Vila Nicolina in Águas da Prata

When we first arrived in Águas da Prata we came across this vila for rent. We looked it over and immediately started to discuss renting with the then owner. However, the owner decided to stay in the house rather than move to another city as she was quite ill and fragile.

Subsequently she died and the new owners began a marvelous reconstruction/renovation of the Vila Nicolina. A few years later we rented a house across the corner from Vila Nicolina.

This blog is the story of that reconstruction, step by step, in photos.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Resurfacing outer walls

The removal of the wall covering begins on the north wall.

After the old covering is removed they parge the wall.

This fellow is watering the wall on the verandah prior to parging it.

The front wall is all parged.

Next project . . they removed all the old style windows.

The finishing touches begin on the north wall.

The south wall is all cleaned off.

The south wall looking east.

The back wall (west) is all parged. Notice the two large aircondioning pipes.

Photos by Urso Branco

Saturday, March 28, 2009

More Renovations

One day I heard the workmen working on the roof. I went out to look at the Vila and they were installing solar water heating panels.

The next project was to brick in the front window.

From the inside you can see they have left a narrow L shaped window on the side.

They have now removed the ornate sections between rooms and replaced them with gentle curves.

The front steps have been removed and a drip pipe for the airconditioning system has been installed.

The front steps were rebuilt with more and longer steps.

The steps have a shorter rise making it easier to walk down them.

Now the front window has been completely closed in.

The workman are removing the wall covering on the south side.

Inside views of ongoing work.

Photos by Urso Branco

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Changing The Vila - Renovations

Renovations are being done both indoors and outdoors.

The Owners decided to replace the old style columns on the verandah.

Here the workmen are removing the old circular columns.

They hammered away at the old masonry and erected supports for the roof while replacing the columns.

They replaced the circular columns with rectangular ones. They also took the ornate curves out of the overhead. Here you can see the many temporary roof supports.

Here are the first columnrs they replaced by the front door.

As they started to replace the columns the new ones were encased in wood to hold the cement. See the middle column here.

They constantly hammered and chipped away at the old columns.

They removed the support for the columns down to the base.

Here is what the finished new columns look like at the front of the hoiuse.

Here are the columns at the side of the house. Noticed the gentle curve between columns instead of the ornate curves of the old system.

The work inside the house is very extensive. Every room is being remodeled.

The basic electrical wiring is being renewed also.

The work is ongoing for quite a while.

Here you can see the plastic under the roofing tiles.

All the walls are being resurfaced.

There is remodeling in every room.

As the work progresses there will be more photos in more posts.

Photos by Urso Branco

Making a new sidewalk

The first thing they did was to "Build the Sidewalk". They cleaned out the old sidewalk, leveled the ground and then, square by square, using moulds they cast the sidewalk. They chose not to use tiles but rather to use concrete. They also started working on the Wall at the same time. See the posts about the Wall.

This is the sidewalk along the north side.D

This is the "front" sidewalk along the east side.

Later they planted trees.

In the spring the trees began to bloom.

This was just the start of the gardening. See more trees and flowers in the posts about the Grounds.

Photos by Urso Branco

The Wall - Tearing down the old

Now they could tear down the old wall and clean out the gardens. There was a shed against the back wall. That was also removed.

It took a long time to clean up the old mess.

They had gardens here but they were also removed.

They started to rebuild the wall while still cleaning out the trash.

The first step on the wall, because they removed the shed, was to make the wall stronger.

Even the low walls around the vila were rebuilt.

This whole project was a long project started in Aug 2007 and still there is a long way to go.

Photos by Urso Branco

The Wall - Building the new

In Brasil they love to build walls. Some walls show property lines and others, like this one are built for privacy. Here the crew of two start to double the thickness of the wall and then start to go higher. Unbelievably high!

This wall was originally braced by a large shed at the base. They tore it down and had to reinforce the wall so they made it twice as thick with new vertical supports as can be seen here.

Then they started to build up from this point.

They went higher and higher. The question became "How high would the go?"

They went so high they had to put vertical bracing higher.

Then they parged the walls.

Here the guy parges the lower wall.

He puts a real good coat of cement and bonding agent on the wall.

They capped off the big wall and continued to parge it.

They had to keep it wet until they parged it all.

Here you see one of the workers parging the back side of the wall.

With the big walls done they started on the low perimeter walls. They tore down the old walls first.

The low perimeter walls are all removed.

Now they have started to rebuild the low perimeter walls.

They also built a new concrete power service pole and entrance way.

Work continues on finishing the perimeter walls.

These perimeter walls went higher than the originals to provide privacy in the back yard.

They built a new gateway as seen from inside the wall.

These walls have now been parged.

Perging was completed inside the perimeter walls.

Now the walls are almost completed.

They continued to build walls to completely enclose the back yard.. Now will they paint or tile the finished project? Time will tell.

Photos by Urso Branco

The Roof - The new tiles arrive

The owners decided to put new tile on the roof instead of cleaning the old. This was a very large job that took more than a month to complete.

The first step was the arrival of a large truck with 4000 tiles for the roof.

The unloading of the tiles is a time consuming manual job. They began stacking the tiles on the sidewalk in front of the house.

The driver would pass 4 tiles at a time to the two stackers.

It seemed to be an endless task!

The stacke on the ground got higher and higher as well as longer.

They started to run out of room.

Eventually the pile was so big they had to start stacking tiles on the north side.

Now both stacks were big.

The truck went by our veranda with about 500 tiles. That means they only left 3500 at the Vila.

Later they ran out of tiles and had to bring back about 500 to finish the job.

Photos by Urso Branco

The Roof - Moving the new tiles onto the Property

The next day a new crew arrived and moved the stacks of tiles inside the property getting ready to install the new roof.

Like the unloadig from the truck this was all done by hand with a crew of several men.

They moved the tiles 4 at a time until the piles were finished outside the property.

The tiles were now neatly stacked beside the front an side of the house.

Now they are placed easy for the roof builders.

Now everything is ready to start rebuilding the roof.

Photos by Urso Branco

The Roof - Building the roof

They began to work on the roof over the Living Room. First they removed the old tiles then they inspected the wood to see what had to be replaced.

See how they slide the old tiles down a board so they don't break. That way they may be reused.

The first section is completed and now they work on the section over the verandah.

Now they also start the side roof.

They removed all the front roof and checked the wood.

Next they lay a layer of heavy industrial grade plastic sheet to prevent water leakage.

Here several men work on the side roof.

They have already finished the back roof and continue with the side roof.

They were running out of tiles.

They managed to finish most of the back sides of the roof.

The weather was good all the time they were building the roof.

But they finally ran out of tiles and had to get back the 500 they had returned to the factory.

They kept working hard installing the plastic.

But this final section lay open for almost a week.

The extra tiles arrive.

Now they could finish the last section before any rain fell. The next day it poured rain.

These guys are finishing the trim.

But the troughs are not completed.

This guy is working on the peaks.

Most of the job is done but they leave some of the trim to be completed later.

There will be more photos when everything is finally done.

Photos by Urso Branco

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Roof - Putting on the finishing touches

They began work on the roof on Dec 1, 2008. Now they put the finishing touches on the roof in February, 2009.

They are putting on eaves troughs and finishing the edges of the roof.

They had a lot of scraps left over.

Front eaves.

Closeup of large eaves troughs.

These large eaves troughs will carry off a large amount of rain.

Here is the finished roof. It looks lovely!

Photos by Urso Branco