Holding on, and on

And another new year into our project. January weather is super dry, and provides blue skies only. Great for building a house! In our temporary house it is stone cold and a challenge to stay warm. The captain of the project rises very very early every morning. He kicks of hot water bottles and blankets. After a breakfast and a first hot coffee he leaves to challenge one of the Most Dangerous Roads of Portugal (there are many…) from Bombarral to Vilar. Temperature at the building site is around zero degrees Celsius, early in the morning. The boss opens the gate for all the specialists to entry. All teams start their work. Another long and stressful day lies ahead.

It is not easy to continue and hold on tight for such a long period of time. All coordination is on him now, where many disciplines are in play at the same time. Everything must be tuned to everything, so nobody has a chance to hibernate. At lunch time the boss is going home for lunch and a short break. Then back to Vilar (yes, this dangerous stretch of road, 4 times a day). Once the last light of the day disappears, he closes the gate behind the last work man before he goes home for the night. He has gone through 23 phone calls, 19 app-messages, 56 curses, 42 appointments, 2 miscommunications, 5 issues for the agenda, 3.000 unforeseen euro’s, and 15 meters of debris.

His head is soon nodding on his shoulders, and his wife puts him to bed as early as possible. With new hot water bottles. Then, hopefully, he doesn’t wake up somewhere during the night. Risking the merry-go-round in his mind to start wheeling again, and keep him from more sleep. This is the first and last house I will build, he cries out from time to time. Never again. But…. it is going to be so beautiful, and it is going so fast! And we are so happy there is some sort of end to this project in the not too far away distance!

Warm coat

The house is covered in a thick warm coat of cork. The plates have a thickness of 10 centimeters! Scaffolding is built up, for the men to paste the cork against the outer walls. No, we do not want gaps between the plates, not even as small as 3 mms. It has to be done perfectly, and has to last forever. Another saw is brought in, better combs for the glue. After one messy day the workers find a balance. First the large sides of the house and the annex are covered. Later on, the rest of the house, including the columns will be covered. All to avoid a so called ‘cold bridge’. Heat and cold stay outside or inside the house, where they are meant to be.

Digging a trench. Again.

Every time we think that we have opened up the ground for the last time. But the electrician decides that NOW is the right time for connecting water and electricity juice from the street to the buildings. So. Please find a guy with an excavator once more (there are few and they have no time). Open up these carefully laid layers of gravel once more. Create more chaos. Please.

A pipeline for gas is also installed. Not because we can. Or want. But because we must. There is a law prescribing there must be a connection for a gas network. That does not exist in this municipality and is not foreseen either. Law is law and it costs us dearly. But we risk not obtaining our residential permit if we do not comply.

Straight lines and more spaghetti

Every Sunday we do a big clean up. Dust, blobs, globs, dollops (the dictionary provides a whole variety of funny words). The floors must be even again coming Monday morning. In the meantime walls and ceilings are becoming more and more straight and white. All those little corners are covered with plaster board. So many hours of measuring, cutting, sawing, sticking, and filling up. Mister wall specialist walks around with the stairs tied to his legs!

The spaghetti man is drawing more and more meters of colored lines and sets up one of the junction boxes. And he sings his song all day long! This is what we like to hear!