We’re Expecting Baby No. 2 While Renovating Our Abandoned Farmhouse in Japan

Name: We’re Expecting Baby No. 2 While Renovating Our Abandoned Farmhouse in Japan
Uploaded: 2026-10-04T12:05:12+00:00
Duration: 32 min 26 s
Channel: Lloyd & Mandy

00:00We're Lloyd and Mandy, and after four and a half years, traveling the world, searching for summer to call our

00:06forever home, we finally found it.

00:09A $22,000 abandoned farmhouse in rural Japan.

00:13We've been keeping a little bit of a secret for the last two months or more.

00:19Two months.

00:21Naively, we didn't think there would be so much to do, so little time, and also so many decisions to

00:26make.

00:27It's getting to be pretty hard.

00:30I should have stuck to travel blogging.

00:33It's honestly not looking promising already.

00:36Dang it.

00:37I'm going to go have to buy new stain, I think.

00:40Our aim, really, over the next few weeks is to get this bathroom finished.

00:44Hot water, insulation, everything working, and the living room done so that we can move back in and enjoy it

00:50here over autumn and winter when it starts to get cold.

00:54It's still going to be like a rough textured wall, but it's not going to have the sandy look to

00:58it.

00:58It's going to be very labor-intensive, but I think it'll be worth it.

01:02We're in Toys R Us here looking for a birthday present for Lila.

01:07The shop's insane.

01:15That's all coming up right now on Lloyd and Mandy.

01:23Both of us do it.

01:27We've been keeping a little bit of a secret for the last two months or more.

01:32More than two months.

01:36Three months?

01:38Yes.

01:38Do you want to tell?

01:43We're expecting baby number two in the spring.

01:48In the spring?

01:49Yeah.

01:50We're obviously waiting for the right time to announce this, but it's getting pretty hard for Mandy to hide it

01:57anymore.

01:58Yeah.

02:00She's done a pretty good job so far.

02:01She's done amazing being able to show up and help with the renovations as well as looking after Lila and

02:08traveling and everything.

02:10Can't imagine it's been that easy.

02:12No.

02:14I'll just say no, it hasn't been easy, but I'm grateful to be doing it for us to have a

02:19home to work on and all these things to be busy.

02:22But yeah, it has been quite a challenge and Lloyd's been amazing though, very helpful and just keeping busy, looking

02:28after Lila as well.

02:29So yeah, we'll have one extra character or what do you say?

02:38One more addition to the family and to the channel, I suppose.

02:42Yeah, this is an extra layer of, what would you call it?

02:48Not stress.

02:50Just difficulty or challenge, but it's worth it.

02:54It's always worth it.

02:55Yeah, the timing for us is actually pretty cool.

02:58Like we just bought this house, so we have somewhere to turn into a home and as our family expands,

03:04I think the timing's excellent.

03:05Yeah.

03:06Yeah.

03:07So now that everybody knows Mandy doesn't have to hide her baby bump.

03:12I think a couple of people in the comments had guessed it.

03:16Really?

03:16There's a couple, but we didn't respond or anything because we wanted to wait to tell everybody obviously.

03:21Yeah.

03:21Tell friends and family first and now it's out of the bag.

03:24So we're going as usual.

03:26So if Mandy doesn't appear in a few videos in the future, you probably have a good idea why.

03:31Yeah.

03:31But you've been doing really good so far.

03:34Easier than the first one?

03:35Yeah.

03:36Easier than the first pregnancy, but still just exhausting.

03:40It's good to have something to focus on that's ours to work on for like nesting and that sort of

03:47thing.

03:47When we were in Thailand and didn't have our own house, I wanted to constantly fix and work on things.

03:54So it's just good to have, to have this project that keeps my mind and my hands busy.

04:01So I think it's a huge blessing.

04:04It's always a blessing.

04:06I'm getting old.

04:08I'm turning 41 in a month, two months.

04:10So we need to get going.

04:12Those who guessed were right.

04:14I didn't know anyone had guessed.

04:17Yeah, no, I saw a couple of comments, but I didn't respond intentionally.

04:20Once away.

04:28Okay, so a very exciting update with the house is that it doesn't smell as bad anymore.

04:35I think one of the biggest reasons that it was smelling really bad was because of the rotting wood in

04:41the floor.

