Feliz Ano Novo! A Very Happy New Year from both of us to all of our friends, family and followers.

Looking back, it’s fair to say that towards the end of 2022 we struggled somewhat to get anything meaningful done on our renovation. Weeks of heavy, rainy weather, still no electricity supply and a really frustrating lack of urgency from a few suppliers all fuelled a pretty slow wind-down to the end of the year. All we could do was get ready for our trip back to the UK to see family and friends over the Christmas week. That part was wonderful.

And of course, the start of 2023 wasn’t going to let us just get on with it! Both Julie and I have had debilitating chest infections on our return to Portugal and again, with the bad weather at the start of this new year, we just haven’t achieved very much at all.

We’re only a week in though so not stressing!  Our neighbours too are the best, so kind and thoughtful and also as I type, the warm Portuguese sun is making a welcome appearance which is a lovely reminder that we have moved to a really special part of the world.

So where are we in the great scheme of things and what’s our immediate plans for 2023 – projects wise?

As it is, the new windows have been a life saver and have allowed us to commandeer this part of the house as our main living space whilst we renovate around us.

We opted for PVC wood-grain style windows in the end. A really difficult decision to come to but one we are extremely happy with.

Internally, all the windows have their original shutters in place. Some in better condition than others but they’ll all be renovated over the coming months.

For any of our followers looking to get electricity installed for the first time in Portugal, I’ll link a blog here in the coming weeks which will describe the process that we have gone through.

Now that the winter rains are easing off, its back onto all things plumbing, waste and water management. Watch this space!

There are a few elements to the entrance that still need work on, so again it’s work in progress. That said, the main doors are now restored and in place and looking really fabulous. We’re really pleased with how they turned out.

Working with the local Freguesia (parish council), we are turning our front steps around to face into the courtyard. At present they step out onto the road which is a little dangerous. They are also quite steep so we’ll be adding a few extra steps in to take some of the height out of each individual step, making them easier to walk up and down

Julie is still excavating this area and reusing as much buried material as possible. We’ll continue to build our gabion walls, retaining our new patio area and also start to landscape the garden area in a more meaningful way as we get waste and drainage installed and the site gets levelled.

A main focus for us from early 2023 will be to start the replacement and re-building of our main roof structures. By the end of this year, it is the plan to have the entire footprint under a new roof so that we are water-tight from above. This will allow us to progress with the installation of our new floors and work on the bigger renovation protected from all the elements.

Happy New Year everyone. Feliz ano novo xx

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