Portuguese Construction (Part 2)

A few months ago, I made a post discussing how construction methods and customs are different here versus in the US.  Here are a few more examples and also some updates on additions/changes we've made to the Siesta apartment and to the current state of the under-construction San Pedro apartment.

SMOKE DETECTORS

Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors are not required in Portuguese houses and apartments.  They are readily available (we bought ours from Amazon Spain), however, so we installed smoke detectors throughout the Siesta apartment.  Because we do not use natural gas in the apartment, we did not install carbon monoxide detectors.  

WINDOW SCREENS

Screens for windows and sliding glass doors -- called mosquito screens here -- are not common in Portugal (or most of Europe).  Many homes (not ours) have window shutters, but those keep light out as well as bugs.  Screens, in fact, are so uncommon, that many windows and sliding glass doors -- like ours -- don't have slots or grooves into which screens can fit.  So screens must be custom fit and installed, which we had done.

Sliding screen for sliding glass door

Accordion-style screen for double French doors

OUTSIDE HANDHOLDS FOR SLIDING GLASS DOORS

In the main room of our apartment, there are two sets of double sliding glass doors.  These doors do not have handles on the outside to enable to you easily open or close them.  Instead, you need to grab onto the edges of the door or to the glass.  It doesn't make a lot of sense why there wouldn't be some sort of handholds or concave depressions so that your fingers could grip the door, so we had to make up a solution for ourselves.

There should be something to grab onto in the red circle

We used temporary plastic hooks as a solution (held by glue)

WINDOW COVERINGS

As this apartment was new and unoccupied, we needed to purchase and have installed window coverings.  We chose blackout drapes for the bedrooms and vertical blinds for the main room.

TERRACE UPGRADES

We have enjoyed our apartment's terrace, and Ryder particularly loves the pool.  But the view off the terrace isn't exactly the best.  We are near the two-lane highway which runs through Tavira, and we get a good view of it from the terrace.  And at night, we get an excellent, if somewhat remote, view of the Restaurante da Bairrada, which specializes in roast suckling pig.  They advertise that fact with not one, but two neon signs featuring a bright red pig! 

It reminded us of the Seinfeld episode which featured a Kenny Rogers Roasters sign outside of Kramer's window.

So what we decided to do was to mount some trellises that would mostly filter the view of the highway, while still allowing air movement to the terrace.  We still can see the neon pigs, but they are  much less noticeable.

The unobstructed view of the highway from our terrace

The trellises partially block the view of the highway. Note the fabric cover we put on the metal pergola, providing more shade.

UPDATE ON UNDER-CONSTRUCTION APARTMENT

Here is the latest video of the San Pedro apartment which is under construction.

About 50 seconds into this video, there is a view which we believe to be at the level of our ground floor apartment, looking out over the neighboring orchard.  It's interesting to see that much of the wall plaster is completed, and the developer (who we saw recently) tells us that windows will be going in shortly.  The schedule date of completion is still April 2024.

View from a ground floor San Pedro apartment