We’re making changes to our build

We are a family building a house in Portugal and renovating and abandoned farm. Use our link https://www.kiwico.com/newbys and our code NEWBYS for 50% off your first monthly crate from KiwiCo, or 20% off your 1st Panda Crate.

We’re already putting finishing touches to our build, and making changes to parts of it that will make sure that our dream stone house is exactly how we imagined it would be.

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We’re John, Tara, Crusoe, and Sawyer Newby, a family building thier dream home and renovating an old stone house.

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BE BRAVE – THINK BIG – EXPLORE

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. No idea why. Oh, look. Look, look. It’s cornering going up. It’s Cornish going up. Well, that’s exciting. That is exciting. Oh, that’s 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 um so quickly. Oh, yeah. But the walls are here. Remember? So, if you guys remember, these cornises arrived few weeks ago now, and we were really excited thinking, oh, we’re going to get them in cuz 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 before they started putting it in. Like, we like to be here for these big moments so that we can film um and to be a part of it. So, that’s very, very cool. [Music] Hello. [Music] Have a look at this folks. in a morning’s work. The whole front of the corner singing. So 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° today Celsius which is hot. So I think the earlier they get it done as soon as they can get down and do something else that doesn’t involve being up here 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 a this front of the roof, sorry, meets this edge here. And you can see the different shape of it. You know, it comes in here so that the next corners 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, um, we always used to drive past houses and see these cornering 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 is 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 brick work and keep getting that up up. Exciting, but a monumental task. This is some precision crane work if ever I’ve seen it. Look at that. Up and around in between the houses. We’ve got door frames going in everybody. Don’t get in the way. Cru. Back up a bit, my love. That’s very good. You can see um you could see on that stone how it is choosing which side to face front and then the reason why he’s been telling turn it turn it turn it is this side that’s going up against the stone. You can see a couple of saw cuts. No, 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 on the left hand side of the stove. So behind me right now, um the fellas are starting to take down scaffolding already. There’s almost this reveal of the front of the house coming to life. We we’re starting to get a really good feel and we can start to see what it looks like without that scaffolder. 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 framing that stone frame for the window in mortion. 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 get 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 for 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 over the next couple of days. I’m getting another one. What is it? What is it? Too heavy. Way too heavy. Hey, let me help you. This is I think Cruso’s. And he has yours, too. Right. Let’s go see what’s inside. What you got, boys? Wow, a frog dissection lab. Cool. You’re going to start learning about biology. Biology. What’s that? What’s 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. Can I have a little They learn something with every single encounter with Kiwiico. And the boxes are specifically aimed at their age group and what they’re learning and what their developmental stage is at. Life cycle. How is it always like age appropriate to be perfect for what our boys are? And we’re at the point where Kiwi Co stuff is just about the only stuff that the boys play with. Sora, you’ve got your doctor’s kit from your last Kiwi Co box. Going to help the frog. 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. Are you going to be okay, boys? No. Yeah, you have to have a couple of weeks. 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 Kiwiico. Use the link kiwi code.com/newbies and our code newbies and you will get 50% off your first monthly crate if you’re looking at age groups from Cruso’s age and above. Or you’ll get 20% off your first monthly crate for younger than 36 months, which is where Soy is 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 Kiwi Co and how much your little people are loving it, too. Even if you’re just curious, it’s so worth clicking on 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. [Music] Dad, do you want to try? Yeah, for sure. I want to try. That’s more like a jellyfish, isn’t it? That’s how it goes. Well, good morning everybody. John has started this morning with a mission. [Music] [Music] And 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 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 round 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 it clean, water it. It’s so peaceful and it’s so much easier than it was in the previous years where we just did a giant field of stuff. So have a look at what’s growing. [Music] That looks like very hot work, love. It’s hard work. Satisfying to tackle your nemesis with so much gusto. Yeah. Yeah. You remember in the beginning we were chopping it with a with a secret, you know? It’s like every single piece click click click with a some scissors. So yeah, it feels pretty good to get so much of it gone. Um, a few weeks ago we had our little filthy chicks hatch and they’re doing so well. I’m quite keen to get them out of their little nursery, but apparently they will still be fought with by the other chickens. Anyway, super important to try and obviously keep the chickens very hydrated. Um, it’s been so hot. Um, 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 rest bite. 