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.