Welcome back everyone.
We had enjoyed a couple of days in Nazerè looking after our friends house and pets again. It was great to spend some time with the gang again and see how their renovations were going too. We finished off the weekend meeting some new friends, having been invited to a BBQ and to view their house and pets with an eye on possible future sits for them. It was a great afternoon. The food and drink were excellent and it was so nice to be meeting new people who live so close to us too!
The following morning we popped back to the house, wondering what had been progressed after seeing the start of the exterior works with the application of the cork cladding at the end of the previous week.
Before going away for the weekend, we had a quick impromptu site meeting with the architect and he mentioned that the electrician was due in the next day, so we were excited to see the first fix work commencing.
When we got to the site we were expecting to see some electrical work underway, as well as more cladding. Although there had been a small increase in the cork cladding, the extent of any visible electrical work was only the addition of two junction box’s but nothing further. As always, we just had to take a deep breath and trust the process. We are not sure what the delays are this time? There had also been a bit of rain during the night which shows how the cork is porous but it all seems dry inside.
Later on in the week, we popped in to discuss some possible kitchen design options. They had produced some fantastic renders to help visualize the color matches etc. It really helps us to decide which finishing touches are required, and gets us all excited again. (To be fair, Wayne doesn’t really have a say in the kitchen design. It is Annette that chooses all the colors and finishes!). There is not too much work space, but the plan is to have some more in the large pantry. The other thing we are grappling with is the cooker extractor. A suspended hood has to suck a long way it needs a lot of power (noisy), and it needs to go through the roof, so we are exploring the use of a retractable extractor. We are still looking at what is possible with our remaining and rapidly shrinking budget!
We also discussed some of the other options we had chosen to accept. These were all extra to our agreed budget but were considered important to give us the dream house we had imagined when we started all this three years ago! You will hopefully see these materialise over the next few weeks, so hopefully we can unveil these as they come into being…
However, delays notwithstanding, progress continues, and the exterior of the house is now starting to take shape. The areas around each apex, the verandas, the part that is wrapped around the olive trees and the patio and front porch are getting wood cladding. These therefore have a vapor barrier wrap, and don’t need the coating for the cork. So this week the focus is getting all that done.
We have also been running around buying more stuff for the house too. Our focus this week was to purchase some hand supports for the second bathroom that will be wheelchair friendly and enable the best support for our daughter-in-law when she comes to visit. We still have to get some things for the kitchen too, so it’s in and out of Leiria and surrounding areas all week. At the same time we are looking to have another Alvados and Alcaria picnic club meetup. We are leaning towards the park in Porto de Mós, but we shall have to see how that pans out.
Our next problem that needs to be solved is giving us some anxiety though…
Some of the furniture we ordered when we were expecting the house to be ready to move stuff in, is ready to be delivered! Obviously, the house is nowhere near finished so we are just exploring ways to see what can be done to store these for now or delay the delivery. We are obviously gutted, we paid for delivery and fitting, and we are not sure how long we can delay it for, as we still have no idea of a completion date?
As we have said before, the delays are not really anyone’s fault. Life just gets in the way occasionally, and so our saga continues…
Our Portuguese Life 