Hi there,
Since we painted the gate, another of the things we decided to do on our own, we noticed that one of the gates had become hard. When it started to get hot, there were times when you had to force it open because it was kind of stuck.
We thought it was because, having painted it, it now rubbed when closing and expanding with the sun, that is why it was so difficult to open it. Diego sanded where we thought the sticking point was, but the problem continued.
When it was cold it worked perfectly but when it was hot, the gate had to be pushed open.
On April 25 and 26, Andrea lent me her car to go hiking in the Senhora do Salto area. Those were two perfect days despite the fact that Luna, who had also come those two days, had not let us sleep either of the two nights.
On the 26th we returned at noon super happy because we had done a beautiful hiking trail and when we got home, the gate would not open. We spent about 20 minutes pushing and Diego even kicked it a couple of times. I finally gave it a push, and it opened.
We had left it open, but then when I was cleaning, I closed it.
In the afternoon we wanted to go to Leroy Merlin taking advantage of the fact that we had the car, then I had to go to the dentist and finally, at night we would deliver the car and Luna to Andrea.
In the afternoon, when we went out and I’m going to close the gate, I see that it doesn’t close, and that the door had moved almost 2 centimeters. One of the hinges had broken.
There despair invaded us because the gate was not going to be able to close until someone fixed it and the house could not be left alone. I wrote to my neighbor to see if by chance he could watch the house, but he didn’t reply; so, I stayed home and canceled the dentist’s appointment. Diego went with Luna to return the car and then Andrea brought him home.
I was fed up. Every time we took a breath and managed to distract ourselves from all the bad experiences we’d had so far, something happened.
While Diego was going to return the car, I went crazy looking for someone who could fix the gate as soon as possible.
I got into fixando and found the company Portas e Portões do Norte. Rui Almeida called me immediately and told me that he could come to fix it the next day at 11 in the morning and that the price was 80 euros plus VAT.
When Diego arrived at the house, he immediately told me that with all the experiences we had had, the guy would surely arrive the next day and make up some story to charge more or not to fix it.
That night we locked the gate with the bicycle chain.
Fourtunately the next morning the problem was solved.
As I saw that he worked well, I asked him for an estimate to install the bathroom door and to paint what was left of the house.
He gave me the budget to paint what was left of the house, and it was 1150 euros plus VAT and he would install the bathroom door for free. With VAT, it was almost 1500 euros.
I told him to install the bathroom door and change the lock on the post box (which we had to break since they didn’t give us the key when we bought the house). We paid 145 euros plus VAT.
Finishing painting the house was a great dilemma because, on the one hand, we wanted a professional to do it and avoid problems, but, on the other hand, paying almost 1,500 euros for so little hurt my soul.
We decided to try to paint ourselves what was left before we went on a trip. We bought a 4-meter extension handle and the weekend before the holidays, we started painting. There were 12 hours of work on Saturday and another 3 hours on Sunday to refine details.
We did it and we were proud.
Thus, 9 months later, we finished all the renovation works on the house.