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Well, after twinkling a lot in this blog design I decided to designate this blog to the things I am doing at my house... building my house is a work in progress, and there's lot that has been done, things happening and lots to happen still.  Since we my husband and I decided to move to Brazil after his retirement in the US, and our desire was to retire to a simple life, with low maintenance and low cost, we have been working on this project with little money and not willing to stay in debt or finance huge amounts of money and be tied down by a mortgage.  I work from home and so the house had to be planned so to make it easy for that purpose, which has been a challenge on a low budget.  In the next posts I will be showing the things we did and how we did to accomplish what we have so far.  This blog will also be a journal of our progress with all the pictures of before and after.  The biggest challenge has been to juggle with time to do all I would like to do, besides the obvious economic restrains.
I hope my ideas, and all I have done may inspire others to make life simpler and bring pleasure as things are planned and executed.  One thing I've learned though, is that nothing we do in this life is free of challenges and some stressful situations.  The fun comes as we are able to overcome these challenges and the creative process involved in the project.  I am learning more and more to be able to create and imagine possible innovative solutions.
Also worth to note is that I am not one to enjoy the luxurious settings with lots of shinning things.  I love, love the feelings I enjoy by being close to nature and natural elements.  So most of what we've done is taking from the natural elements and ideas; I guess I am in a unconscious way drawn to the Green concept and recycling.

front of property and the unpaved street-begins at the neighbors brick wall

other end of property front

dividing line with neighbor's property

end of property at diving line with two neighbors

native Mata Atlântica forest on the other side of property's dividing line

native forest in the property

more forest

dividing line cleared for building the dividing wall (in Brazil it's a usual thing to have dividing walls-although I would much rather not have to have it)

this kind of bamboo is very invasive; it was taking over the native forest and killing it

worker clearing the area for a water well digging

another view of the back of the property

water well almost at level of finding water

water well almost finhished

this is the well being dug` ... at the lower part of the property

this is another kind of bamboo, much more resistant, large and decorative and I decided to keep it; the well is in front of it, in the clearing

all the little native trees were looking for the sun because the green bamboo was suffocating it; also the topography of the property can be seen... the landscape was hilly which had to be cut off!

Most of what we have used as of lately are materials and things we bought at demolition yards and such.   I find it brings into my life the idea of not being overly concerned with cleaning and tidying up a place which being the only woman in the family would drive me crazy.  Boys, small or big, are not into the cleaning thing; much less into taking actively the initiative of being tidy.  So things only stay tidy only for the moment soon after the task is finished... moments later we see things getting out of hand again.  Be it as it may, I decided not to be caught into this trap and become a nagger.    That would be a nightmare, and I am sure I am not much different than most people.