Christmas is knocking on the door

 

Kitchen, bedroom, cat door and so much more!

David has put his ex camping gas to work - this is going to be our cooking station! After connecting the gas pipe here it is working well!

 Lara and Missanga have been enjoying the bedroom, in our tubisian pufs:

 And their step bed:

And the day to put the tiles arrived! So happy about it! These were given from a neighbour in Benfeita. I had to clean them all, because they were very dirty from the fire - some were black. And I used all purpose glue that is white but when it dries it gets transparent.

 Sometimes the view from the big window in the living room is very beautiful, sometimes is showing some problems! I woke up to this one of these days: a board in the exterior wall had fallen during the night.

"Estar presente é responder a cada momento.
Esta semana tive de responder a isto: uma tábua fora do sítio no exterior da Tiny House 🏡. Super fácil, certo? Certo! É só subir umas escadas, berbequim na mão e aparafusar direitinho.
Mas, ao subir as escadas tive de enfrentar o medo das alturas.
Custou por uns segundos, mas depois, sabem que foi tão fácil? Eu não sou o medo das alturas.
Sim, parece maior do que aquilo que é, o medo, mas na verdade o medo é uma ilusão.
A tábua tinha de ser re-aparafusada e foi isso que eu fiz; o resto, são histórias!
E hoje chove como ontem. Tão bom! 🌧🌬"

Organizing is my midle name! A small, tiny bouse has to be so well organized or else it doesn+t work! I asked my friend Lúcia if her family's wine company had some old wine boxes, so we coud use to organize things, like clothes. And she had quite a few! A lot more was organized with these, but I will show you in the future. For now, thank you Quinta Seara d'Ordens!

 And the entrance has been beautified with carnations, berries and echinacea. Plants everywhere!

The Tiny House is welcoming the Sunny June:

Yes! the lights are on, up in the bedroom area. It started with David's idea to have a light mandala on the roof, but this is what we made. It took me several hours to design it, paint it and then to apply the lights (one the lights were 3h of work and a neck pain, but an amazing and satisfying result!).

Cat door in! This was essential before moving! We had to make sure that they were able to go in and out the house so no accident would happen in - pee and poo! First picture with Missanga's tail and the second with David!

 Every area had to be aproved by the ladies! Bedroom area approved and sofa as well!

 Kitchen: one of my favourite areas here:

Work starts to happen: this is my office and this is paper work - taxes!

Sofa needed to be covered because the cats are changing or loosing fur - it's summer time!

This is are the old steps from the BUS where we used to live in. After the fire, we decided to keep some things so we could use them in the Tiny House. David divided it in two parts. I am taking the rust out and tomorrow I will paint it white. We are going to use it in the kitchen, so we can hang pots and plants to dry.

And that's it for now!

Did we move in already?

Dear all, here we are again!
I am just on the sofa, inside of the Tiny House!
Yes we have moved in... last week.
Can we believe it? Yes! Very much!

Here are the last videos that we recorded, few weeks before moving in:





 

A lot more has happened, but for now, I would like to share our experience living here.

1 week and 1/2 has gone by and we are living a dream.
Dreams come true.
Around October of 2016 we started the building of our home and going back to the first post of this blog, we started with gratitude.
And we continue in the same line.
Everytime that we turn on a light, lay down in bed, cook a meal, get dressed, move inside of the Tiny House, sit on the sofa looking at the landscape, sit on our meditation cushions to meditate, wash our dishes, look at the cats sleeping in thei step houses, everytime we open the entrance door and look outside we feel and we are grateful for this house.
For all the time that we spent designing and building it, for all the friends that helped us building it, for all the family support, for the resiliency of our souls and for the house itself.
We are in total bliss.
Even with so many things to finish yet, we are blissed out.
There is a deep knowing of being right that takes me to tears.
It is the path and the goal and both are the same.
The path is still happening and the goal, who knows what is it?!
It doesn't finish with moving in.
It's life and discovery.
It's change and transformation.
People keep saying that they don't know how we, as a couple, survived living for so many years in a BUS and then in a Caravan.
Well, nobody says it was easy, but what we know is that we look back and we laugh and we remember the challenges and what stays is gratitude - for the previous homes.
the BUS is gone as you know and the Caravan is turning into my work space.I started moving things and turning it into a beautiful workshop.
I will post pictures of it soon.
I want to acknowledge David's love and persistence during all this time so we could get to this point of the journey. Without that, without you my love, this couldn't be possible in this way. I love all that you have put in this house so far. 

