About

We are two people, not a company and not a brand. We came to Sal for the first time in 2003 having barely heard of it, bought there the same year, and have kept a foot on the island ever since. In 2022 we sold the apartment we had in Santa Maria, bought a plot in the north above the working port at Palmeira, and started building the house we intend to stay in. We moved into the first floor in May 2024, and we have been living on our own building site ever since.

This site is the record of that build: what it takes, what went wrong, and what we learned — written as it happened, not tidied up afterwards.

We write it anonymously, and there is a reason for it. We still live here and we still deal with some of the trades, in a place where everyone knows everyone. An honest account of a build is a great deal easier to write when it does not also have to be diplomatic.

What we say about money, and what we don't

Most accounts of building abroad go quiet exactly where it matters — the money. We don't go quiet, but we don't publish our invoices either. What you will find here are ranges from our own build, tied to the years the work was actually done, along with the things that catch people out: what gets paid for twice, what was agreed and never honoured, and where the money goes that nobody warns you about.

Exact figures would not help you much in any case. One plot, one specification, one set of contractors — quote our total and you would be planning against the wrong number. And costs only ever seem to move one way: we have seen rises of between a third and a half on what we first budgeted, much of it driven by the shortages that followed the pandemic. A dated range you can adjust for yourself is worth more than a total that was only ever true for us.

The house next door

The house next door came on the market in the same month we moved into our first floor. We had been building since 2023 towards a quiet life above the port, and it was suddenly possible that the house beside us would become a business that made that impossible. We bought it — less because we wanted another house than because we could not risk the alternative.

It is let now for private events, which was a deliberate choice rather than the obvious one. A few events a month disturbs far less than the constant turnover of short-stay guests. Having bought the place to keep the peace, we were not going to fill it with new arrivals every few days.

Where to start

If you are weighing up buying here, start with whether you need a lawyer. We did our own legal work the first time and got lucky; the second time we paid someone.

If you would rather take the build in order, the diary starts at the beginning. And if Cape Verde itself is the unknown, there is an introduction to the islands.

Questions

If something here raised a question, ask it. We answer what we can from our own experience — contact us.