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 wings and stuff. I gave them some greens this morning. She’s a very cheeky mommy, 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 and one cockail, but I fear it might be three cockals and one hen. Anyway, we’ll find homes for them. Be fine. All right, let’s go and have a chit chat to Eduardo and Shaw, the main contractor. Just a quick reminder, Eduardo is our main architect, our primary architect. Eduardo is our contractor, main contractor, the boss of the contracting company. Adam or Adal um he’s our site foreman. Marcus um is our site stonemason um and uh Robi, also another main guy on site, um is is the guy that just comes in and helps out everybody. And then of course there’s Daniel, the carpenter, etc., etc. Um, if I’ve missed anybody there, sorry, Joel. Um, he 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 we’ve sat down, we’ve had a good old chitchat. We’re on site all the time as you guys know. Tara and I are here every day, all day. Um, not every day, all day, but most days all day. Uh, just keeping an eye at what’s going on. um 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, um 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. Um you 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. Um the guys on site are all rock stars as you’ve been commenting on and noticing. They’re very patient. They they’re really cool around the kids. Um they’re very safe, diligent, just top marks for for patients. And um 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. Okay. So, let’s go and have a chat. So, it’s it’s very interesting to have a plain surface in the surroundings of the the aluminum. Uh but also we need something that makes nice with the other stone. Yeah. So our reference is we have a much more smaller stone. Okay. Then you have it here. And I’m a little bit afraid what of 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 frames uh layer separates the stone from the aluminum. Mhm. And also in the the walls that we don’t have stone. We have this appointment appointment of stone that give us some integrity to all the 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 when we what we’re talking about right now, what Eduardo is talking about is the 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 Gio has on their magazine. a very beautiful shape. The the other reference we had was to the um Apollo temple on Nexus, you know, very similar shaping and very beautiful strong structure. So, what we’re talking about here is is that 20 cm stonework around the edge too thick and too strong? Should we be looking at smaller or should we keep the 20 cm? And this could be another change that we have moving forwards. if it’s if it’s looking too strong. So, we’ll take Eduardo’s advice on that. Me personally, I’m not gonna say a single thing until Eduardo’s had his opinion about it. Um, and then we’ll see what goes on. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think. Big, wide, or skinny, and um, more elegant, should we say. Do you like it? Yeah. The thickness I think because our our um, this window is probably one of the smaller ones. Yeah. And the other windows that are more or less the same uh dimensions of this one are on the the block with with a plaster. So So I think the the thickness it’s okay for the bigger windows to be an amazing effect. Yes. Yeah. I think because I I totally agree with you, Eduardo. My general feeling on this is that we’re building this really strong imposing quite massive structure. Um, and the elegance can be can be definitely added a little bit later, maybe with some iron work 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 um how the build’s going. Everything’s going really well. Super happy. Eduardo’s happy. And I know we’re all agreed on those window frames. I hope everybody out there also agrees uh that they look pretty cool. And now we’re going in and we’re going to have a couple of questions about um the internal space and how things are going on in there. So, we had a discussion 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 straight, which is great. And the other one was whether or not we were going to put stone frames around these big doors in the front of the living room area. Um I think we said no cuz then you would have to cut bricks to make it 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. I’m checking. I think with the windows upstairs, we do want the stone. Yeah, we do 100%. On the windows upstairs, we do. Um, but down here, I don’t think we need it. Although, look, look at the size of those windows. You put those big fat stone frames in, you make the size of the window a whole lot less. Huh. 40 cm. Yeah, they are really nice big picture windows. So, okay. So, here we here we go. We got Eduardo 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 would mean chopping out of 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 going to do that. The fourth option is we don’t frame it. Yeah, there we go. Barbara, I heard you. Um, so I think we don’t frame it. What? They’re just the these are veranda doors. You aren’t going to see them anyway cuz you’ve got the beautiful arches. The windows upstairs. We need the windows. We need the windows framed for sure, don’t we, Eduardo? Those windows have coherence in all the windows. The the same pieces of stone in all the windows. So, yeah, I understand that it’s a little bit hided from the exterior view, but they are windows anyhow. So, we put on 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 the chop the blocks. I think it’s comfortable to cut the the block. He’s good with it. Is he? Yeah. Like 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. Um, and then the cost of the stone to go around the edges. Uh it’s a 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, um let’s do that. One more question. Um yeah, 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? They were thinking they’re 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. It’s like a double wall anyhow with the stone and stone. I think I thought it would be beautiful to have a bit of space and and 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 the block, but I think it’s okay. Cool. That’ll be a really impressive wall with the stone featured wall with that big archway window at the at the end. Yeah, it’s okay. And give a that’s the the open wall you want to have in stone. Nice to see some more corners coming down on site. That’s great. Um, of course, the first lot of cornising 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 okay, 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, which 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 um here 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 frames 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. Um, 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 Edward if we could be in by Christmas. And he said, “Christmas 2026.” We’re We’re in a hurry to get it finished, though. We’re in a hurry to get it finished. And it’s ready. Yay. Um Yeah, we’re in a hurry to get in for sure. Of course we are. You know, it would be it’s going to be amazing to see it all finished. Um, 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. [Music] 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 dried for using things like, I don’t know, 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 cuz they are super super useful. [Music]