Pictures to come soon

We're having a bit of trouble uploading pictures to the blog seeing as we are in Belgium and don't have our laptop with us; but upon request you will soon get to see some before and after pictures of the house.

Thanks for understanding and we hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!

In Belgium

On Saturday morning at 6am we left Portugal for Belgium for the holiday season. The drive went very smoothly, passing by Guarda, Salamanca, San Sebastian, Bordeaux, Tours, Paris, Lille, to only name a couple, and Lokeren as our final destination for the night. Rain, snow, sunshine, we saw it all in our 1900km and 21 hour trip.

After a couple of days of seeing family and friends, playing in the snow, wrapping presents and decorating the christmas tree we are completely in the holiday spirit. Pictures of Chopin in the snow to follow soon.

With this we would like to wish everyone a very happy holiday season and for those that celebrate christmas a very Merry Christmas!

Good Morning Portugal!

 So winter does exist in Portugal.

We woke up to a frosty landscape with the sun shining bright.

Door and window of the annex

The door and the window of the annex were placed several days ago, the floor is completely finished and all left to do know is to install all the necessary machinery for which the annex was built. If all goes as planned this should be done next week and be ready by the time we come back early January. 

Quarta-feira

It's Wednesday (quarta-feira in Portuguese) today, and only 2 more works days until we leave for Belgium. I spent the morning working in the garden and helping Frederik clean up around the construction site. Getting rid of anything and everything that no longer needs to be here and putting it in the truck for the men to take with them. It's amazing how much 'stuff' just gets left behind, but anyways, soon it will all be gone, or so we hope!

In the meantime, the plumber placed all the bathrooms and the house is almost completely painted; a pretty good day so far! All we hope for now is that the carpenter shows up this afternoon and replaces our kitchen door and brings the bathroom doors in the guest rooms!

Closer and Closer

Three and a half more work days until we leave for Belgium and the works are almost done. Today is spent placing the last floor tiles (1st floor ensuite bathroom), painting the exterior walls of the ground floor, placing all the bathroom furniture, connecting all the electricity, filling up holes in the walls, and painting the annex. Minor finishing touches left aside, we should be done by friday evening, all we're waiting for now is the equipment to connect our solar panels to the plumbing tubes so that we have solar powered hot water.

Terrace

The first floor terrace tiles were placed on Friday afternoon. After a weekend of letting the glue dry, the floor is now ready to be finished off, leaving only the railing to be placed in order for the terrace to be completely done. 

A room with a view...

It's been too long...

Sorry for the delay in a new blog entry, but the month of december always seems to be the busiest month of the year. Only 11 days until we leave for Belgium for the christmas holidays and the to do list is endless.

So much has been going on that we can't really keep track, the annex is well on it's way to be finished. All it's missing are there door and window and the machinery. The kitchen has been tiled and grouted, the railing on the top floor balcony has been placed and all the guestrooms have been plasterboarded.While Frederik has been working with the men outside, I have spent my time in the house, painting(with the help of my mom) what will one day be the reception.Today we move on to the guest room on the first floor.

Pictures will following later today, but here is a little preview.

Thursday, busy day

Thursday's always seem to be the busiest days. It's almost Friday and there are still so many things to be done before the weekend. The men spent the day tiling the floor in the eating room and kitchen, grouting the bathroom tiles, doing final touches of cement and paint on the back of the house where the new windows were placed several weeks ago, covering tubes with cement in the  annex, laying the doorstep and window sill in the annex, and painting the annex.

Here a picture of what the annex looks like so far, and the rough finishing of the staircase up to the level of the annex.

Finishing Touches

We spent the weekend working on the finishing touches (or what we hope are the beginnings of the finishing touches) on the second floor. We installed the kitchen, all we need now is the countertop and a sink and it's all done. Hope to have everything done by the end of the week.

Pictures of Today

 Tiling of the terrace of the middle two guest rooms

Plumbing tubes from the house to the annex 

Filling and repairing all walls in the kitchen 

More photos uploaded to the slideshow

Today's Works:

- continue works on the annex: connect all electricity wires and plumbing tubes
- start tiling the terrace on the ground floor (in front of the middle two guest rooms)
- continue filling holes in kitchen and remaking the walls

Pictures will be added later today to show progress.

Preview

Here a little preview of what has been going on here these past couple of days, more pictures uploaded to the slideshow!

