On 31st December 2021, we completed on a very exciting project; buying land in Spain.
While we love a bit of renovating, it’s has always been Darrens dream to build his own home, and so, when the opportunity to buy some land in Pego came up, we jumped at the chance. OK, well, not quite that fast. We didn’t have the pennies when we first saw it on the market in 2019. But, after selling our 10th renovation project we were finally in a position to do so, and only a week after agreeing to buy the land, it was ours!
After getting the land, we spent almost four years designing our dream home, and getting it through the local town hall planning (much unlike the new homes that are popping up around us, which seem to lack the official stamp of legality!) There were, obviously, a few hurdles to getting the sign off, mainly centred around the proximity to a river and trees.
At end 2024, our home was finally granted planning permission, and we were handed our final drawings. We spent a few months getting quotes for the initial structural works, and in early 2025, we instructed a local firm to start the construction works for us. They began earlier than initially scheduled, in May 2025.
The structure was completed in the Summer of last year; and we’re in awe of our builders who worked through the hottest days of the year, to build the base of our home, in somewhat super quick time.
From now on in, Team Metcalfe have taken over, with the help of my stepdad on the tools, and with copious tea and snack deliveries from my Mum. We’re going to be doing 99% of the works from now on. That includes, the brick work, the rendering, the roof, the windows and doors, the internal walls and insulation, the electrics, the plumbing, the heating and air conditioning, the flooring, installing the kitchen and three bathrooms, and a septic tank. We’ll be doing all the painting, decorating, upholstery and interior design. And then, when the house is done, we’ll begin on the garden and build a pool, hand make some metal gates and plant some trees, plants and flowers.
After renovating so many properties over the past two decades, we hope we’ve learned enough skills and made enough mistakes already to know what we need to do. We’re hoping that building new will be easier than fixing and replacing or restoring the old.
We’re also hoping that the build will not drag on for so long. Remember back in 2016 when we bought a holiday home in Spain, which we planned to have finished in a year… In the end it took nine and a half years! And Brambridge House? That project took five years, before we sold it to move to yet another derelict home!
We’ve just sold our town house to fund this build, so in true Metcalfe fashion we’re moving out of a nicely renovated home and into a building site. Only this time, it really is a building site.
In the coming weeks and months I’ll be up dating the blog with each of the milestones we’ve reached so far in this home build journey, and be recording the highs and lows of the adventure so that we can look back on this project which we are so excited to be undertaking.
If you’re new to the blog, do have a look back through our back story. Since 2008 we’ve renovated and restored everything from small flats and family homes, to a thatched cottage and apartments in an 18th century Grade II* listed Manor House. We’ve moved from a bit of DIY on our first home renovation, through developing the skills for restoring completely derelict homes by giving it a go.
We’ve reinstated the @metcalfemakeovers instagram page, so if you want to keep up to date in real time, give us a follow.
