Kitchen? Nope...

Cutting to the chase, the kitchen did not arrive on Wednesday, as expected. Obviously, this is a major headache, as of Thursday I was back in the house, ready or not. Cristina and Stefan of Azores High, and their managed property "Casa das Proteus" did me proud, and I had unfortunately to leave after they gave me accommodation for an extra two weeks. If you are thinking of visiting the Azores, then I highly recommend their properties. So, it was sad to leave, knowing that I would be leaving some creature comforts behind, and moving into the unfinished house (again).

Fortunately, a further two weeks of work on the house have seen some major improvements for quality of life. Namely the shower is working, and the bathroom basin has hot water. Joy. No bathroom door though - which is fine when the house is empty... i.e. before 8am and after 5pm. Otherwise, it is do 'the business' in public or hold the can. Or of course use the builders 'long drop' as illustrated in the last blog. Joy.

The upstairs floor has been given a little work, although I am still not 100% happy with it - however, it will have to do for the moment, as the majority of cartons are hiding up there whilst work continues below.

As of yesterday (Saturday the 20th April), the stairs have been tiled and grouted. This has highlighted a minor flaw: the stairs are now too high to have the edges covered by the side wall. A quick fix though, the wall will just be capped with a tile, making up the difference in height.

Tiling has started out side on the main patio-deck area. Today grout was applied where possible. It looks lovely.

Here we can see the tilling to the patio, grout has yet to be applied.

Power: An application has been made to quote for a 30kVA supply to the house - at the moment it is wired up temporarily for the builders power, which is limited to 10kW.... as I found out on Thursday night: I decided to try the shower which is rated at 10.5kW. Yes, you guessed it... it tripped the safety cutout. Next morning saw me pry open the electricity companies switch box door outside the property (naughty!)... and easy-peasy, reset the trip. Phew. So now shower is on 'Eco' mode only - it is warm enough considering the climate.

Thursday also saw me make a video, which I posted online on FB yesterday... if you 'aint a freind, you are out of luck. I'm sure most people reading this will have viewed. If not, take a look, as I give a pretty in-depth tour of the build.

I have spent most of the weekend vacuuming and mopping floors in order to try to reduce dust. It seems like an endless task, but progress has been made. Once the majority of the dust is dealt with then there will be a fair amount of spot cleaning to remove black marks left by the builders boots - it is inevitable, since outside of the property is just rough earth and spoil.

The industrial grade Hoover was loaned to me by the project manager. It sucks.

Under the house has seen work continue on the waste pipes and water supply. So finances allowing, this will make it into a self contained flat / holiday rental. If not, well it is ready to go with services available.

Muck and Pipes... looking over the patio edge and can see the waste pipe now concreted in, for the downstairs area... the soil will be pushed over to cover.

Talk with the project manager has been much - he is a boon and despite being on site I have asked him to stay on and deal with the day to day issues; He can still pay bills to contractors, explain issues and chase trades, much more efficiently than me, as he has a wealth of experience. I dread to think where I would currently be without his help.

He also introduced me to Rob, an ex-pat from the south coast of the UK, who is a landscape gardener / designer. So that is something else I have been considering. First though, a drive is needed. Once firm plans for that are in place then the grounds can be considered.

First rough draft and playing with ideas for the outside - totally wrong though and scale is dubious... but it was a start to just get ideas going...

In planning for that, yesterday evening was spent watching the setting sun and shadows and shade: I would like an outside pagoda and BBQ area that enjoys full sun for as long as possible during the later hours. As it turned out, the best spot is situated at the bottom of the (steep) drive... so back to the drawing board on my outline sketches.

This is the BBQ area at the Casa das Proteus... something like this would be good...

That's all for now, check out the video...

Next Up: Kitchen and joinery.