The Mesonia House Conquers Design's Fear of Color in the Heart of Mexico
Flooded with saturated hues and traditional crafts by artisans across the country, the one-bedroom Mesonia guest house captures the vibrant essence of Mexico's culture.
The resulting design challenges the austerity of Modernism and the neutrality of contemporary residential spaces with organic materials and bold color choices ranging from magenta, sky blue, kelly green, and bright red. Glossy sky blue floors and matching walls contrast with the warm wooden ceilings boasting rustic beams, while a red shiplap headboard doubles as an accent wall. The scalloped details above the bed are woven throughout the space on the red bed frame, the green sideboard, and various wooden furniture pieces.
San Miguel de Allende's woodworkers carved, tinted, turned, and assembled furnishings by hand, rooting the space in the region's carpentry traditions. Stand-out case goods include a green bistro table covered in thorns at the base and scalloped around the top; a textured red side table carved into a flower-like shape.
Cutting through the high-saturation hues, earthy tones ground the suite in the natural beauty of Mexico's terrain. Mestiz's glossy brown tiles clad the mantle and the en-suite bathroom, and tan wicker is the medium for a statement armchair and stepped dinette benches.
See the gallery above for a closer look at the Mesonia Guest House by Mestiz. Interested parties can visit the officialMesoniasite for booking information.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
6 hours ago
- Epoch Times
Flow of Fentanyl Down After ‘Titanic Effort' by Mexico, Say Experts
The flow of fentanyl from Mexico to the United States has reduced since U.S. President Donald Trump took office earlier this year and threatened Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum with tariffs unless she squeezed the cartels, according to analysts. On July 31, after a 'very successful' call with Sheinbaum, Trump said he was giving Mexico a 90-day extension before imposing a 30 percent tariff on imports.
Business Insider
8 hours ago
- Business Insider
I moved from Chicago to Spain. It's harder to be an entrepreneur here, but I work less and still have a great life.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Giovanna Gonzalez, a 35-year-old who moved from Chicago to Valencia, Spain, in April 2025. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. In college, I wanted to study abroad in Italy or Spain, but I didn't have the means. I was a low-income, first-generation Mexican American student, going to school entirely on student loans. Studying abroad would have meant borrowing an additional $5,000 to $10,000, and since I was already graduating with debt, I felt it would have been reckless to take on more. Still, over time, I came to regret that decision. In 2019, I returned to my former hometown, El Centro, California — a small agricultural border town — for a high school career day. I'm a financial educator and influencer who offers career tips to first-generation professionals. At the school, I spoke with Algebra 2 students about my path since leaving college and my career. We discussed how to navigate college, and I encouraged everyone to study abroad if they had the opportunity. I shared how the people I know who did still light up when they talk about their experience — being young, free of major responsibilities, and surrounded by other young people in a new culture. After career day, I had a moment of self-reflection. Was my current life really for me? Would I ever get to experience life abroad? I knew it was time to make a change. Moving to Spain was a fast but expensive process My husband and I would have left the US around 2022, but the world was still in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, and things hadn't returned to normal. We decided to wait a few more years, while continuing to live in Chicago. When 2024 came around, we had a conversation about the presidential election and decided that, regardless of the outcome, we were going to move to Spain. It felt like a now-or-never moment. My husband and I researched how to get a Spanish visa. The easiest option was for me to apply for a digital nomad visa and add him as my dependent. That's because by then, I had left my desk-bound corporate job and had been running my own business for four years. While my husband's employer was open to transferring him to their Spanish branch, they weren't willing to sponsor his visa. To help us through the process, we worked with an immigration attorney who guided us every step of the way. I'm a dual citizen of Mexico and the US, so I used my Mexican passport when applying for the digital nomad visa. Because Mexico was once a Spanish colony, Mexican citizens can apply for Spanish citizenship after just two years of legal residency, compared to 10 years for US citizens. We flew to Spain to apply, which qualified us for a three-year visa instead of one. We were approved in about two and a half weeks. The process was fast but expensive. Flights alone cost us around $3,590, and the Airbnb we stayed in while applying for the Visa was about another $652. We also paid roughly $4,000 in legal fees and spent more money on things like apostilles, certified translations, and other required documents. Valencia was the perfect city for us I wanted to live in a big city so I could easily travel to other parts of Europe. Madrid came to mind, but housing is very scarce and competitive there. The same thing is true in Barcelona, if not worse. I found that the next biggest city that we liked was Valencia. Valencia is right on the beach. It has a Mediterranean climate, and is sunny almost every day — a big change coming from Chicago. The city has a lot of beautiful architecture and a rich history. It's walkable, has great public transportation, and is clean and safe. We lived in a nice neighborhood in Chicago, but even there, I had to constantly check my shoulder when it was dark. Here, I've been able to go for a walk in the park at 10 p.m. and have never felt unsafe. I'm very thankful for that. We live in a multi-unit building next to the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, and we have a beautiful view of it from our terrace. We live on the top floor in a two-story condo, which costs €1,900 ($2,226) a month. In Chicago, we were bougie and lived downtown in a high-rise building with a doorman and amenities in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment. Although our rent in Valencia is significantly cheaper than what we paid in the US, our utilities are not. Summers in Spain are extremely hot, and since homes here aren't as well-insulated as in the US, you have to run the air conditioning almost constantly. Our electricity