As we push ahead with rising this incredible stone house from the ground, we're watching our wildest imaginings come to life. What's really cool is it's meant that we've had like a big reveal of the front of the building. And although the structure of the house and the extensive stonework is still very much ongoing, today we're starting to add finishing touches and make decisions about what the
completed version of this build of a lifetime is going to look like. So that was really fun to talk about, that's the stuff that kind of gets you like,
oh I can't wait!
And let's just say we're getting pretty excited about it.
Good morning!
We've been called to the roof.
We have.
No idea why.
Oh look, look love, it's cornicing going up!
It's cornicing going up, wow that's exciting!
That is exciting!
Wow, big moment man!
Isn't it?
Marcus is on an exceptionally high piece of scaffolding, but there is a double layer there
which is reassuring.
Good, here we go.
I'm surprised they're doing this so quickly.
So quickly yeah but the walls are here, remember? So if you guys remember these cornices arrived a few weeks ago now and we were really excited thinking oh gosh we're going to get them in because the beams are in blah blah blah. We can't do anything more with the roof until these are in place and we couldn't get these into place until the walls were high enough to support them so our front wall is now high enough to support them which is so exciting so they can get the whole bunch in here and it'll just keep going around the house and this is the very first one
and you know what's so sweet they came and called us we like to be here for these big moments so that we can film and to be a part of it so that's very very cool. Have a look at this folks, in a morning's work, the whole front of the corner thing, except for one, is in. These guys are machines, and I would imagine are quite keen to get this job done as quickly as possible and get off this roof.
We're going up to 37 degrees today, Celsius, which is hot. So I think the earlier they get it done, the sooner they can get down and do something else that doesn't involve big apia in the baking, baking hot sun. And the glare, it's super bright up here. That's very cool.
Can you see here, this is the corner where this front of the roof meets this edge here. And you can see the different shape of it. You know, it comes in here so that the next cornice can meet there and make a really beautiful curved corner beneath the roof. As I'm pretty sure we've said a few times before, this is quite a traditional finish for these roofs,
especially on the stone houses around here in Portugal. So we always used to drive past houses and see these cornicing and these kind of clean finishes beneath the eaves and go, oh gosh, doesn't that look beautiful? Wouldn't it be nice to have something like that? So I don't know, it's a really nice little moment of,
oh gosh, look, there they are. We've got them on our house too. Now, the pressure's on, I suppose, to get the stone walls up to meet there, where there needs to be stone right the way to the roof. And also to just carry on with the brickwork but a monumental task.
This is some precision crane work if ever I've seen it. Look at that. Up and around and between the houses. We've got door frames going in everybody.
Don't get in the way, can you stay back up a bit my love? You can see on that stone, Alan is choosing which side to face front and in. And the reason why he's been turning, turning, turning, turn it is on this side that's going up against the stone. You can see a couple of saw cuts. You know when you cut a piece of wood you get those round circular saw marks in the wood sometimes. You can see that on the back side of the stove. So behind me right now, the fellows are starting to take down scaffolding already. There's almost this reveal of the front of the house
coming to life. We're starting to get a really good feel and we can start to see what it looks like without that scaffold up.
Look at that!
So there we go, there's where the scaffolding is going. It's come from the front of the build all the way around to the back of the build right here where Adam and Marcus and Roby are popping up stones around that wonderful window that we put in the other day.
This is beautiful as they're framing that stone frame for the window in more stone and this wall is just coming up so so quickly. This whole side of the building all the way to the roof is stone. It's the biggest section of stone that we have. It's going to be impressive when it's done. I cannot wait to see it go all the way to the top. So Marcus is down at the bottom cutting more stone.
We've got another delivery coming on Friday. Today's Wednesday. So they are really trying to clear space for the next delivery because they can't currently take delivery because there is no room down there.
So there's a bit of pressure on, I think, to get as much stone onto the walls as possible I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting
heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm
getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy.
I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting
heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm getting heavy. I'm way too heavy hey let me help you this is I think Chris's and he has yours too right let's go see what's inside
what you got boys?
I'm taking a crystal!
Wow a frog dissection lab
cool you're going to start learning about biology
biology Obi?
what's that? look what's in my one! My one!
