Rustic Home Design in Portugal 3 … This post shows the final build of our rustic home design. The existing farmhouse, being over 200 years old, is now a restored Portuguese xisto stone and wood home.

Rustic Home Design in Portugal 3 – Here we show the living room and kitchen that are combined in an open floor plan with a mezzanine above. There are two sources of wood heating on this floor – one standard wood burner and another wood burning stove for cooking and central heating via water heated radiators. The feel of the wood and Portuguese xisto stone is open and refined casual. 

The master bathroom has a brand new xisto stone floor, with antique clawfoot bathtub, an open shower, and elements from the original building (the chestnut ladder, and shelves built from old wood beams). As you can see, the wall stones on the north wall are black from centuries of smoking meats – this was the old kitchen area from the original building.

The third, mezzanine floor consists of one master bedroom and one smaller child’s bedroom with interior windows, and skylights in the vaulted ceiling above. There is a wooden railing that lines the entire floor for safety, matching the railing below. A door could be placed between the two bedrooms in the stone wall for extra privacy, but in this case it wasn’t necessary.

There are 4 entrances to the building, on the West, South, and East sides, with the main entrance from the road entering directly into the open living area. The wood and stone stairs to the first floor are just inside this entrance. These chestnut wood doors are at least a century old, if not more, and have been completely restored.

The exterior of the house is kept simple and traditional, as it was when the house was originally built. The xisto stone, which was found beneath layers of lime covering, is unpointed. The chestnut lintels are restored and sealed from the weather. The roof is laid with modern Portuguese terra cotta tiles with a traditional edging which keeps the historic feel of the house. The windows have been replaced with traditional chestnut wood, with single paned, double-glazed windows facing the Western side of the house for extra insulation from cold winters. The interior shutters found in the original house may be replaced with exterior wooden shutters at a later time. Additionally, the chestnut wood doors have been restored or replaced.

The overall architectural design of this 200 year old home is rustic, yet comfortable. The pine wood floors, walls, and exposed chestnut beams give the home design a tactile, timeless feel, as if it could have been built a hundred years prior. The antique furniture found in the house before renovation have been restored, though some of the contemporary furniture pieces and appliances lend the space a modern, practicality. The combined result is modern rustic design similar to many American barn conversions.

Thanks for following our blog post, Rustic Home Design in Portugal 3, and the series on Rustic Home Designs in Portugal. We hope you found some inspiration for your own home projects. For other related blog posts, check out the following:

Rustic Home Design – Honoring our Ancestors’ Home Designs

The Converted Barn House

Rustic House Design in Portugal, part 2. Photos of our process of restoring an old house in the Serra do Açor mountains. The existing stone farmhouse was at least 200 years old when purchased, and was in need of a full makeover.

Part 2 of our Rustic House Design in Portugal blog series begins with this photo – the old farmhouse interior, which shows 6 relatively small rooms in the main section of the house, adjoining a central hallway. Most of the wood was rotting and had been eaten away by insects.

The old keys to the doors…

The first project was to gut the building – to take out everything including all the floors, the wood and plaster lathe walls and ceiling/roof, and removing the lime from the stone walls.

Fortunately many of the beams were still good, including some of the rafters, and they’ll be kept in place for the new roof. These chestnut beams and roof boards are at least 200 years old, so it wasn’t a surprise that many of them had been destroyed by powder-post beetles over the years and will need to be replaced.

This was the old kitchen after the walls had been knocked out. The stone walls were black, due to the tradition of smoking pork meat which hung from the ceiling, on an open fire with only a small window in the corner of the room for ventilation.

This photo shows the original xisto stone after the lime, or ‘cal,’ had been removed. Beautiful old xisto stonework that was mostly straight and plumb, and not needing much structural work.

The house, finally gutted except for the floors and roof, begins to show off its old xisto stone walls. These will need to be pointed with new lime.

While waiting for the construction crew to show up, we decided to go ahead with pouring the footings for the new stone patio on the second stone terrace, just downhill from the house.

Here is the house after most of the foundational construction work, painting, and stone pointing had been done. The electric lines and plumbing are now installed inside the xisto walls and wood and stone floors. The look is barebones and spacious, with everything ready for the interior woodwork to begin.

To see the final design, stay tuned for our third blog post installment of the Rustic House Design in Portugal…

To see more rustic house designs, go here:

Rustic Home Design – Honoring our Ancestors’ Home Designs

The Converted Barn House

Before and after photos of our Rustic Home Design in Portugal. The original building is located in the Serra do Açor mountains in the Central part of the country. The existing farmhouse is around 200 years old, with original xisto stone and chestnut lintels and beams intact.

The existing building, around 2 centuries old, sits on a hill in the Serra do Açor mountains, in a small village.

View from the back of the house into the valley below – a walnut tree forest dots the entire property which is sandwiched between to olive tree farms.

The new remodel design for the house includes an open floor plan, vaulted ceiling, and barn-style loft / mezzanine. All stone walls remain intact, with a new doorway in the mezzanine wall to the master bedroom. Rustic Home Design in Portugal –redesign and Renderings by DPS Design.

A second option for the home design includes a small bedroom located on the west side of the mezzanine. Five skylights will go on the roof.

The kitchen has been relocated to the other side of the stone wall, its original location, to become part of the open plan living area beneath the mezzanine. There will be a new wood stove / oven which will be more heat for the house in cold winters, in addition to a large wood stove located in the living room.

The master bathroom sits in the location of the former kitchen, using the entire space of this building section – a very spacious bathroom. Clawfoot tub, an antique sink cabinet, old-school elevated tank toilet, and shelves made from the existing chestnut wood found in the building.

The basement rooms where animals were once kept and wine stored, becomes a guest bedroom, sauna room, small bathroom, and laundry and storage room. Two of the stone walls are to be cut in half to create an access hallway for the rooms from inside the house. The remaining stone from the walls will be used in other areas of the building, including the new stone staircases.

The backyard now includes a curved stone patio with chestnut beam pergola.

Stay tuned for part two of this post, where we show actual photos of construction and the final house design….

To see more of our rustic home designs, check out these posts:

Rustic Home Design – Honoring our Ancestors’ Home Designs

The Converted Barn House