We would like to share more pictures from these last months and a tour of how the house is now that we moved in.But you have to wait for the next post.

For now, I am just going to listen to some music, brew a delicious tea and seat on the sofa.

Wishing you all a wonderful week and sending a big hug,
with love,

Raquel

Last wall almost done!

Olá everyone!
As we said before, a lot has been happening, including with the Tiny House.
Yesterday, David and Alex (a dear volunteer and friend here at Mizarela) were working in the last wall. That is where we are at now. Just some more boards and the cladding is going to be finished!

 David and Alex taking the temporary door out to continue with the cladding.

 Some boards take a long time to put, because small pieces of it have to be cut in a way that they fit the windows and the door frame.

 Super mighty sand man! 

 This is the view of the beginning of the day.

 Happy after putting the board up! It fits!

 Some tools waiting to be used

 View before lunch

Final view of the day. There are some more boards up, but the plastic tarp is covering them. It was a good and productive day today!

**************************************

But, what about the previous work?

Yes! You are about to have a look at the previous months.

Ready?

Here we go:

 Spring right in front of the construction site.

 Missanga helping David with the construction :-)

 This picture is for you Sarah! David using every piece of safety equipment available.

 Summer arrived! And we are looking to see what's the next step. Look at how the main wall it was not started yet! 

 Looks like a face! Main wall yet to be done at the time.

 Marco helping us with the cladding.

Up up up with the third wall. Almost there!

On the last day of May, Sr. Ângelo came here to check if and how it's possible to move the Tiny House. Better to do it soon, than when it gets heavier. It was an adventure just to hear him! We were 1h together with him being very dramatic and saying that it would be almost impossible to do it. After one hour and before saying goodbye he just said: don't worry, it's going to take time, and a lot of thinking, but we are going to do it! Fantastic!

 Another complete wall!

And why do we want to move it? Because we bought a piece of land very close to here. It is just a 10 min walk to this beautiful and magical land. For now, I call it "Terra Arco-íris", because I saw a gigantic rainbow on top of it in one of our visits.

 We don't have path to enter still, but we just turn into young David Attenboroughs ;-) - him in the forest.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of June, there was a big fire in Central Portugal, very close to us. We were lucky because the wind was on the opposite direction, but it was a devastating fire for the forest and a lot of people died. 

We have a plan in case of situations like this happen, but it made us think about all the pine trees and eucalipthus around us here. And how the forest is managed in Portugal. A sad situation that can't continue! A lot has been done by the local people, specially the foreigner community: planning and acting to change the forest situation in this area.

A lot of events happened here at the Quinta; we were either participants or in the service team, or leading the event. One of them was the Nature immersion Intensive. Raquel lead it and it was a success!

While these things were happening, our attention was never or very little in the Tiny house construction.

But, as you can see, soon, the last wall is going to be ready and the house is going to be transported for the land. Until then, we are going to receive new volunteers, prepare a Women's retreat, a weekend meditation retreat, the 6 week intensive and the 10 day retreat! With women and men's groups in the midle of it, we are going to have time only to support as we can Sr. Ângelo to open the path at the entrance of the land.

Our wish is to move to the Tiny House before the cold weather comes. Until then, we don't have expectations, we are happy living day by day and discovering the next step as we go.

Thank you Alex and Marco for the help! 

With love,

David&Raquel