Update on first floor works

So just a quick little update on the works in the kitchen and the guestroom (with bathroom) on the first floor. I believe that all holes have now been drilled (please let it be so!), electricity tubes have been placed and our plumber worked all day to get all necessary plumbing tubes in place, although I believe he'll be back tomorrow for more.

In addition to this, the company in charge of fire security stopped by this evening to do his share of the work. Counting up, I think that everyone that needed to place tubes and wires has done their job. Could this possibly mean that we are close to ready to fill up holes and start with fixing up the place again?

Photos will be added tomorrow so that you have an idea of what it looks like down there now!

Record

Just reached a new record, 103 visitors (pageviews) today!

Thanks everyone and boa noite!

Chandelier

Can't believe that it's been only a week since we had the help from my parents and brother to move all our 'stuff' upstairs. The two days of hard work paid off, because last Sunday night we had all our boxes and furniture upstairs, and we relaxed in our new sitting room, slept in our new bedroom and were able to eat at our dining room tale with the most amazing chandelier lighting the room.

The chandelier of course being another story. We bought the chandelier about two weeks ago (maybe a little more). The chandelier, 1m30 in diameter, 12 lights, just beautiful when it's dark outside. When the chandelier was delivered to us we stored it in the biggest guestroom on the ground floor, leaving it there for the rest of the week and going down to admire it several times a day. What we hadn't really paid too much attention to, or maybe purposefully ignored because we loved the chandelier from the first minute we saw it, was that with it's 1m30 diameter it might be difficult to get it to the second floor. So Sunday morning arrives, pretty much around this time last week, and we decide it's time to bring out the chandelier and carry it upstairs. Up the staircase outside, to the front door(to the reception), halfway through the front door, and...back outide. There was no way we would get it through the door no matter how we twisted or turned it, but 15 minutes later we were still trying. Eventually we gave up and tried the middle front door but this also without success.
Next attempt, tie it to a rope and pull it up through the window...this being about an hour later, so we have two people outside holding this massive thing over their heads, two people upstairs pulling at the rope trying to lift the chandelier onto the balcony, all the while all passing neighbours watching us trying to manouever this thing inside. Must have been quite a sight, seeing as the next hour and a half we were still all in the same position, twisting, turning, lifting, dropping, bending the chandelier. Blood, sweat, but luckily no tears later, the chandelier made it's way through the window!

And now, to hang it up... Two people holding the ladder with Fré on the ladder. Drilling the hole for the hooks, hanging the hooks, hanging the chain, pulling up the chandlier, and as our new electrician, connecting the electricity. All in all, 4 hours later, the chandlier was in place and working.

Definetely a hard days work, but oh so worth it in the end! Now all that is left is to enjoy it's light and ambiance.

Thank you

We would like to thank everybody that follows us on our blog. We have had a record amount of pageviews these past couple of days (61 just yesterday!) with people from all over the world logging on to see what we are doing.

Take a look at our all time top ten countries:

Belgium            1,196 pageviews
United States       899 pageviews
Portugal               532 pageviews
Morocco             365 pageviews
Netherlands         135 pageviews
United Kingdom    106 pageviews

Austria                  21 pageviews
Canada                 20 pageviews
Russia                   14 pageviews
Ireland                  13 pageviews

We have also had pageviews from Peru, Latvia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Greece, France, Denmark, and Turkey.

Once again, we would like to thank everyone that has been following our project. If you would like more information about anything please feel free to leave us comments and questions on the blog and we will respond to them, or you can contact us by email: project.portugal@yahoo.com.

Até logo!

Day and Night

 

Twee foto's van hoe het huis er vandaag uitziet. De eerste iets na de middag in de zon en de tweede 's avonds met de verlichting aan op de bovenste verdieping.

This is what the house looks like today. One picture in the sun at noon and the other during the evening with the lights shining through the windows.

Drilling and Dust

Our past weekend was spent moving all of our boxes and belongings to the 2nd floor. Since then we have been able to start unpacking and have actually unpacked most of our stuff except for the kitchen. We now sleep in our brand new bedroom, use our brand new shower, eat in our brand new living room... it's an amazing feeling of space and light after living in a small corner of the house for the past 6 months.

