More demolition, a washing machine, painting furniture and more

Another week of slow progress in northern Portugal

A bit later than planned, here is a recap of the last video #9!

We are lucky enough to have several food producing trees on our patch of land, the orange tree is consistently producing (not sure of the exact variety). The novelty of freshly pressed orange juice in the morning still hasn’t worn off.

In an effort to get some more home comforts, we decided to buy a washing machine last week. It was the first we have owned since living in a London flat 4 years ago. When we moved into our van, we would wash our clothes at machines outside supermarkets or at coin operated launderettes. From our experience the Italians seemed to have the best tumble dryers! So to many it wouldn’t seem like a big deal, but for us it makes our lives much easier.

We upcycled the furniture we picked up from a second-hand store in the Algarve back in May we painted it with some outdoor chalk paint. Back in May, we went down to spend a week with my family in the south. We’ve been on the lookout for second hand stuff since we arrived in Portugal, but haven’t been able to find anything at a good price. At first we thought it was because we were in the countryside, so extended our search radius to Porto. In Porto, there was more on offer, but everything second-hand seemed to be priced only slightly less than buying it new. Perhaps we were spoilt for choice back in the UK. In Portugal, it seems that household goods, cars and other things retain their value much more.

Our outdoor sofa, painted and re-upholstered

The demolition of the animal shed continues. I have become more confident with the concrete breaker and have used it more and more to break down the walls. Annoyingly, the resulting mess has increased the amount of work required. The blocks and bricks don’t always come down complete and when the walls are rendered its almost impossible to remove one without it breaking apart into small bits. The sacks I’m using to take away the smallest bits of rubble were in our loft space. There are a good amount still up there and they will help tidy up the area. As with lots of things in Portugal we are not sure how the household waste pickup works here or if they are reliable, so that is something we will have to test out.

The rendering and painting on the ex water tank, now plunge pool has finally been finished! Hot weather is expected soon and we will be making the most out of it. The photos below show the before and after.

The plunge pool before and after

Recently, most of the jobs I have been taking on are not that important. They don’t always align with the main objective of getting the house ready for the winter. I need to start focusing more on the ‘winterising’ and put other things on pause until I think we are on track to get things done before November. There are lots of big jobs to get done, and even more that need some thought applied to them. I’ve been putting off these ‘big jobs’, mostly because if I get them wrong they will be expensive mistakes.