This blogspace chronicles the ups and downs of our house renovation project in Vale de Prazeres, Portugal from first purchase in November 2019.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
The weather has not been kind which has slowed some of the work, especially on the outside.
Also, there are two days 'lost' due to a public holiday and a day on another job, so it has only been 13 days and not really three whole weeks.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
A break in the wet weather has allowed some work on the exterior to take place.
Some rendering and the concrete foundation for the gateposts.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
After two weeks of good work, especially as the weather has been so wet for most of that time, the progress has been impressive.
We have internal walls, some rendering both inside and outside, plumbing and drainage installed, electrical containment installed, and the base structure for the driveway gates.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Yesterday (Monday), just two of the team were here. Luís had other things to attend to.
It didn't seem that much happened except for some of the cementing around the granite blocks that make up the main walls of the room.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
After a day off yesterday doing other things, Luís and the guys turned up late this morning. However, within five minutes of arrival, the first barrow load of cement was delivered to the room to continue the bricklaying.
A whole load of bricks had been placed in just over an hour before lunchtime was called.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Even though the rain has arrived we still have to get on with the renovation work. Part of the plan is finishing the exterior rendering of the house which means removing the badly cracked and loose cement on the outside of the back room.
This has always been an eyesore and, before the new roof was installed, it let in a lot of water thus weakening the bond.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Because the construction work was taking so long to get going I decided to get the tiling done on the rear patio before the weather turned too bad.
Of course that caused the rain to start but, fortunately, it did not ruin the work.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
After the good progress of the first day, the excitement continued. A delivery of bricks, sand, cement and gravel arrived nice and early.
The work to build the interior walls began immediately.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
After a fantastic break away in France for a surprise birthday present, we returned hopeful that the work would commence in the basement area.
Sadly this was not to be. The work was postponed for yet another week.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Following the reasonable result of rendering the garden wall some weeks ago, I decided that I could do the same with the LPG gas store cabinet that I built outside behind the kitchen.
I had to be home to await delivery of a parcel that never arrived (that is a different story) so I took advantage of the good weather and the available time.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
I like to try my hand at all types of construction and maintenance and feel that I can manage most things.
However, plastering has been my nemesis since trying it for the first time in 1985. I tried and tried many times but could not properly get the hang of it.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
The latest update for the major works to start on the old part of the house has now slid into October so we are even more worried that painting the house exterior may not happen before Winter.
But, undeterred, we decided that the kitchen section of the house does not require any work outside so made a good start on that building.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Now that the concrete driveway is gone we were able to get on with relocating the main electricity supply cable to the workshop.
The suspended cable, more than 40m long, straight across the garden is an eyesore.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
Our most reliable supplier/contractor to date, Sebastião at Monteprazeres, turned up as arranged - in fact, one day sooner than originally planned and he messaged to agree that too.
The task was to rip up the existing ugly, uneven, broken concrete driveway.
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- Written by: Rick Nason
We are constantly disappointed by the delays in getting contractors to work on the house.
Work on the new floor in the dungeon should have started in June but this now seems to have been pushed back until the end of August at the soonest.