04:43And now that we've removed that, it just smells like fresh timber and it smells so much better in there.

04:48So being here isn't as miserable anymore.

04:52I'm super grateful for that.

04:54Our neighbor just brought us the last tomatoes of his harvest from his farm.

05:00Everyone's cutting down all their crops and shutting down their farms now for autumn.

05:04And these are the last ones.

05:05I'm going to cook dinner with them tonight.

05:12All right, we're back at it.

05:13Last week was a pretty big week for progress, actually.

05:17We've got a lot done.

05:18We ripped up the floors in the living room and redid all the joists and beams that are supporting the

05:26floor.

05:27Because there was quite a bit of termite damage.

05:29We got some like termite paint and one of them termite bombs to drop in there.

05:34So I think we've got that sorted out.

05:37But so the goal for the next few days is to get the living room insulated.

05:44We were going to just put some rolls of insulation down that we bought with floorboards on top.

05:49But we actually met a couple of guys that have been living here for years.

05:54Aussie guys.

05:55And they've been renovating houses and building houses for like decades.

05:59And they told us a better way to do it, which is actually going to keep it more insulated, but

06:05also have more stable support.

06:08So the goal is to get that done today.

06:09I've got to go and order the stuff, floorboards, insulation, everything from the yard.

06:16So I've got that measured up.

06:17I'll probably do that later.

06:18But also we need to get this bathroom insulated.

06:23We've got the floors up here.

06:24We need to clean all that up, termite spray it, insulate it, put the floors down, get all the walls

06:32and everything insulated.

06:34And this window here, we've pulled the window out.

06:36We actually got a company here to quote us on a new window.

06:40It's pretty expensive, but we kind of feel like if we're redoing the whole bathroom, we're insulating it and everything.

06:47Be kind of pointless to leave the old window because that old window is really thin.

06:52Yeah, there's no insulation at all in this house.

06:55Our aim really over the next few weeks is to get this bathroom finished, hot water, insulation, everything working and

07:02the living room done so that we can move back in and enjoy it here over autumn and winter when

07:09it starts to get cold.

07:10We're also going to get our bedroom done.

07:12It's all just aesthetic stuff like painting the walls and the roof and redoing the doors, the window frames and

07:19all that sort of stuff.

07:20We don't really have the budget to be redoing the windows all around the house, all the insulation all around

07:26the house.

07:27Kind of have to see how it's going to go this winter, how cold it's going to be.

07:32We are prepared for it to be very cold, but I think upgrading the living room and the bathroom is

07:36a pretty good start.

07:38And then we'll see what we can do with the kitchen.

07:40But yeah, I'm going to get stuck into it.

07:41Clear your heart

07:46Cut the cold

07:48Are we human?

07:52Or are we dancers?

07:55My sign is vital

07:58My hands are cold

08:01And I'm on my knees

08:05Looking for the answer

08:07Are we human?

08:10Are we dancers?

08:25Are we dancers?

08:29Pay my respects to grace and virtue

08:33Send my condolences to good

08:36Give my regards to soul

08:39Give my regards to soul and romance

08:40Where else did the best I could

08:43And so long to devotion

08:47You taught me everything I know

08:50Wait for fire

08:52Wish me well

08:57You've got to do

08:58You've got to let me go

08:59Are we human?

09:02Are we human?

09:03Or are we dancers?

09:06My sign is vital

09:10My hands are cold

09:12and i'm on my knees looking for the answers are we beautiful are we dancing

09:26well you should still be all right when you dream of home

09:32how you been chilling i've had quite a few migraines

09:38and just tired but not too bad like in comparison to last pregnancy i'm doing pretty good i think

09:45renovating a house is a lot harder pregnant than i thought it was going to be yeah she's

09:51been modest she's been crushing it we've been here from like seven eight o'clock in the morning

09:57pretty much every day for the last two weeks and then before that we were going really hard

10:02cleaning this place we had a really hard travel day so for mandy to be able to do all of

10:07that

10:08in first trimester was pretty huge because uh yeah we've got a lot on our hands she's doing

10:16really well thanks honey thanks okay i am currently just standing quickly out the closet in the

10:25upstairs bedroom i'm going to paint inside here i just finished staining the ceilings unfortunately

