Author Topic: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!  (Read 41892 times)

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Offline incir

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2017, 10:52:38 AM »
Such a lovely read, thank you.  Exciting times for you & the house looks amazing.



Offline JohnF

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #21 on: October 04, 2017, 20:39:27 PM »
Well, what a busy few weeks this has been, I'm about four weeks behind here. Still coming up with so many parallels to Turkey, especially where bureaucracy  in concerned.

House buying day arrives and after a couple of hours in the notars office we emerged with the keys to our house.  A little bit of hanging around waiting for contracts to be amended a couple of times but largely we just chatted away to the two sisters who were selling the house on behalf of their elderly mother.  Got on well with them and agreed to give them access during the following week to finish clearing the property out.  We were just grateful that they were doing such a good job of it - there are a lot of rooms and every single one was full of junk and other crap.

R and D (our lawyer and his wife) had to scoot back to Cadiz straight away so off we toddled, keys in hand to see what we'd actually bought!

It doesnt matter how many times you view a property, you never take it all in.  In our case what we hadn't realised was the sheer scale of the place - it's fecking enourmous! 

Our bedroom is seven metres long by almost four metres wide.  The upstairs kitchen (excluding the pantry) is over five metres by four metres, very unusual in an old Jerezano house.  Several other bedrooms are five or six metres long by four metres wide.  Thank god they all have tiles, carpeting that lot would be a financial nightmare    :)  The roof terrace is thirteen metres by four, perfect for a kosk, a fidge and party!

Slightly stunned by what weve bought we headed off for lunch and returned about fiveish with pads, tape and laser measures.  Spent a few hours getting some basic dimensions and deciding what walls we were going to knock down.  All fun stuff.

Left about nine o'clock and headed off for a bite to eat and a well earned beer.  One thing led to another and, at one in the morning, we found ourselves drinking extremely large gins in a small place round the corner from our flat. 

Fast forward to eleven o'clock the next morning, my OH says "have you seen the bag with the house keys and tape measure etc?".  Errr... no, was my reply.  Can you believe it, we'd only had the keys for less than twelve hours and managed to lose them, probably due to several large Larios gins    :)  A quick confab and we worked out that we'd definitely had it at the gin place, but the only issue there is that it doesn't open until seven o'clock in the evening.  What a pair...

I popped round to see if someone was in, a cleaner or such like but no luck - however, looking through the window I could see our bag sitting on a table just inside the front door.

Huge sighs of relief all round and then at seven the walk of shame to retrieve our stuff...

We laugh about it now but it wasn't terribly funny at the time. 

Now the hard work begins.

Offline Rana

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #22 on: October 04, 2017, 21:11:19 PM »
Sounds fantastic John, i imagined every room. Now the fun begins! Exciting times ahead. Good Luck   :)

Offline Bluwise

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #23 on: October 04, 2017, 21:43:50 PM »
Really enjoying reading your updates - hoping for some more photos too please!

Offline BernieTeyze

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #24 on: October 05, 2017, 06:46:05 AM »
What ya knocking down walls for?  Made me chuckle about the keys. Is there a bar near the new place too, could be a long project  ;D

Offline JohnF

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #25 on: October 05, 2017, 12:15:47 PM »
Ok, a few images.

Turns out that the tiled image of a virgin we have at the top of the stairs is a pretty important person about these parts.



Couple of weeks ago we were sitting have a bite to eat and a drink in the cafe at the end of our road and I noticed the Policia removing cars parked on the main drag.  I then noticed signs on all the lamp posts saying no parking from 2pm until midnight, no explanation, just no parking.  A quick word with Pedro the waiter and it turned out that there was a parade scheduled for 6pm, in honour of the Virgin de la Merced and sure enough, just after 6pm it started.

Lots of bands, folks dressed up in their Sunday best and more dignitaries that you could wave a religious relic at.



We took a couple of videos but they're a bit shaky so here's the one from last year courtesy of YT:

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a969yEEL_AY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a969yEEL_AY</a>

It looks like there is a religious procession of some description every few weeks, which given the number of churches around here isn't surprising.  It all culminates in Santa Semana (holy week) when there are large processions virtually 24/7 throughout the town.  It's all pretty spectacular, lots of bands, lots of people, lots of noise and the town is completely full - accommodation all sold out and restaurants absolutely heaving. Our oldest daughter is coming out that week, I'm not sure she realises what she's letting herself in for!

from our perspective, its our target date for having the ground floor finished and rentable as apart from the Moto GP, that is the prime week for rented accommodation.

Going back to the Christmas tree tiles (just for you B), this is one of the courtyards within the Iglesia de San Miguel and I think they look pretty good:



These are some other tiles we have, hand finished and in the region of one hundred years old, they line our entry vestibule and hall way into the central patio:



Unfortunately they are in pretty poor condition overall, this is one of the better bits.  We'll salvage what we can as we may be able to use them somewhere else but I doubt we'll recover that much.  Such a shame as they are beautiful - the image doesn't really do them justice.

Its a common theme throughout the building in respect of recycling materials etc, most are in such bad condition we've no option other than to renew as opposed to repair.  Its a pity, but we need to apply the common sense rule quite rigidly else we'd end up with a constantly increasing budget.

More later...

JF

Offline mary62

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #26 on: October 05, 2017, 13:19:00 PM »
Thanks for the update John....or should I say Juan.
Keep them coming.

Offline jondo

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #27 on: October 05, 2017, 14:09:03 PM »
A great post to read and to follow....

Offline BernieTeyze

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #28 on: October 05, 2017, 14:13:16 PM »
Well the  Iglesia de San Miguel can keep his christmas trees, and I agree whole heartedly with the other ones they are beautiful. I do hope that you manage to salvage loads of them. The one at the top of your stairs is very lovely too. Dont they have reclaim sites there or is it just going to be more and more expensive.

Good to know the tourist thing is constant if its your intention to rent out a room or two. Good Luck, steer clear of Christmas Trees, however much of a bargain they are! BT

Offline JohnF

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Re: But Daaaad, you said you weren't going to buy another "project"!
« Reply #29 on: October 05, 2017, 15:51:42 PM »
Not reclaim places as there is in the UK, the Spaniards don't have the same feelings about that kinda stuff. We'd love to have those ones throughout but so far haven't been able to match them, at an affordable price that is.

We've a famous old tabanco 30m from our front door, and another about 100m away that has been a favourite of ours since the first time we visited Jerez. Both are cheap as you can get and have live music several nights a week.  So no shortage of watering holes nearby.  They also serve another purpose as the water is still disconnected at our place...

JF





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