This Bulgarian Project Might Change Everything | Life in Bulgaria

We didn't realise how much this project would affect our life. We've bought this abandoned house in rural Bulgaria and we're transforming it room by room. We're a family of five, we started this project to improve our life here in Bulgaria. But not even halfway through, we've realised it might change everything. But here's the thing, we're not builders. And because we're learning as we go, sometimes mistakes can be costly. On paper, this could be disastrous. If you watched the last episode, you'll notice that part of the house is falling away from the main property. So today, this room is a priority. We chose this life for more freedom to live our life at our own pace and to grow our own food. This stuff is very, very good for planting. Homesteading takes a lot of dedication. But will we learn enough by the time the weather breaks to start planting the seeds? We're in a new country trying to learn a new culture and language. This is a slow process and this will slow down the renovations. With everything we have to learn, we're questioning ourselves daily whether this new life is sustainable. Because it's so cold, the poo is literally stiff. Nice. Put it in the poo pile. All of these branches we're going to use on our raised bed. Let's take this down. We're going to use this. And I figured it's probably best to keep the mud around here because we're going to be planting around here. That should be quite good. I'm going to grab that plastic bag. We don't want it to get blown away in the wind. Definitely don't want that. Okay, brilliant. So let me go and grab Chris and see what we're going to do now. So I'm just going to put a loop in here so it's not pulling out as much as the last time. And I've got to make sure this works. Should have got a slight small screwdriver. It's not been so difficult this time. It's been fine the first time. I've got this glue gun and I'm going to glue this around here. I'm going to use this but we'll see in the future if I can take it off. Right, so I'm going to get the glue gun. These glue guns are brilliant. You can do a lot with these. I'll tidy it up later. Right, that's done. Got some rope we bought down at the hardware store. I'm going to unravel this. I glued a little bit there and a little bit there. Lock it in place. And now I'm just going to keep rotating it and glue it a bit more. And I'm sure you can understand what I'll be doing. I've never done this before. I've done a lot of Star Park. I've never done this rope work. It's currently, I think, minus 8 or minus 7. It was definitely minus 8 last night. I think I'm going to end that here. So I want to use the rope to be the support for the actual lampshade. Yeah, maybe I can just go around a bit more. And then finish it off level on the top. I think that's about level. Not too tight. Wow, what do you think guys? I think the lampshade. Right, that's another job done. Lampshade already. Elaine hasn't seen it working yet, so I'm going to put it where it needs to be. And then we'll take some pictures of it. But I think it looks great. Right guys, here's the finished product. We've done a nice rope thing there. That's our ship. And then this is the finished article. Our house is falling away from the main property. We've realised that this problem might be bigger than we thought. Oh, it looks like it's got wood up there. I don't know. So it's going to be, I don't know. I think I should leave this until I've got a feeling. Yeah, hang on. Let me see what's up there. Is it wood? No, it's concrete. Every decision we make whilst renovating this house has a massive effect on what we do next. We've got to make this work. There's simply no other option. Wooden panel from this side. As you can see, we've got some wood timbers there. Some brick. And this is above, this is not the actual wall. And then there's some brick on that side. And you can see there's a lot of the plaster that's come out. So I need to clean as best I can without, again, creating more work for myself. So I'm not going to go too mad. I've dug out all the other bits, which is down there. I've dug out all these bits there. So now I'm just going to give it a skim, give it a fill on this side to try it out. Use what I've got, cement I've got, and then see how it looks. Part of our reasons for homesteading is independence and growing our own food. We have researched different methods of growing and raised beds seem to be one of the best options to suit the harsh Bulgarian environment. It's easy to manage and we have complete control over our soil mix. The soil also stays warmer and will have improved drainage. Having raised beds allows us to change what we grow easily year after year. Well, these are just a few reasons for our choice of using raised beds. Let me go and get the wood to make the raised boxes. I don't know how this little thing is so good. It's brilliant. You can get into little corners with it. Yeah, but that's too big. Normally I've got an extension. I don't know where it is. It's somewhere. I found it in the middle. Hold this for me, will you? I need to hold this. The jaw's a bit too big to get down. I need to... I haven't tried this in months. No. We finished the box just in time as the sun's about to go down. It's lovely weather today. Getting a little bit cloudy, but still. Okay, so we're going to get these raised boxes into the garden and get it prepared to start planting. We're going to make this area a growing area, no? Yeah, but probably not for that. I was going to think of just doing beds in there. And then we can tarpaul it over. Our first raised bed on the homestead. Our idea is that we're going to put it in that area over there. Once we clear it. Yep. And we're going to start growing, at first, some garlic, spring onions and probably spinach. Okay. Because those are, you know, a good kind of first growth to get into the boxes. And because it's winter in Bulgaria, they will be okay in the box. Lovely. How long does it take to make? About an hour. About an hour. So you're talking about an hour each box, roughly. Yeah. So that's my first time making one of these boxes. So I'm sure you guys can do a lot quicker. And it's freezing. And I've got the right tools. I've got tools I need. So I'm just using what I've got at the moment. On to the next job. We've got a few more things that we've got to finish off. As you guys saw, we started off the transformation of that small space in the homestead. And we've got, there was a little area there that kind of caught us off guard. We didn't realise that we needed a bit more tools, a bit more material to get it finished. I don't know. Probably not. No, we've got a lot to do. And it's freezing cold. Yeah. Yeah, it's freezing cold now. It was lovelier today. The sun's starting to go down and now it's getting really, really cold. Let's get on and finish off the rest of the work in the house. Right, I had to get a drink and a Bulgarian biscuit, whatever that is. I don't know the name of it. Pretty? The plan is to start mixing the cement and then apply it to the cracks. You can see the wall behind me. It's taking a while to dry. Yeah, it's drying, but there's some parts of it which I've had to fill deeper than others. And I think most of the areas which are not dry at the moment. While that's doing that, I might as well go on this side. We've stripped back the old plaster from the cracks and we're reinforcing it with new cement. Afterwards, we're going outside the building to reinforce the structure with girders that will be cemented to add stability. Once this process is complete, we'll insulate and redecorate. Any ideas on the design? Drop it in the comments below. They've probably got people dedicated to that. You'd like to think that they have people dedicated to do that, but... Not in my company anyway. You work at work like slaves. They may be troubled ahead. That's when there's music and lovin'. No? Join us next time as we finish the reinforcement to the building that's been falling away. We knock down the outside building that was unsafe and we start clearing one of the worst rooms in the house.