10:32we've got two different colors even though it said on the container that it was the same color

10:37this one's a bit thinner so it needs two coats whereas the first one needed one so i'm going to

10:42have to do a whole nother coat which sucks but is what it is it's looking way better i'm really

10:47excited

10:47and it smells a hundred times better in here too but i'm just going to paint this probably white and

10:53then we're probably going to put some shelves and things in it and a couple of rods for our clothing

10:58and it'll feel so much better once we can actually hang up all of our clothes and put things away

11:03in

11:03a clean place first i have to get rid of there's still like these little nests that keep popping up

11:09even though we got rid of all of them when we first came in i guess when we've had the

11:14windows open and

11:15things like bugs have come back in and started making more nests not too many and it doesn't seem

11:20like anything's in it now but these little little nests that you can see have popped back up so i'm

11:26just taking them off hey lila there's the first ceiling that we painted or stained sorry

11:33and there's a second one way lighter look at that

11:43it's just a different type of stain it's it's way thinner it needs two coats i think it'll be okay

11:54all right we're in toys r us here looking for a birthday present for lila but also we've gone

12:02through like six glass bottles for her since we've been here so need something a bit more durable

12:09this shop's insane

12:21i like it because you can keep building on top of it

12:26adding to it over years and then you have like a large collection i would have loved this as a

12:33little

12:36how long would it take you to get the full kit how long would it take you to get the

12:40full kit

12:40and how much thousands and years

12:48wow

13:04so one of the biggest hurdles that we've faced in moving to japan and all the time that we've spent

13:10here has been that we haven't been able to get a japanese phone number yet which isn't something we're

13:16really expecting to run into we've been able to get phone numbers in pretty much every country

13:22that we've lived in but um they have some weird rules with it here so we've just been using air

13:28low e-sim up till now yeah so if you are coming to japan for an extended period of time

13:33and you want

13:34to have access to a phone like data and everything and you can't get a japanese sim card because it

13:40is

13:40pretty hard check out air low they're really good because you can buy regional plans country specific

13:46plans or even worldwide plans and you can pick how much data you want to actually buy at any time

13:51so

13:51you can get unlimited or like if you're coming for two weeks you can just get five gigabyte which

13:56would probably be enough anyway and what makes them really good is that you can install the e-sim

14:00before you even arrive in japan so buy it when you're at home then when you get to the airport

14:05install it and then once you hit the ground you're ready to go they have e-sims available in

14:10200 plus destinations i believe we've used them all over the world and they let you manage and top up

14:16your e-sim all from one app so if you want to check out air low e-sim use the

14:21qr code on screen

14:22now or the link in our description and if you use code loiter mandy you'll get 15 off your first

14:27purchase i just did all the patchwork for the closet at first i wasn't sure i was actually gonna

14:34do that i was like i'll just paint it because it's just a closet this is obviously the first time

14:38i

14:38ever owned a house so like my mind feels like it's shifted a bit to this is my closet for

14:43you know

14:44forever so i want every detail to be nice so i'm spending a lot of extra time that i wouldn't

14:49normally if i was just in a rental but i found that interesting a little bit of a mindset shift

14:53but

14:54i think i've done a pretty good job some of the wood's a little bit wonky i don't know if

14:59we'll end

15:00up replacing some of it at some point but i've just done the best that i can with what i

15:04have and

15:04the skills that i have which is very little i do think that it's going to look really good though

15:08my plan is to put like probably just ikea but maybe some like um little cubby type compartments

15:16here with baskets in it and then down here i want to put drawers and the laundry basket as well

15:23so

15:24the other thing is that the paint is a lot whiter i haven't had any luck really with paint or

15:30stain or

15:31anything i have to do another coat on the roof now because it's definitely the wrong color the paint's

15:36whiter but i am kind of liking it i like how fresh and um like just like new it makes

15:42everything feel

15:43so i might keep it but it might just be the first coat and then if i get sick of

15:47it or if i want to

15:48paint the ikea the same color all a new color i'll do that all at the same time but i'll

15:54wait till i get

15:54those pieces first okay i'm really nervous that the stain even with the second coat isn't going to be

15:59the right color because it's still like it's got a ways to go for it to be dark enough so