Now that we no longer have anything stored in the 1st floor kitchen, guestroom and bathroom, the workmen have started their work down there. For the past 2 days they have done nothing but tearing out walls and a bathroom, removing tiles from the walls and drilling holes for the electricity and water pipes. We spent the morning going around from room to room telling them where we need plugs, radiator connections and light and  how we want our bathroom and  the door to connect it to the guestroom.

After 6 months of drilling and dust we thought we were past that stage, but take a look at the pictures and it will quickly be clear that we've still got a while of it to go.

6 months...

We have now been in Portugal for exactly 6 months, what have we accomplished?

When we arrived in May, the house was stripped of its roof and inner walls on the 2nd floor. Followed by the making of the holes for plumbing and electricity in the remaining walls (which were then also so filled with holes that you couldn't really tell what they were planning with them.) Windows were removed, floors were removed (tiling as well as the cement in several places), and what made the biggest impression from outside was the removal of the paint(which left our house yellow for several months). After this, plumbing and electricity were inserted into the holes, floors were remade, holes were filled, and walls were built. Now, several months later, tiles have been placed (floors and bathrooms), the house has been repainted (from the outside by the workmen and about a third of the inside by us), several bathrooms have been installed, windows have been replaced, doors have been refitted, AND last but not least, we have electricity and water (only cold so far) on the 2nd floor! All this leaving us with a house that, if all goes as planned, should be finished by Christmas time.

Besides the work on the house we've been quite busy with other things too, least fun of all, we've had paperwork to take care of but our car is now officially imported and we are residents of Vila Nova de Poiares. Besides that though, we've also had visitors (family and friends) and we've taken some time to enjoy Portugal, with all its beautiful landscapes, amazing food (sardines being one of our favorites!), great wine and porto, friendly people, and last but not least, all its sunshine!

If the next 6 months are anything like these past 6 months, we'll have had an amazing first year in Portugal!

ps. for those of you that are new to the blog, all pictures from the beginning of the works until now can be found in the slideshows to the right. 

Long weekend...

With Monday being a holiday we have a long weekend to do quite some work. The workmen will only come back on Tuesday, so that gives us plenty of time to do some work around the house ourselves. So far we have given the painted doors and door frames their last coat of paint. We have also sanded down our newest piece of funiture that we bought at an 'antique' store in Lousa, and are waiting for the first coat of paint to dry. Hopefully by tonight we will be able to apply the last coat of paint and it will be ready for our guest room upstairs.

Tomorrow we would like paint as much of the second floor as possible for the last time, so that it is ready for us to move into when all the sanding of the wood floor has finished.

Doors

Now that the wood floor is finished, the carpenters have started placing the doors on the second floor. With the water (only cold so far) working, the electricity switches and plugs being placed and the carpenters work almost coming to an end, we hope to be able to move upstairs very soon! We no longer dare to name a date of when we think to be sleeping upstairs and unpacking boxes, but we hope these will be our last nights downstairs.

Wood Floor

The wood floor has been completely placed upstairs and is now ready to be sanded and to have the baseboards placed. The doors on the 2nd floor have also been delivered (sometime last week) and the carpenters have started to place the frames today, crossing our fingers that that too will be finished by tomorrow evening.

Other than the carpenters' work, the terrace on the first floor has been treated with a water-resistance layer now ready for tiling, the electrician has been here every day this week to continue his work, the plumber has installed the bathroom on the 1st floor, and the men working with the plaster board have starting placing the ceiling in all guest rooms.

Several pictures uploaded to the slide show, but many more to come in the next couple days.

Olives

 

Fall is here, and while the works on the house continue, the olives in the garden are turning black and ready to be picked. We have picked about half a bucket of olives and are following the instructions we got from our workmen to make them edible: soak them in water and salt, changing the water every couple of days. After about 2 to 3 weeks they should be ready to eat. Mmmm....

Windows and much much more

It is once again an extremely busy day, it started this morning at 8am with us removing all old windows in the house and preparing for the new ones to be placed. At 9.30 the new windows were delivered and are still being placed as we speak. The carpenter also showed up this morning to start laying the wood floor and has almost finished our bedroom. Jose, our plumber, who is also here, and has completely finished our bathroom upstairs and is now working on the 1st floor bathroom.

So much being done that it's hard to keep track of it all at times, but definetly worth it!

A quick note..

