Caz and Rob's Renovation in Portugal: 2014

Saturday 15 November 2014

Veranda has been tiled

We have been wanting to do this job for ages, mainly for our benefit to make the veranda look nicer and another to stop rain penetrating through to the cellar walls underneath during the winter. So this year we decided it would be a "nice job" to do through the summer at a steady pace, and can almost say we enjoyed it until the tediousness of the grouting (my job) kicked in and with a fractured bone in my foot, gradually turned a nice job into grit my teeth and get on with it!
Well we are very pleased with the result it felt quite strange walking on them, almost like a cushion floor rather than concrete. We got the tiles through our local builder's merchant at a good price and we think it works well with Rob's idea to do the insteps in pedra (local stone) to compliment the pedra on the base walls to the house and patio.

And work on the loft conversion goes on and on !!!!!

It's been a while since we updated our blog telling you how we are getting on with our loft conversion. Having looked back through our blog I have just realized that we have only put on one post about the conversion and that was when we had finished bedroom 1 which was back in April! Since then we have finished bedroom 2 and are currently working on the middle room which will be a living room with an "en suite shower". We wanted this conversion to be a self-contained apartment, separate from our living space, so to make what we think is the best use of the 3 rooms up there, we decided on 2 bedrooms and a living room with a shower room. We decided 2 bedrooms would be better than having one bedroom and a kitchen as when family stay they will have the pleasure of the chef downstairs (me) cooking for them! When this room is finished the stairs leading from the loft will be tiled and at the bottom of the stairs we are taking out a small window and knocking out for a door to be fitted which will give outside entrance into the loft conversion and make it private from our living space. Outside steps will be fitted to the back of the house as the entrance to the stairs is on the first level of the house.

Earlier on in the summer we had a velux window fitted and unfortunately the supplier sent us a smaller one than we had originally asked for and the mistake wasn't noticed until the window was being fitted and by then it was too late to change! So we have just had to grit our teeth and get over it!!! It does still gives us a lovely view over the village though and gives more natural light into the lounge.

So now we are making progress with the shower room, firstly building the stud walls, then comes the plasterboard and then the plastering. We are using a waterproof plasterboard which you can tile straight onto for the shower and sink area.
Stud work

Plasterboard

Plastering

Friday 31 October 2014

Good day's fishing on Halloween

Hi everyone, apologies yet again for neglecting our blog, it has been hectic as usual with ongoing work projects, family visits and holidays! We are currently working on four rooms so we will publish photos when things look more finished, which hopefully, won't be too far away. We are hoping to have the whole house completed by around mid March, apart from the Adega (wine cellar) that is, which is next Winter, project!!!!
So back to the fishing today it is my first outing since mid June and I thought I maybe a little rusty so to speak, but no it turned out to be excellent!!! Our Fishing Club has a competition on the 9th of November so I fished for three and a half hours today in practice for the following weekend's event.
I caught around fifty pounds of fish today, 9 carp, the biggest being around 8lbs, 11 crucians, a barbel and a fish I haven't caught here before. It was either a perch or an achega (river bass) not sure yet, which i will have to check it out on the web, it had some pretty meaty teeth on it anyway!
It was nice not to catch any catfish today as normally you have to wade through them and feed off them to get to the better quality fish, the only time I fish for them is on a very hard day when winning weights are going to be unusually low.
So, just a few photos from today and Happy Halloween everyone!!!!

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Caz and Rob do "Glamping" !!!

As "Glamping" seems to be currently trending we started to think that camping could be a way forward for us to enable us to get around and see more of this wonderful country and Spain as we are only about an hour's drive away from the border. I am a "first-timer" camper (other than caravan holidays in my younger years!) but Rob is quite experienced so we think we lets go buy a tent and get this idea on the road!!!!!

On our way down to the Algarve we drive through the Alentejo region of Portugal which is famous for its vineyards and the production of some very fine wines. We always pass a camp site situated on the main road so after popping in to take a peep at their facilities we decide to make this our first camping venue, so, along with two friends we went for 2 nights. Oh what great fun we had, the site was naturally beautiful, and just the simplicity of relaxing by the pool, beautiful weather, using the BBQ on site, getting to know fellow campers of various nationalities, the copious amounts of beer and wine, (without having to go to a bar) listening to music, chatting and laughing, and amazingly free wi fi at your tent!!! all made for a really fantastic start to our camping adventures.

The surrounding towns of Evoramonte, Estremoz and Evora are rich with heritage from every historical period dating back to 3,500 B.C. with many ancient churches, cathedrals, convents and temples, architectural buildings, various arts and crafts, lots of cafes and gastronomical eateries. As we were only there for a couple of days we did manage to get to the Castle in Evoramonte and see the amazing views, have our evening meal in the lovely ancient walled marble city of Estremoz and a trip to the city of Evora which is a World Heritage Site and is also known as the "museum city". As we wandered around the town of Evora viewing the Gothic architectural buildings a must see place for us was the Sao Francisco Convent which houses the "Chapel of Bones". This Chapel was built in the 17th century, the walls and pillars have been covered with bones from the city's cemeteries. It sounds quite spooky but once inside you marvel at the decorative artwork and the fascination of the history it takes away (for us anyway) the spookiness of the thought of all those human bones!!!!!
Entrance to the Chapel of Bones