16:05i'm gonna

16:06try it now painting in here and staining in here has been the biggest ordeal like nothing has gone

16:12right i didn't realize i was so bad at it but this is how you get better i guess this

16:17is how you learn

16:23it's honestly not looking promising already i don't know if i need to let the stain like sit

16:30in a bit longer but it looks more like warm like red compared to the rest like it's meant to

16:39be the

16:39exact same color but it's coming up a lot redder dang it i'm gonna go have to buy new stain

16:47i think

16:47back to the homeware store okay i'm moving on to another project here we're trying something a little

16:54bit different because we didn't like the look of the paint the paint wasn't really working even with

17:00a primer um or the seal i suppose we're going down the sort of like plaster route this is sort

17:07of an

17:08interesting thing to work with it's kind of hard to butter onto the walls but we're liking the way

17:13that it's looking so far what do you think love i think it was cool yeah and this only needs

17:18one coat

17:18and uh it's going on really thick and nice it's not too expensive so i like it i think yeah

17:24i think

17:25it looks good and the color that we chose goes really well with the um the stain that we've done

17:30in here so this is what it's looking like so far and this is the product that we're using you

17:40just

17:40squeeze it onto here and then butter it onto the wall it's still going to be like a rough textured

17:46wall

17:46but it's not going to have the like sandy look to it it's just going to look more like a

17:51plastered

17:51wall like rough plastered i think i think it'll look good i'm just going to do this section and we're

17:59like it if we like the color and then um i guess we'll have to go get more and do

18:04the rest of the

18:05entire room it's going to be very labor intensive but i think it'll be worth it

18:22you sit there in your heartache waiting on some beautiful boy to to save you from your old ways

18:34you play forgiveness watching now here he comes he doesn't look a thing like jesus but he talks like a

18:43gentleman like you imagine when you were young

18:53can we climb this mountain i don't know higher now than ever before i know we can make it if

19:02we take

19:03it's slow that's taking easy easy now watch it go we're burning down the highway skyline

19:11on the back of a hurricane that started turning when you were young

19:22when you were young

19:25ninja star there

19:30need to find sunglasses

19:33so bright and lila broke mine it's about my 10th pair this year i'd say got about a one month

19:40lifespan with a toddler she loves breaking sunny there yeah it's very go-to

19:48also on the hunt for some ice cream i think look at here

19:55crepes

20:01there's a huge lion outside that shop it must be really good

20:07there's something meat sticks not really a meat stick kind of mood

20:24i feel like half the time i don't really know what anything is

20:31how do they get the fake food to look exactly like the real food i don't know it's pretty wild

20:35really well done

20:42oh i forgot which one's which one's mushroom one's spicy

21:02this one's spicy is it they have spicy chocolate ice cream

21:15this one is a jizou a guardian deity of children and the other is of

21:30mujina worshiping the jizou he's made the statues in order to express the world of mercy created by zinko

21:37jizou temple's buddha a raccoon dog

21:42oh that's a raccoon dog

21:46that's not good all this will look in winter

21:48can't wait covered in snow it'll be so beautiful

22:05okay we're heading into a place called monzen terrace enya looks pretty cool we can get ice cream lloyd's

22:11gonna have a beer um and it's just a couple minutes walk away from zinkoji temple so it's a pretty

22:18cool

22:18spot that you can come to it's like a beer garden and yeah go check it out

22:30apple pie yeah

22:42chocolate cookie ice cream waffle

22:46i'm gonna need an ambulance after this

23:00it's not really any bad food here yeah

23:02yeah so this is tenho i believe it's a chain restaurant just in nagano we've been here a couple times

23:09in azimino and it's so good really good gyozas and amazing ramen here and actually really good french fries

23:34well that was epic as always that's about the fourth one of these chain restaurants we've been to

23:41and uh oh thank you and uh so affordable it was like

23:481800 yen for both of our ramen and drinks really good

24:05so the render completely dried and it looks really nice

24:10from this direction how the lighting's going but then if you go look from that direction

24:16it looks like i don't know how would you explain it like it's cracking or something but

24:22it doesn't look like that from the other direction so maybe it's how i applied it