Only a quick note tonight as it was a very long day of painting. Since only several of the workmen came to work today (the others off on another job) we had the time to start the painting of the second floor. We were able to finish the first layer of the bedroom and sitting room and hope to continue tomorrow.


Besides the painting today, we also received the delivery of our wood floor and if all goes as planned the carpenter will be here tomorrow to start placing it in our bedroom and sitting room. ALSO, we got news that all new windows will be placed tomorrow, including the glass doors to the guest rooms downstairs!

Today's To-do-list:: what can we check off?

So today didn't turn out exactly as we had thought it would, but it was still a great day of work. One of the four terraces is now completely done in terms of cement and stones. I think all left to do is a bit of polishing, but not sure exactly as to how or what or when, I guess we'll see.

The plasterboard upstairs didn't quite finish up everything, but I've been promised it will all be done by tomorrow. So far, 3 out of the 4 rooms are done, AND have been cleaned and treated with the water resistant product. Crossing our fingers that the last and biggest room will be done tomorrow.

The carpenter showed up this afternoon and took with him 2 inside doors to cut off a couple centimeters, seeing as with the new floor we had to slice a couple centimeter off the frame. Sorry to all those tall people out there, our doors are now only 1m97. He also took the front door to the reception, which  needs to be changed to open outwardly for fire security, not the simplest of things to do, but he promised me he would be able to fix it.

And last but not least, the whole 1st floor terrace has been re-cemented, now ready to be tiled and to have the railing put back on. YAY for all the work that has been done, but BOO to the fact that taking the dog out this evening is not the easiest of things to do as we are now not allowed to walk on the 1st floor terrace, nor the stone terrace..hmm..it does get tricky at times. 

And with all the men (11 to be exact) working hard, I was inspired to start painting the ceiling of the 1st floor bathroom...


All in all it was not such a bad day. Pictures will follow tomorrow because by the time we were all done working the moon was out and the stars were sparkling high in the sky...

Good night to all!

Today's To-do-list:

- finish the staircase (place stones on steps)
- continue building the annex
- finish all work on the plasterboard upstairs so that the cement floor can be cleaned 
- vacuum all cement floors upstairs (on 2nd floor) and treat with a water resistant product -> ready for placing the wood floor
- carpenter comes to fix all inside doors on 1st floor

  This is what the annex looks like after yesterday's work.

Terraces

The finishing of the terraces has started. One out of the four has been made with the stone slates that were originally on the back side of the house. Waiting for the cement to dry to fill the gaps with smaller pieces of stone and to fill the groves.

Finish Laundry Room this weekend: Done

Our very first room is done (except for placing the windows) and we just couldn't wait any longer so we put together the cupboard and were finally able to unpack some boxes. All we need to do now is hope that it doesn't rain and wait for our windows to be placed.

Foundation

Friday afternoon the foundations of the annex were started. This is how it was left of for the weekend, to continue work on Monday morning.

Annex

The digging for the foundations of the annex have started. The annex will be a little house in which the instalations for the solar pannels and hot water will be placed, and the pump for the water well. In the future we hope it will also contain the pump for a swimming pool.

L'oeil-de-boeuf

L'oeil-de-boeuf is what they call the top most window in the house. The paint job is done, the windows have been placed and the bricks are cleaned. This is the end result of the top most part of the house, the sunshine and clear blue sky just adding to it's brillance.

Baseboards (Plinten)

The baseboards have arrived a couple of minutes ago, hopefully this means that they will place them today which would be the last thing to do in the laundry room (besides a last coat of paint, but that is my job). Can I really start to hope that maybe by the end of the week I can start unpacking some boxes?

ps. unlike what the BBC weather says, the weather is beautiful at the moment. Sun shining and temperatures in the high 20s (Celsius). Definetly what we call t-shirt weather!

Take a look at this link for further local weather updates :

http://tempo.sapo.pt/local/vila_nova_de_poiares

More pictures uploaded to the slideshow...

All (except 1 small piece) of the scaffolding has been removed. Most of the house has been painted in the primer and the top of the house has been painted with the final coat of paint. The house finally has it's glow back, which makes it very hard to wait with the interior painting and decorating. If all goes well we will be able to unpack our boxes and paint our living space within the next 2 weeks.