No way, Dad! Come and check this out! You get to be a doctor of a frog. Look, you get to take out all of his insides and learn all about what's inside a frog. Right, leaving that energy and excitement behind and the boys to dissect a frog to just quickly tell you that I've got a deal for you guys on KiwiCo. If you've been here a while you know how much we love this brand. Genuinely couldn't recommend it enough. I
love that every time one of those boxes comes through the door the boys are beside themselves with excitement. They learn something with every single encounter with KiwiCo and the boxes are specifically aimed at their age group and what they're learning and what their developmental stage is at.
Life cycle of frogs.
How is it always age appropriate to be perfect? And we're at the point where KiwiCo stuff is just about the only stuff that the boys play with. Soya, you've got your doctor's kit from your last KiwiCo box. Are you going to help the frog? Yeah.
The quality is incredible, the way that we can store it is incredible, and every single time they bring it out, they come up with a new way to play with it. And that's the joy of it. It gives so much option for creativity and ingenuity. Froggy going to be okay, boys? Now if you guys are a parent or a grandparent and you've got little people in your life who you want to spoil but you want to do it in a way that benefits them, that helps them learn, that helps them grow, then please please
have a look at KiwiCo. Use the link kiwico.com forward slash newbies and our code newbies and you will get 50% off your first monthly crate if you're looking at age groups from Crusoe's age and above or you'll get 50% off your first monthly crate if you're looking at age groups from Crusoe's age and above or you'll get 20% off your first monthly crate for younger than 36 months which is where Sawyer's currently sat. One of the things I've loved the most is seeing in the comments you guys coming through and saying that you've purchased from KiwiCo and how much your little people are loving it too. that link because KiwiCo is absolutely genius and it massively helps to support our channel. So a huge huge thanks from us. Right now that frog might need
rescuing and they've got a jellyfish to build so I better get back in there. Oh boys that looks amazing! Yeah, for sure I want to start. That's more like a jellyfish, isn't it? That's how it goes. That mission is to tackle bamboo. Now if you've been with us for a long time, certainly since we arrived here on the farm in Portugal, you will know that bamboo has been something of a nemesis to John. Parts of our farm when we arrived were completely inaccessible because of bamboo.
And actually there were enormous things like Robinson's Rock, which is that big granite boulder right in front of our house, which we didn't even know we had because it was so covered in bamboo.
We've managed to get on top of it on one part of the farm but on this part of the farm up here at the vegetable garden we're still I don't know it's not really a problem it is a problem but it's not a massive problem but it is around and every now and then it really needs to be beaten back. The biggest problem we have is up here around our well now this time of year obviously we're not getting any rain and it's getting very very very hot so we need to be able to access as much water as we possibly can and inside that enormous bush of bamboo
we have the control system for our well. So in order to be able to access that we've got to beat back the bamboo and that's the plan for today. Anyway, I thought I would show you guys how the veggie garden is doing because it is really coming to life now and it's so exciting. I am absolutely loving having these raised beds. It was the best thing we ever could have done and I'm so glad we got around to doing it. It's just so neat, it's so tidy, it's so much easier to manage. I've been able to come up here every couple of nights and do a little bit of weeding. I'm a little bit behind
on some of the beds but you know just keep a giant field of stuff. So have a look at what's growing. That looks like very hot work love.
Yeah, it's hot work.
Satisfying to tackle your nemesis with so much gusto?
Yeah, you remember in the beginning we were chopping it with a secateur. Yeah. It was like every single piece, click, click, click, with some scissors. But yeah, it feels pretty good to get so much of it gone.
A few weeks ago we had our little silky chicks hatched and they're doing so well. Quite keen to get them out of their little nursery but apparently they will still be
taught what to buy the other chickens.
Anyway, it's super important to try and obviously keep the chickens very hydrated. It's been so hot and they definitely struggle, you know, so we try as much as possible to bring them if we can spare them. Some nice cold cucumbers or some half a watermelon or something on the hot days just to give them a bit of respite. Come and have a look at how cute these little things are. They've got their little like adult,
not adult, but they're getting their winged feathers. I gave them some greens this morning. She's a very cheeky mummy though. She definitely does not like people coming in. Look at them, aren't they sweet? They look like little um like baby spider monkeys or something. I don't know their feathers are all like scrappy and I think we've definitely got three of one sex and one of the other. I'm not really sure how to sex them just yet but one of them's got like a mohawk and the other three all look the same so we hope it's three hens in one cockle but I fear it might be three cockles in him. Anyway we'll find homes for them. All right let's go and have a chit chat to Eduardo and Joachim
the main contractor. Just a quick reminder Eduardo is our main architect, our primary architect. Eduardo is our main stowmason. And Roby, also another main guy on site, is the guy that just comes in and helps out everybody. And then of course there's Daniel the carpenter, et cetera, et cetera.
