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Ana Maria and Paulo Sergio are a couple who built a hand-dug pool in four months, a hamburger restaurant, a dance hall, outdoor bathrooms, and a playground in their own home, working almost exclusively on Sundays, without hiring a mason, learning from YouTube videos, and saving 50% of the total cost of the work by doing everything with their own hands over seven years.
Ana Maria Silva Ferreira, 43, and Paulo Sergio Carniato Paes, 38, are a couple that builds their own house on Sundays. She is a social worker and ballroom dance teacher. He was once a bus driver and now works in internet equipment retrieval. Their week is busy. But on Sundays, the couple takes on another role: that of masons for their own house. And it was like this, at the pace of one day a week, that they built a hand-dug pool, a hamburger restaurant, a dance hall, bathrooms, and a playground without hiring a single mason.
According to Campo Grande News, this couple’s story began in 2018 when Paulo set up the space for the hamburger restaurant while they were still engaged. The business opened, closed during the pandemic, and the house became the focus. Since then, the couple has not stopped. Even with a car accident that took Ana out of circulation for a year, even with the pandemic, and even with scarce time, the work has never really stopped.
The three questions that started the pool that the couple dug by hand
Fifteen days after the wedding, in November 2019, Paulo asked Ana three questions.
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The first: if the pool project should be only fiberglass. The second: if she was in a hurry. The third: if she had patience.
Ana answered all three. Paulo picked up the hoe.
“I asked what he was doing. The answer was: the pool,” Ana recounts.
The couple dug everything by hand for four months. Then, there were another 20 months of work until the first waterproofing test on November 2, 2021.
The project that could have been a simple fiberglass pool turned into a raw work, done by hand, Sunday after Sunday, by a couple who decided that patience was cheaper than haste.
Everything the couple built working only on Sundays
The pool was just the beginning.
After it, the couple built the dance hall, which started improvised in the garage and was only truly finished in 2026. “It turned out so beautiful that I never imagined it would be so beautiful,” Ana said.
They also built outdoor bathrooms to serve the public of the dance school.
The hamburger restaurant, which had closed during the pandemic, was resumed by the couple in 2025.
And now a playground is starting to come to life. Everything done by the couple, without a mason, without a contractor, with their own hands and on the only free day of the week.
Paulo had some experience from his teenage years working with his father on construction sites. The rest came from improvisation and YouTube tutorials. The plumbing for the pool and the machine room, for example, he learned by watching several videos.
The savings the couple makes by not hiring a mason and the cost that doesn’t appear in the spreadsheet
Doing everything without hiring labor represents significant savings.
According to the couple themselves, labor accounts for 50% of the total cost of a construction project, so the savings are substantial. But the cost that doesn’t appear in the spreadsheet is time.
With only one day a week available, the work progresses slowly. What a mason would do in weeks, the couple takes months.
Redoing has already become part of the routine. Learning too. It doesn’t always work out the first time.
The couple reports that there were Sundays when the mortar wouldn’t dry, the deadline was tight, and the solution was to ask for help via WhatsApp status. A couple of friends diverted their route and came to help, finishing the work at 10 PM.
The phrase that defines the couple’s philosophy came from a friend: “If some who have no education can do it, imagine us who have knowledge.”
The accident that stopped the work and the pandemic that closed the couple’s hamburger restaurant
The couple’s work did not follow a straight line.
The pandemic closed the hamburger restaurant that Paulo had built in 2018. In 2023, Ana suffered a car accident and spent a year in treatment. The construction stopped.
Then, it resumed. Because in that house, there is no rush.
The hamburger restaurant was resumed in 2025. The dance hall was completed in 2026. And the couple continues to build.
With the hamburger restaurant in operation, free time became even scarcer. Even so, the work continues, Sunday after Sunday.
What drives the couple is not the rush to finish. It’s doing it their way and without outsourcing what they can do together.
One Sunday at a time and a house that is not yet ready but is already perfect
A couple who only has Sundays free has already built a hand-dug pool, a hamburger restaurant, a dance hall, bathrooms, and a playground in their own home.
Without hiring a mason, learning on YouTube, redoing when they make mistakes, and stopping when life demands, the couple proves that there is no need to rush to build something worthwhile.
The house is still not ready. But it is already exactly how the couple wants it. And next Sunday, the work continues.
Have you ever done construction in your house with your own hands? Do you think it’s worth saving on labor even if it takes longer? What impresses you more about this couple: the hand-dug pool or their seven years of patience? Leave your comments and share with anyone thinking of building or renovating.
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