of the pedicure chair to make sure the shampoo bowl plubling worked correctly. We did however get the wires all connected so her customers can have their 'chair' massage while sitting in the chair.


dulce like the results so much, she just kept painting... the hall and bathroom!

She also needed a light fixture over the salon side of the space. She had been give an fixture which Tom was able to install and wire it with a new switch. He also required the outside light directly over her door to a new switch inside for her access. Unfortunately, the landlord, cut the wires the next day and reconnected it so he has access to the switch. We're still not sure what that was all about, so we're looking at different options.

Unlike the television show, we didn't have a big enough crew to make it look like we did it all in one day – my goal! But we came close! We were able to get her station and the pedicure chair put back into place. She still had to get the other end organized. She has a small retail section for some ropas Y bolsas – clothes and handbags.

Ducle toasts a good day!


By 6pm we were down to Jan, Rick, Dulce, Tom and I. We packed up all our gear and called it a day.


We went back in on Saturday to get haircuts in the new salon. It was very nice! Tom, John and I each got a new 'do' complete with shampoo. She has been so busy for the past 3 days, that she's hired a neighbor to be her assistant to help with the cleaning! And she had two more people stop and inquire about her services. In keeping with a grand opening she even has some specials going!




We're hoping she'll continue to do well. She's still in need of another lighting source for outside and some more fixtures for her clothing. Tom's keeping his eyes open for some rope lights and we'll gather items as needed and found at swap meets or at good discounts. She's also trying to get her house completed – walls and roofs! That seems to be under control, but I'm sure we'll be lending a hand or some elbow grease as we can. Who knows, maybe Mariella's kitchen will be next.

Tom and I are enjoying the help and assistance that we're able to give here in this lovely town. We're only able to give 'labor' help, and occasionally parts and pieces are needed. If you, our dear follower, would like to make a donation to help with any of these families, or any other organization or service that we write about, contact us directly and we'll make it happen!