If I've missed anybody there, sorry. Joao, he's also here on site as well, helping with block work. Within that team, we've every day, not every day, but most days we've sat down we've had a good old chit chat, we're on site all the time as you guys know. Tara and I are here every day, all day, not every day, all day, but most
days all day, just keeping an eye at what's going on, not like a beady eye, but just a curious eye on what's going on with the house, seeing how they're building it. For me personally it's a wonderful thing to watch a house get built because I'm learning so much about, like Brady I guess at Raising Voyages, we're learning so much about what we're doing on site and how to build a house. So it's absolutely fascinating, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else except
for here. The guys on site are all rock stars as you've been commenting on and noticing. They're very patient, they're really cool around the kids, they're very safe, diligent, just top marks for patients. And actually when we have conversations about changes or updates or things like this everybody's super open to concepts and ideas so what we're talking about today long story short is how much all of these changes are likely
to cost. So let's go and have a chat.
So it's very interesting to have a plain surface in the surroundings of the aluminium. But also we need something that makes nice with the other stone. So our reference is to have a more smaller stone than you have it here and I'm a little bit afraid what the finish results. Okay. But let's see it. I think it's okay. It's nice. So your preference would be? Having these refinements. Around the? Yes, like a layer which separates the stone
from the aluminium. And also in the walls that we don't have stone, we have this appointment of stone that gives us some integrity to all the pieces of the house, so it's okay. About the dimension, John chooses, let's see if it's too much or not.
Yeah, so what we're talking about right now, what Eduardo is talking about, is the stone bit that goes around the frame. You remember in a previous episode we were talking about how it almost looks like the National Geographic square, you know that yellow square that Nat Geo has on their magazine. A very beautiful shape. The other reference we had was to the Apollo temple on Naxos, you know, very similar shaping and very beautiful strong structure. So what we're talking about here is, is that 20 centimeters stonework around the edge too thick
and too strong? Should we be looking at smaller or should we keep the 20 centimeters? And this could be another change that we have moving forwards if it's looking too strong. So we'll take Eduardo's advice on that. Me personally, I'm looking too strong. So we'll take Eduardo's advice on that. Me personally, I'm not going to say a single thing until Eduardo's had his opinion about it and then we'll see what goes on. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
Big, wide or skinny and more elegant should we say. You like it? Yeah. The thickness I think... Because our... This window is probably one of the smaller ones.
Yeah.
And the other windows that are more or less the same dimensions as this one are on the block with plaster.
Yeah.
So, I think the thickness is okay for the bigger windows to be an amazing effect.
Yeah, I think because I totally agree with you, Eduardo. My general feeling on this is that we're building this really strong, imposing, quite massive structure and the elegance can be definitely added a little bit later maybe with some ironwork around balconies or something along those lines. But for now, these big strong windows, I really, really, I really, really like that effect.
That's great. Off camera, everybody's just been talking a little bit about how the build's going, everything's going really well. Super happy, Eduardo's happy. And we're all agreed on those window frames. I hope everybody out there also agrees that they look pretty cool.
Now we're going in and we're going to have a couple of questions about the internal space and how things are going on in there.
So we had a discussion with Joaquin the other day and I just wanted to make sure I understood properly. One was whether or not this door was arched. It's not, it's straight, which is great. For the other one was whether or not we were going to put stone frames around these big doors in the front of the living area. I think we said no because then you would have to cut the bricks to make the space wider to accommodate it. I'm pretty sure we understood correctly but it's really useful when Eduardo comes just to make sure like this is what we've understood, is that correct? And then everybody's happy. So that's what I'm checking. I think with the windows upstairs, we do want the stone, don't we? Yeah, we do, 100%.
On the windows upstairs, we do. But down here, I don't think we need it. Although, love, look at the size of those windows. You put those big, fat stone frames and you make the size of the window a whole lot less, huh?
