Learn About Us and Our Spanish Farm Restoration

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If you are coming here for the first time, welcome! In this article you will learn about us and our Spanish farm restoration project.

Our farm features a 300-year-old stone house that we aim to transform into our off-grid home. We are documenting the entire restoration process as two newbies learning along the way.

If you want to follow our journey during the restoration of our Spanish farm and the historic 300-year-old stone house, subscribe to our Youtube channel.

The Project

It is a big restoration project as the Spanish farm has been abandoned for over 100 years.

The is no access road to the finca;
The bush took over all the terraces;
The stone house is in ruins;
Some of the walls are collapsing;
The rainwater cistern has cracks;
The well is full of mud and silt;

There is a lot that needs to be done before going off grid and living in the Finca.

It is not a very big property. The total surface is over 11,000m2 (about 3 acres), formed by stone wall terraces.

There are about 103 trees planted on the stone wall terraces. 63 of them are mature olive trees.

Before we can harvest the olives and produce olive oil, we need to prune the trees. We have no experience on that.

Protected area

The Finca is located within a national park. It’s a protected area and there are a some of restrictions on what can be built or restored.

The place is rustic, wild, beautiful and surrounded by mountains.

On the documentarion the stone house has a total of 108m2. Unfortunately about half of the house collapsed.

The half that is still standing is made up of 2 floors with 59m2 in total. The lower part was used a corral and the upper part was used as living space.

Due to the stone house being in a protected area, we need to follow the building legislation.

We are only allowed to restore the part of the house that is still standing with walls and roof.

The legislation says:

If we dont have a stone house to be restored, than cannot build anything else on the Finca.

Cistern and Well

As we don’t have running water, we need to build the off grid water system for our Finca.

The rainwater cistern has cracks and the well needs to be restored and cleaned before the water can be used.

To get water, we need to drive to the village, buy water from the machine and then transport it back to the Finca.

This is a big restoration project that will require a lot of planning and a lot of financial, physical and emotional support.

The Plans

Our plans for the future of this project is to carry out the restoration debt-free no matter how long it takes.

Our major milestone is to get the 300-year-old stone house restored.

For that we will need an architect and a stone mason.

Once the stone house is restored we will move to the Finca and continue the restoration projects from there.

We are intended to:

Restore the stone house using natural materials such as lime cement;

Build a robust solar powered system to meet our electricity needs.

Use starlink as internet provider, so we can work online from the Finca.

Build a water system and rainwater collection system on the Finca.

Use composting system toilets; (There may be a flushing toilet for Agnes)

Since 2013 we become vegetarians.

So, we are going to build a vegetable garden to plant and harvest some of the food we eat.

In this restoration project we are planning to follow the principles of permaculture.

Restoration

We had to make some changes to the initial plan.

As the stone house is located on a protected area, there are restrictions on what can be built.

The generalitat does not allow building a new house, and we cannot do the restoration without the building permit;

So the solution is to apply for a building permit before doing anything else, as this will take some time to get approved.

There is good news.

In January 2024, the generalitat updated some of the legislation that prohibited construction or restoration on rural land.

Before, we could only do a partial restoration. We could only restore the part of the house that has walls and roof.

Now, we can do a complete restoration. This includes restoring the whole part of the house that is in ruins.

That is fantastic news.

Even with these changes, the challenges remain the same.

The Generalitat does not allow us to restore the structural part of the house ourselves. The work needs to be done by professionals.

So, the plan is:

Hire the architect and the stone mason, who have experience in this type of restoration work, both local.

Let them build the entire structural part, including concrete frame, walls, windows, roof, and electricity.

Once the structural part is ready, we will move to the Finca and do the interior finishing ourselves.

The Money

We are intend to carry out this restoration project debt-free (Without loans or mortgates). For this reason we will need to work and make the money.

In addition to the cost of the architect and stone mason, we will also have the cost of building materials such as lime cement, stones and wood.

Would you like to help is build our home?

Our finantial plan was:

To live in the UK for 9 months, work and make money. Then move to Spain for 3 months to carry out the projects.

We were planning to do this for the next 2 or 3 years.

This plan has now changed.

In February 2024 we made the decision to move permanently to Spain and work from here.

This decision to move to Spain has changed many things.

Although, things are more difficult financially, this does not change our willingness to do whatever it takes to complete this restoration project.

About Us

I’m Ricardo dos Santos. I’m 45 years old. I was born in Brazil and I became British in 2013.

By the Brexit agreement I got the “Permisso de Residencia” to live in Spain legally.

My wife Agnes dos Santos is 48 years old. She was born in Poland and became British in 2011.

Because she has a Polish nationality, she can live in Spain without problems.

We’ve been married since 2007.

We don’t have children, but we have Kala, our beloved dog. She is 15 years old, and she is a Havanese.

In 2020 the world turned upside down.

Those events and nonsense restrictions (you know what I am talking about) kind of scared us, and got us thinking deeply about the future.

Decision

At the time, we decided to sell our house in the UK, pay off the mortgage and debts. And with the money left over, we would buy a piece of land in Spain.

At first, we had no idea where to start our search. It was astrocartography that helped us find the best property in the best location.

As we no longer had a fixed address in the UK, this made it easier to research and find the right Finca to start the Eridu Life project.

The money left over after paying off the mortgate and debts was enough to buy the Finca and sort out all the paperwork, but it is not enough to carry on the restoration project.

For this reason we needed to go back to the UK to work.

I am a professional driver, I drive trucks. I like what I do because it gives me the flexibility to live in the UK and in Spain.

Agnes is a therapist, coach and writer. She likes what she does because she has the flexibility to work online from anywhere.

I have worked online in the past.

I will go back to working online to help Agnes with her project, and I will also work to grow the Eridu Life project.

That way, I can support myself.

The Future

Nothing went as planned.

Instead of spending the next 2-3 years in the UK for 9 months and Spain for 3 months, we moved to Spain in February 2024.

This has made our financial situation more complicated as we need to make money to carry out the restoration projects at the finca debt-free.

We will make it. I am sure of that.

The Content

We’re not professionals and have no experience in construction, carpentry, plumbing, electricity or agriculture.

We are learning as we go along.

To do anything on the Finca, we have to do a lot of research before being able to execute the projects.

So instead of sharing “how to” kind of content, we’re going to share “how is going” kind of content.

Everything is new for us, so be patient.

As we execute the projects, we will create the content. When there will be a problem, we will ask for help and advice.

That way we will share the challenges, the struggle, the mistakes and the learnings.

Seasons

To make things interesting, we are going to divide the content into seasons, something like Netflix.

Each season will run on a different year with specific projects and priorities.

For example:

The first season will be about clearing the land, building the water system, etc.

The second season will be about the getting a caravan, upgrading the water system, etc

And so on.

We are doing this project as a family. From time to time you will see Agnes and Kala in the videos helping or giving moral support.

Project Updates

The Eridu Life is a big project that will take a long time to complete.

To keep you updated, I created an article called our abandoned farm in Spain.

There I will share all the updates, on a month by month basis. Check it out!

Conclusion

This article was intended to be an introduction about us and about our Spanish farm restoration project. Also to show you that we’re two newbies learning along the way.

If you liked this article and want to follow the updates on the various projects we are doing at our Spanish farm, consider subscribing to our Youtube channel.

That’s it for this article. Did you like it?

Leave your comment or suggestion below. I love responding to all comments and I always do it personally.

Talk to you soon 🙂

P.S. If you would like to help us build our dream home, you can do it here. Or if you would like to help us continue recording videos, you can do it here. Either way, your support is very much appreciated.