bill alone has been over €500 ($586) for each of the past two months. It's more difficult to be an entrepreneur in Spain Living in Spain has had some challenges. My husband doesn't speak Spanish fluently, so it's been an adjustment for him to make doctor's appointments or reservations at restaurants in Spanish. I speak Spanish, so it's been much easier for me to integrate. I've made a friend in Valencia who was introduced to me by another friend. We've met twice for coffee and to go for a walk in the park. But honestly, I haven't put too much effort into making more friends yet because I'm so focused on the immigration process. I still need to get my residency card, and once that happens, I'll feel like I truly have the free time to put myself out there, go to meetups, and meet more people. I've recently learned that Spain isn't as entrepreneur-friendly as the US, especially when it comes to taxes. Many expenses I used to deduct without issue are either not allowed here or have stricter requirements. For example, during a recent work trip, I submitted an Uber receipt to my Spanish accountant, only to be told I needed a formal invoice, something that's not typically required in the US. And meals during travel can only be written off if you're dining with a client. In the US, there's a bit more grace when you're starting a business. That first year, you're not typically required to pay quarterly taxes, since you're just getting started. Usually, you file your full-year return first, then begin making quarterly estimated payments in the following years. I expected something similar in Spain, but at the end of the second quarter of this year, my accountant informed me that I needed to pay my taxes right away. I don't plan on moving back to the US Given the political climate in the US and my Mexican background, my long-term goal is to stay in Spain. There's a lot to love here. The weather is great, and we've been very welcomed by the locals. It's been pretty easy to integrate so far. I would definitely say that living abroad is quite different from what my experience would have been studying abroad, but I'm really grateful for that. I have a lot of friends who studied abroad in their 20s, and I know their time was filled with wild nights, partying, meeting new people, and traveling. I'm going to be turning 36 this week, and I'm married and a homebody who enjoys relaxing and watching TV at home. I've definitely learned the art of slowing down. Chicago was a fast-paced, big-city life where you were power-walking everywhere — that's just not a thing here. With the slightly lower cost of living in Spain, I'm working part-time. Instead of working 30 to 40 hours a week like I did in the US, I now work 15 to 20 hours and am still maintaining a great life.
20 hours ago
US to build a $750M fly factory in Texas to stop a flesh-eating cattle parasite
The U.S. plans to build a $750 million factory in southern Texas to breed billions of sterile flies, ramping up its efforts to keep flesh-eating maggots in Mexico from crossing the border and damaging the American cattle industry. Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture hopes to be producing and releasing sterile male New World screwworm flies into the wild within a year from the new factory on Moore Air Base outside Edinburg, Texas, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the border. She also said the USDA plans to deploy $100 million in technology, such as fly traps and lures, and step up border patrols by 'tick riders' mounted on horseback and train dogs to sniff out the parasite. In addition, Rollins said the U.S. border will remain closed to cattle, horse and bison imports from Mexico until the U.S. sees that the pest is being pushed back south toward Panama, where the fly had been contained through late last year through the breeding of sterile flies there. The U.S. has closed its border to those imports three times in the past eight months, the last in July, following a report of an infestation about 370 miles (595 kilometers) from the Texas border. American officials worry that if the fly reaches Texas, its flesh-eating maggots could cause billions of dollars in economic losses and cause already record retail beef prices to rise even more, fueling greater inflation. The parasite also can infest wildlife, household pets and, occasionally, humans. 'Farm security is national security,' Rollins said during a news conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. 'All Americans should be concerned. But it's certainly Texas and our border and livestock producing states that are on the front lines of this every day.' The pest was a problem for the American cattle industry for decades until the U.S. largely eradicated it in the 1970s by breeding and releasing sterile male flies to breed with wild females. It shut down fly factories on U.S. soil afterward. The Mexican cattle industry has been hit hard by infestations and the U.S. closing its border to imports. Mexico's Agriculture ministry said in a statement Friday that Mexico Agriculture and Rural Development Secretary Julio Berdegué Sacristán and Rollins signed a screwworm control action plan. It includes monitoring with fly-attracting traps and establishing that livestock can only be moved within Mexico through government-certified corrals, the statement said. And on the X social media platform, Berdegué said, 'We will continue with conversations that lead to actions that will permit the reopening of livestock exports." The new fly-breeding factory in Texas would be the first on U.S. soil in decades and represents a ramping up of the USDA's spending on breeding and releasing sterile New World screwworm flies. The sterile males are released in large enough numbers that wild females can't help but mate with them, producing sterile eggs that don't hatch. Eventually, the wild fly population shrinks away because females mate only once in their weekslong lives. In June, Rollins announced a plan to convert an existing factory for breeding fruit flies into one for breeding sterile New World Screwworm flies, as well as a plan to build a site, also on the air base near Edinburg, for gathering flies imported from Panama and releasing them from small aircraft. Those projects are expected to cost a total of $29.5 million. The Panama fly factory can breed up to 117 million flies a week, and the new Mexican fly factory is expected to produce up to 100 million more a week. Rollins said the new Texas factory would produce up to 300 million a week. She said President Donald Trump's administration wants to end the U.S. reliance on fly breeding in Mexico and Panama. 'It's a tactical move that ensures we are prepared and not just reactive, which is today what we have really been working through,' Rollins said.
