Many of you will have forgotten that I am building a house. I understand how you feel. I tried to forget it myself, but as anyone who has built a house knows, you are reminded of how much there is to do EVERY TIME YOU STEP OUT THE DOOR.
This is probably just the right moment to remind the doubters out there (not you, dear reader, I’m sure you’re all with me… oh.. I see…ok, maybe some of you are with me) that this is not a RACE and I have had a MIGRAINE for the last six months, not to mention there’s been a GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS, which has forced some of us to take it SLOWLY OR DIE FROM STARVATION. OH-KAY-EY?
I’m going to say this once, just so we are all clear. YOU CANNOT BUILD A HOUSE BY YOURSELF. That’s right, YES, I know that. And YES, I will be getting the crew in sometime soon. As soon as this headache goes away and the winter is over and I find that last 50 grand I left somewhere. So BACK OFF, or I’ll get the chainsaw out again.
Along with the billions of common frustrations that come with building a house there is the less famous annoyance called not building a house. I had my hands on some stones the other day (was covering the ruin walls to stop them from ruining some more) and felt that dotted line of joy just to be near them again. The craving just to get on with it is driving me loco.
But – there is some news – I did have the angle grinder out. Eons ago I went on a hunt for gates (actually I can look up the blog to when the great search for gates began… it was August. As I said – Eons ago). One gate was needed for the last garden stone wall to be finished and the other for the bathroom stone wall. Couldn’t build the walls without knowing the width of the gates, you see. And unlike new stuff, you can’t rely on a standard size with an antique, or an old-piece-of-crap velharia anyway.
Long story short, found gates in next village, great colour excellent price. Going to be gorgeous. Trust me.
Needed to remove the old hinges and bits before handing them over to the serralheiro to fix new ones, so out came the angle grinder. Just as I was thinking that I really don’t like metalwork much, nor do I like the blunt and rather vicious instrument that is the angle grinder, I became hypnotized. Rather than just saw off the hinges, I cleaned them up like you’d never know the hinges had existed, then I moved onto the rust and old paint. It must have been the extreme noise that ushered me into the 8th state of consciousness you can only get with power tools. It’s not entirely unlike an MRI scan at 3am in a foreign hospital with a migraine. You can really lose yourself in there.
YES earplugs, YES I WAS thankyou, doubter. Now piss off or I’ll GRIND you.
Now that the gates are sitting somewhere waiting for new hinges, I might actually be planning some wall building. Now that it’s sub-15 degrees. And raining. Oh hang on, there’s snow forecast for tonight. Brilliant. Er, I doubt it.
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Walls Built: 1 Injuries: 0 (!)
And now for the weather:
Yes it’s a royal flush of sunniness; we are having a very proper summer and so far, not many fires. Being an australian I am paranoid about bushfires. The smell of dry eucalypt reminds me of the apprehensive summers in Sydney of my childhood. When I ask sweetly if the neighbours wouldn’t mind cutting the scrub on their land they snuffle and shuffle and say there won’t be any fires here, like they’ve had a message from god. Bloody hope they’re fair dinkum, or we’re all up shit creek.
I’ve built another drystone wall in the garden. I’ve finished the drainage on one side of the annexe and have started on the other side. I’m stacking up bags of lime ready for some serious wall building next week. And I’m on the search for decorative iron gates.
“Drunk-tired on heat, the pets are happy.”
“The rabbits have bunnies and the dogs have puppies
but the guppies just have little guppies.”
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Weather report: fine, fine, fine, fine, fine!
Injuries to left hand: 5 Injuries to rest of body: 2
All those injuries are perhaps the best indictor that I’ve been working hard. But to explain where I’m at, I’ll start from very beginning.
My annexe, behind the house, is a cute little 20sqm room which used to be a storeroom with a stone oven at the rear. Here’s how it looked when I bought the house.
The annexe is destined to be a bedroom with an ensuite bathroom, which I will move into while work continues on the main house. I spent about 7 months of last year making the hole for the bathroom. There was a whole lot of bedrock to dig out, and for a long time I resisted using a jackhammer, so much of it was done by hand! Gallery of pictures click here.
Eventually, the hole was deep enough. I put down agricultural drainage and laid a concrete base and walls to compensate for the lack of foundations under the existing walls. Originally those walls sat on a ‘flat’ base of bedrock, but since I have sliced the bedrock so that it forms the lower part of the walls, the stone walls have a lot less supporting them. Hence the reinforced cement sides.
As part of the oven demolition I removed the back wall of the annexe. So my next step was to repair the holes where the back wall met the side walls. I did this as a part of repointing the two adjacent walls (see productive days). In the last week I have finished the top of the neighbours wall, to secure the loose stones and fix them so that they drain water away from my bathroom-to-be. I think it looks quite nice. I’m sure the neighbours (who ran away to Brazil during the Salazar years) would be happy, if they knew.