24:27putting it always that way do you think

24:31i don't know so yeah if you're standing here it looks really like

24:38consistent and smooth it looks perfect i love it i love how it looks

24:42but then you walk over here it's like an optical illusion or something

24:45yeah i can start seeing like spots sort of brown spots looks like it's too thin even from here yeah

24:54weird it's got to be the way we applied it yeah do you think it has to be so would

25:00you have to go back

25:00over it oh that took so long we were just talking about how long naively we didn't think there would

25:07be so much to do so little time and also so many decisions to make like in a hurry yeah

25:15decision fatigue is real like in this situation i wasn't anticipating feeling overwhelmed this much

25:23because there's just a hundred things to do always

25:27i think because of the winter coming up and having to focus on getting like the bathroom

25:31finished and insulation done it means stuff like this gets put on the back burner like we still gotta

25:38figure it out

25:41but anyway we're just sharing with you guys the whole journey definitely a challenge we're probably

25:46approaching two months now yeah yeah two months we're pretty much doing this every day it's getting

25:52to be pretty hard yeah should have stuck to travel vlogging all right we removed our window but what

26:02was i think it was the first day we came back and something had been inside going through our rubbish

26:08not sure if it was a monkey raccoon dog what do you think it was some sort of rodent so

26:15every day

26:17we're boarding up the window but i don't like it that it's too dark in here so every day i

26:22come in

26:23and i take it off and before we leave i board it up again

26:51which brings us to the next issue

26:55when we put this window in shower is going to be here not much privacy hey no i'll figure that

27:04out

27:04though i think we just put some trees here yeah maybe you're just a shade to pull down or something

27:12yeah i mean it's a nice view but it's amazing don't really want that from the shower

27:19oh we should have done a one-way like so you can see out but you can't see in we

27:25haven't ordered the

27:25window it's already pretty expensive as is yeah i know i thought you were going to be like it's

27:31already so expensive it's 11 30. this happens every day at 11 30 and 6 pm we don't know why

27:50it's still lunch you know i like it all right let's get to work we've insulated the floor and laid

28:03all this ply down this isn't the finish obviously we're putting fc sheeting on top with concrete but

28:12i've got a high section here which doesn't make much sense it goes up in like a triangle

28:23so we have to take that out and do it again either one of the timbers that's running across

28:27is higher or maybe some of the insulation was sticking up too high but i wouldn't think the

28:32insulation would stop it from going down i'm gonna have to rip it up and see what happens

28:36like that was higher but it looks level now yeah so was it level or not i think it was

28:46just the way

28:47the screw was sitting okay so you're gonna screw down the middle first this time yeah

29:03that looks way better good one honey

29:14what are we doing now love i want to get this full insulated

29:20yeah we've got the insulation delivered a couple days ago i think it should be pretty easy

29:27hopefully famous last words it's gonna be a lot of cutting hopefully not too much waste

29:33but we'll just measure everything up cut it all up laid down and then once we've done that

29:38then we can look at getting the flooring and actually have a living room again

29:46it's gonna be good yeah we just gotta yeah get that notch out

30:05so that's it

30:13so originally we were not going to be using this insulation so joel had put in a bunch of like

30:19bracing and like so much different timber to make it like earthquake proof and really solid

30:25and the insulation was supposed to like be bendable and put in like is that right

30:30light it was more of like a fluffy one yeah and then we ended up going with this which is

30:36what

30:37someone locally recommended you but now all the bracing is in the way so we're trying to figure out

30:42how to get the insulation around the bracing but now joel said that we can just take the bracing off

30:50and

30:50then move it to make it underneath i'm just gonna yeah unscrew it and put it down lower so it's

30:57not

30:57protruding up okay so a bit of backtracking but i think this insulation will make it so much warmer in

31:03here than using the other stuff wowee that looks pretty good to me one down seven more to go all

31:12right now that we've figured out what joel meant with the bracing the insulation is going in a lot

31:17easier the only thing is is that we still have to cut it a little bit to fit because some

31:23things are

31:24just not straight because of the wood i'm assuming the old timbers are like not straight completely so

31:31but that's fine that looks so good i'm so proud of us

31:47i can't imagine

31:54when you were young

32:01i said he doesn't look a thing

32:08he doesn't look a thing like jesus

32:15but more than you'll ever know

We’re Expecting Baby No. 2 While Renovating Our Abandoned Farmhouse in Japan

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