United States
Favourited 216 times
Hello, my name is Bill and I am a born and raised Floridian. I grew up here in Central Florida and have lived here all my life. I am well-traveled and have been to more Than 20 countries. I love meeting and learning about other cultures and entertaining guests. My girlfriend, Fabienne is from Switzerland and introduced me to the whole Workaway. I bought my house in August of 2018 and with a slight permitting delay I officially started it in February of 2019 by November of 2019 I had successfully added almost 2000 sq ft and for all practical purposes rebuilt all 3600 sq ft of it. So once I got it liveable with flooring, electric, hvac etc I met Fabienne Around November of 2019 and with Fabienne's help and over 10 workawayers, we put the finishing touches on it over those 4 months and in March of 2020 we declared it done.
If you build your own house there is never an end. So some of the next projects you might find yourself helping with are building a 2000 sq ft pool deck and pool, finishing the phase II of the lakeside tiki bar, a huge oversized garage, landscaping, lake maintenance, no two days are ever the same around here Owning a compound is hard work! but we party like the best of them!
People ask why workaway? well our goal is to have a friend in every country! it's way more fun to stay or play when you know a local!
As you can imagine I do know a lot about everything you need to know to build a house, so I can teach you all kinds of different things. But I like to learn everyday something new, so if you can teach me something, even better. I promise I can teach you anything you'd like to know about construction, or realestate, or manufacturing.
Fabienne has traveled to a lot of places and speaks 4 languages. She takes great care of the house and any needs that people might have such as guests, friends and family. For her it's very important that everybody is comfortable and feels good, so she balances most of the things out.
Our dog Vicii is imported from Switzerland, she was born in Spring 2019 and is a mix (Border Collie, bernese mountain dog, labrador and Belgian shepherd) She is super sweet and used to people.
So what are we looking for? Life is not about the knowledge you may or may not already have it's about your eagerness to learn that which you do not already know or your eagerness to possibly learn a new way to do something you've done before. There are two types of people I've found on workaway. People that want to share culture, and Ideas and Knowledge and like to have fun and are eager to help with whatever the task at hand is! Then there are those that are mopey, think they know everything, and or just want to do the absolute minimal amount of effort in day to day life. We really are looking for people with a work hard play hard type of attitude some days could be long but I promise to make up for those with even more amounts of fun! We go wake surfing out on the boat, and usually take two days off a week for some fun-filled activities and we always play volleyball most Wednesdays. I have a huge network of friends in central Florida and people are always stopping by as you can tell my house is quite social so you should be too as well.
Gardening
DIY and building projects
Help around the house
General Maintenance
Bill is born and raised in Orlando so he knows the area quite well I have been doing waters ports since he was 5 years old so we can take the boat out on the lake and partake in many watersports. I have a degree from university of Central Florida in business management and own a manufacturing company as well as sell real estate, and I have short term rental properties.
Fabienne speaks, swiss german, german, french and english and backpackt thought Mexico, Colombia, cuba and europe. Traveling to her doesn't mean seeing new places, take pictures and post them online. She wants to meet local people, learn more about their culture, try the local food and so on.
She is a positive person with a go-getter attitude. If there are any new, interesting outdoor activities that she can learn, she probably won't say no to try it out. She grew up in a family hotel and knows how to take care of guests.
The big project is the pool, we didn't decide yet when exactly we will start with that, but it will happen this year. Beside the pool we will have a lot of other smaller projects. Woodwork, organizing, gardening, some painting, flooring, cleaning etc. If you can follow instructions we can teach I built the whole house myself.
Languages spoken
German: Fluent
English: Fluent
French: Fluent
This host offers a language exchange
This host has indicated that they are interested in sharing their own language or learning a new language.
You can contact them directly for more information.
Lakefront house, private /shared bedroom, bathroom & half-bath, and outdoor shower. We built an insane big kitchen, we love to try new things and if you like to cook you will have enough space to teach us new recipes. We can only host people older than 21. Please don't message us if you're not at least 21.
Lake Barton (the pictures from my backyard) has great bass fishing. We have many fishing poles, we have paddle boards, volleyball court and many other things we are adding by the day. The house is located 1 block from one of the major roads in Orlando which is on a bus route and 5 minutes to the center of our downtown. All major stores are in extremely close proximity and you can watch the private jets land while sipping some wine from the back patio or dock. The runway is at the end of my lake.
Internet access
Limited internet access
We have pets
We are smokers
Can host families
We do have private rooms for Workawayers where you have enough space where you don't get disturbed. There is not only wifi in the house. You have access to the high-speed wifi on the whole property.
More than two
Max 5 hrs 5 days a week
These are extra optional ratings when members leave feedback. The average rating left for each option is displayed.
Accuracy of profile:
(4.6)
Cultural exchange:
(4.4)
Communication:
(4.8)