Next I slapped on a treatment which is meant to stop ‘salitre’ or ‘saltpetre‘ which is the mortar degrading via salts being pushed to the surface… we don’t want this even on an unseen wall because it will fill up the air space between old walls/new walls with salty dust and will clog the drainage.
Next, I’m going to lay some bricks… Say goodbye to the neighbours’ wall. It’s the last time it will see daylight for a while… going… going…
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The old man who owned the house before me was born in here in the village. He married the girl next door – quite a feat in a village of less than 50 people. It could be a romantic story or it could be a scary one. Also scary is the idea of living within a stone’s throw of your parents AND your in-laws.
The house was built in 1939 by his father who was a respected stonemason. He also built the bridge and other houses in the village, and buildings in the nearest tiny town. My house is actually two houses: the white house is one and the ruin is another. There is also an annexe. A different family lived in the ruin. Apparently the ruin was a bit of a party house. Much singing and dancing and drinking went on there. Perhaps they shook the house down!?
The houses are built in schist, the common field stone in central Portugal. Schist is similar to slate, it’s medium-dark grey with red, brown and terracotta clay colours. The stones are laid in a pure clay mortar which gives the house a very warm glow in the afternoon sun.
The white house has a cement render. Historically, rendered houses denoted wealthier owners, but in a post modern twist whole villages with houses in bare stone have become a valued tourist attraction in this area.
Here’s the layout of how it is now:
The idea of the building project is to unite the two houses to become one. The render on the white house will be removed, the stone cleaned and the mortar renewed. The metal windows will be replaced with older style timber windows and half-pipe roof tiles will reflect the local-traditional architectural style.
Here’s a crude photoshop impression of how it will look.
I love the look of stone on the outside, but the interiors of these local stone places are frighteningly troglodyte-like. Dark, rough and…dark. So, my interior walls will be plastered white, making the interior space new, clean, and open. The floor plan is designed around the enormous existing fireplace in the (old) kitchen.
The underground garage is missing from the plans.
While the exterior will hopefully look entirely traditional and old, the interior is modern. Modern in the sense that it will be a new blank canvas where I can insert old architectural pieces such as classic Portuguese azulejos (tiles), 18th century style mirrored doors, interesting antique coat pegs or other small details.
While the fireplace is the focus of the house in the winter, the summer hub is the outside terrace, with a large dining table under a vine covered pergola. The stairs to the first floor link the outside dining area to the kitchen.
By locating the kitchen and living areas on the first floor, these spaces benefit from the views outside, and the cathedral ceilings inside. My aim is also to maximise the appeal and comfort of the house in the winter months as well as the summer. As it has a south-western aspect, the winter sun reaches all the way to the back walls of the first floor. The alternative of having the living area on the ground floor would’ve resulted in a cooler winter living space.
The house has four bedrooms which all have flexible usage. The bedrooms on the ground floor are partitioned only by sound insulated cupboards, once removed enable the two rooms to convert into one 25m2 space. The bedroom on the first floor, adjacent the living area could be a study or nursery. The annexe bedroom benefits from privacy and natural light, and has an ensuite bathroom. It might be useful as guest accommodation or an artist’s studio.
Energy efficiency
First – adequate insulation. It’s the cornerstone of a comfortable, low cost, low maintenance house. There’s a huge range of products out there and yet the majority of builders here are still opting to use the bare minimum and to use one that’s harmful to the environment. It drives me nuts.
Solar hot water. Who can resist free hot water? It’s now the law for new builds. Solar panels won’t perform 100% of the time so,
Recuperador de calor a agua. No idea what they call it in English, but it’s super efficient closed fireplace that heats the immediate area while also providing hot water for the whole house. I’d love to connect a series of radiators to make central heating. The cost of the installation is nothing much but the cost of the radiators is way out of my league. From my research the recuperador solution is the most economic and eco-friendly form of heating and complements the solar hot water system perfectly.
Still on heating - there’s an endless supply of free firewood here in timber country, so if I don’t find affordable radiators I’ll be installing another two more salamanders in the main house and one in the annexe. All of them will have splitters so that they can heat two rooms at once.
Cooling is not a huge issue. Even without insulation I haven’t found the summers uncomfortably hot here. Nonetheless, the design of the house follows the principles of passive cooling by using cross ventilation, exterior window shading and ceiling fans in every room.
Grey water system. All grey water from the bathrooms and laundry will be diverted underground to the lawn, thus automatically watering it and avoiding unnecessarily filling up the closed septic system. Hopefully this will keep the grass green all year round.
Rainwater collection water tank. It seems a bit strange to collect and store water when for most of the year the natural springs are flowing, the tap water is almost free and more water is falling from the sky every other day. For the two or three months of the year when the springs are dry and there’s a very high fire danger, another 1000 litres of water close at hand could well save the house from destruction. The tank is connected to a sprinkler system on the roof. When activated, the water then flows into the roof gutters and back into the tank, providing hours of hands-free fire protection when it’s critical.
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