The Marble Mansion

We think you'll have a great time with us! Estremoz is a beautiful marble-covered market town, with loads of great restaurants and wineries. There are always cultural events happening, and living in the town centre makes everything walkable, including supermarkets, etc. It's only a 5-minute walk to get out into nature too, into vineyards and away from it all. For exploration we're an easy 1.5hr drive or bus from Lisbon, and the region's capital Évora is 35m away.

We really appreciate you coming to help us with our renovation projects, within our house and property projects in town. We're asking for help with building works up to whatever level you are confident to undertake with our training, like wall prep, moving rubble or furniture restoration, and up to jet washing, using power tools, etc. We have personally completed several renovations in the past, in the UK and Portugal.

We will teach you a lot about building works and renovating old houses, and look forward to a cultural exchange as well - whether it's food, language or anything else. :-) We speak intermediate Portuguese and Spanish. We also love talking about starting and development businesses, and we have worked for many years as consultants too.

We believe our housing offering is pretty unique: you'll be staying on the ground floor of the mansion we are renovating. You will have a big 200m2 suite to yourselves - a bedroom, bathroom and 42m2 living room / dining room. You may be sharing the bathroom with 1-2 other volunteers, or if you are the only person with us then it's all yours :-) It's quirky but spacious and comfortable. Shared spaces include a 23m2 well-stocked kitchen and a large 50m2 patio dedicated only for your use and hanging laundry. Fibre internet tested at 300mbps.

We are a UK-US couple who moved here 6 years ago, and love meeting new people and learning new things! After living in London for several years doing a mix of renovations and environmental & business consulting, we moved to Madrid where we set up an English language school which we ran for 2 years (whilst continuing consulting). The travel bug then hit and we decided to travel permanently. We "slow travelled" for 4.5 years and visited 30+ countries, before eventually deciding to put down roots in Portugal in 2020.

In Portugal, we have focused on renovating abandoned properties and bringing them back to life. Our main project now is our house which was an abandoned mansion. It's now liveable but the top floor we are renovating first. We also maintain the projects we've finished over the past few years - there is always something that needs attention!

We are also horse-mad and love tea, and of course all things travel! We are flexible and so if you would like to complete more hours in fewer days, to explore more, that's fine too. Overall we value communication and appreciate you coming to lend a hand, we in return naturally look for guests who respect their accommodations and the shared house. We are happy to train, and are open to questions and discussions on the work and how best it's completed. The only thing we insist upon is health and safety!

We have wonderful Portuguese and international friends in Estremoz and the surrounding area, who will add to your community here. We look forward to meeting you!