Painting

Today was the celebration of 100 years Portugal as a republic, so the workmen had the day off today. We took advantage of that to start painting the laundry room which was floored on Friday of last week and yesterday (Monday). We started with the hope of painting 2 layers and have that be enough to cover all cement and marks made. So far we are happy with the result, now just waiting for it to dry and to see the end result in daylight tomorrow. We were also able to start painting the doorframes of 3 doors that will remain.


Take a look at more photos of the paint, floors, windows, solar panels, overal pictures of the house, in the slideshow of the works.

Windows

Our house finally has windows! All the windows on the top floor were delivered and placed yesterday afternoon, which gives the house more of a 'home' feeling. The contrast of the new windows and the bricks around them is amazing, with the outside of the house painted and a little more cleaning up of the bricks it will look absolutely stunning.




Take a look at slideshow of the works to see more pictures of the windows and all the other work that has been going on the past couple of days.

Bye Bye Fig Tree

Removing the fig tree from the staircase seem harder than expected.

Our House

After several months of demolition, we are at the stage that all we are doing now is repairing, in hope that we can return the house into the beautiful house it used to be.
Here a picture of the side of the house all new and waiting for windows and it's final coats of paint.

Friday

A day spent digging the ditches which will be used for the plumbing and electricity.

Floor Plans

For those of you that like a visual of how all the rooms of the house fit together I have made some simple floor plans.

Ground Floor
(4 guest rooms with ensuite bathroom)



1st Floor
(Reception and Dining Area, and 1 guest room)



Top Floor
(part of the house that will be our private living space)

Before and After

With 8 workmen at the house day in day out, the works are coming along very well. Almost all bathrooms (1 still in progress) have now been tiled and they are thinking about tiling the floor soon. In our bedroom the plasterboard walls/ceilings are coming along very well. If everything keeps going at the rate they are going now I have been promised that we can move upstairs in about 3 weeks. Keeping our fingers crossed, as this would mean that I can start painting walls and unpacking boxes!

Take a look at what the room looked like a couple months ago, and what it looks like now.

Festas de Sao Miguel de Poiares

Beautiful September...

It's past mid-September, and the weather here is still beautiful. The temperature reaches over 30 degrees Celsius in the shade at the warmest time of the day, beautiful weather to go for an afternoon swim at one of the local river beaches or a walk through the forest. With temperatures still rising over 30 degrees it is nice to know that the evenings do cool down, perfect for a late evening BBQ and drinks and a good nights sleep.

Floor Tiles

The first floor tiles have been placed in our private bathroom. Here a picture to have an idea what it looks like, better pictures to follow this weekend when the shower floor has also been placed.

More photos placed in the slideshow.

Back to work

The past month we've have quite some delays with paper work, but we are finally back on track. We have received the approval from the local communue or 'camara municipal' for all of our building plans and can go back to work! Our first day today included hanging wall tiling in the bathroom on the 1st floor, preparing the walls in the guest room bathrooms for tiling, and starting on the floor tiles in our private bathroom. (see pictures under updated photos of the works)


In addition to the approval of our building plans we have received all paperwork for the registration of our car here in Portugal and have been able to change our license plates. Another important point on our list that we can now check and cross our as done!

Also on our list today was making fig jam from the figs in our garden. I can now say that after a whole summer of making jam, peaches, grapes, and figs, I am excited to have people taste it and let me know what they think. Any volunteers?

Pictures

Several new pictures posted of our watermelon and figs in the garden and our new tree that we bought at the market today. As well as pictures of the festa in Sao Miguel de Poiares this weekend. (under the first slideshow)

Monday Market Day

Monday is market day here in V.N. de Poiares (or Poiares as the locals call it), which then also becomes sardine day at our place every couple of weeks. 15 sardines ready for a BBQ dinner tonight.

Other than the usual fish, fruit and vegetables we bought our very first tree for the garden. Take a look at the picture below.

Fado in Lousa

Antonio Pinto Basto and Jose Gonzalez performing in Lousa on September 4th.

Rain drops are falling...

We had our first rain in 11 weeks yesterday. All in all it was good enough to wet the ground and get rid of a little bit of dust, but nothing more. This morning we woke up with the sun shining and the weather back to normal. Can we hope for another 11 weeks till the next rain drops?

Festas de Santa Maria

The festas of Santa Maria started yesterday afternoon and last until Monday night. They take place at the church just around the corner and involve mass, band processions, a tombola and live music in the evening by local Portuguese bands.