40 centimeters. Yeah. They are really nice, big picture windows. So, okay, so here we go. We've got, Eduardo's just said, we've got three choices. We either do two pieces of stone, flat stone, like flat planks of wood, one, two, like this, then you're going to see a join in the stone. The second choice is to have a big block like over the other window,
which will be chopping out the wall. And the third choice is that we make an L shape out of a piece of stone that slots over the top. That is super expensive, so we're not gonna do that.
The fourth option is we don't frame it.
Yeah, there we go, Barbara.
I heard you.
I think we don't frame it.
What?
These are veranda doors, you aren't going to see them anyway because you've got the beautiful arches. The windows upstairs... We need the windows. We need the windows framed for sure, don't we Eduardo?
The thing is, we have coherence in all the windows.
The same pieces of stone in all the windows. Yeah. I understand that this is a little bit hided from the exterior view,
but they are windows anyhow.
So, you know.
Yeah.
We put on top, we need to put it here.
Here as well, okay. The plan is to put them on top right now, isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
Decisions, decisions.
Let's go with the middle ground and go with chop the blocks.
Chopping is comfortable to cut the blocks.
It's good with it, is it?
Yeah.
Like right in the...
I say right in the middle.
Okay, cut the blocks to make the spaces bigger.
So, okay, so again, I'm adding a little bit to the cost of the project for sure, but what are we looking at? We're probably looking at half a day's worth of block cutting and then the cost of the stone to go around the edges. It's an important visual change to the overall look of the house. It will be a grander house I think with these window frames. So let's do that. One more question.
One more question we had, we spoke to Marcus about it the other day, was to that wall that's around the arch window on the inside to have visible stone rather than plaster. What do you think? We were thinking like thin small stones, not like, you know.
Yeah, it's possible. They do a second arch and do the second layer of stone.
Yeah, and just small ones.
It's like a double wall anyhow, so with stone of stone. It's like a double wall anyhow.
I just thought it would be beautiful to have a bit of a stone wall.
And insulation in the middle.
Yeah. It's possible.
Probably, I don't know, it will be a little bit thicker because the stone is not so regular as the block, but I think it's okay.
That'll be a really impressive wall with the stone featured wall with that big archway window at the end. Yes okay and give a that's the the wall you want to have in stone. Nice to see some more cornering coming down on site that's great. Of course the first lot of cornering is already up on the roof, which is very exciting. It looks spectacular.
Oh, it's always so good when we have Eduardo on site so we can have these big conversations about the small details and the big details. We haven't made any big, big changes today. We've just refined some of the stuff that I don't think it's not project changes. It's just project refinement, isn't it? It's just going from, OK, we know that we wanted it like this should we do it with this stone or this stone or this color or that color or
this shape or that shape so today was really constructive and we did make some changes but not massive ones. We've just decided for example that behind this arch is going to be stone to look at rather than render. This will be so beautiful because this is going to be a big feature wall of the kitchen. So we'll have that in stone. We also talked about these obviously these big windows and doors and yeah and in the bedrooms above and framing those in the stone which is going to happen which is great. And the last thing we talked about which I'm super excited about is this
space here. So this is going to be a beautiful bay window framed with stone around the windows
as well.
Lovely kind of comfortable cushions and things, couple of armchairs here. And then in there is the fireplace. So we were just discussing how do we do the fireplace, what do we make it look like, and we've all decided that we're going to make this a beautiful feature stone fireplace. And that's just going to be really fun to watch the guys working on and to see how they do it and to also see how it kind of ends up. So that was really fun to talk about. That's the stuff that kind of gets you like, oh, I can't wait.
So I asked Eduardo if we could be in by Christmas. And he said Christmas 2026.
Yeah, we're in a hurry to get it finished. We're in a hurry to get it finished.
It's ready! Yay!
Yeah, we're in a hurry to get it, for sure, of course we are. You know, it's going to be amazing to see it all finished. And there's, like, we've hinted before, there's lots of stuff going on in our lives, that means that we are in a hurry. But, more about that soon. So, I'm not pregnant. Having cleared that bamboo up there, it is very good to see that we've got some beautiful
young canes which will be perfect when they dry for using for things like, I don't know, tomatoes or beans in the veggie garden. tomatoes or beans in the veggie garden. So once they've dried out, I'll be coming up and cleaning them and storing them somewhere so that we've got them to use because they are super, super useful.
Get ultra fast and accurate AI transcription with Cockatoo
Get started free β
