Late Late Late

Apostille

We needed a power of attorney document (signed in a notary) and we were introduced to the concept of Apostille... To have a power of attorney document being accepted in Portugal it has to have this certification issued by a governing body to assure that the notary is verified and that the process is carried by the standards in the Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961.

Some changes - 3D

We have been considering some non-structural changes. One of our main concerns is the natural light that will go to all the rooms in the basement, particularly the office next to the pool.

We have decided to explore the possibility of increasing the size of the grid that allows natural light to go in the office/toilet/laundry room. The first 2 pictures illustrate the before and after with the increasing of the grid. Upside clearly more light getting into the office, downside is the fact that the grid is a lot bigger and pushes the stairs to the side wall, not allowing us to have trees next to the house entry.

BEFORE

AFTER

INSIDE THE OFFICE VIEW

Another change we have been pushing for is the leveling of the outside area in the back of the house. The initial design had different levels that were not what we wanted. With the leveling we are able to put the glass guards for the museum/gym on the floor allowing not only more natural light to enter level -1, but also making it a lot nicer area as a whole.

BEFORE

AFTER

INSIDE MUSEUM

Geo Study results

We have received the Geo Study results today and the news are not the best. It's now confirmed that the foundations will have to be excavated at least 3.4 meters more to make sure we get to good soil. Hoping that there are no major impact on the cost front.

More pictures taken by the engineers from Geoalgar that conducted the study.

Sun "journey"

Continuing on the topic of light, here is the projected "sun journey" for the house. Sun rises on the right side of the first video.

Outside view:

Living room view:

Skylights - natural light

We really value sun light and we do have some areas that will not have windows. With this in mind we decided to include skylights to allow for some natural light to get into those rooms. We have in the project 3 skylights:
- walking closet (yellow)
- toilet in our master bedroom (red)
- Kika's toilet (green)