Thursday, May 19, 2016

the moving files; things that can be done in a day

Break out your champagne, people, we are proud owners of our own house!



(in absence of champagne we made our own wine-labels for the occasion)

For those of you whom I haven't yet bothered with details of our house-huntinh, we bought this 100-year old farmhouse:

I still have no idea how we managed to buy something this cute.

I hope you can forgive me for the fact that crafting has been simply impossible in the last few days ( well, except for those wine-bottles, that is!) but I have something much better: the remodeling of our living room ( or well, what we have managed to do in the last 24 hours, but we managed to do quite a lot!)

We started with this sixties-galore.

You can run, but you can't hide, Joost! 
I LOVE those windows (and the man in that room) but apart from that everything is UGLY!! those curtains! that wooden panelling, the ceiling, the floor and especially that fake heater, uuurgh!

I started by making a tiny change, which was removing these horrible -velvet- curtains.

slightly better...
this morning, as my parents arrived to help us ( they absolutely are the best), things really started to get going. My mom took one good look at the living room and said: "those wooden panels and the ceiling got to go, right?" yes please! so she sat down and started doing what we do best in our family: demolishing things.

Ah, Goodbye wooden panelling!!
Behind the panelling there was a really old and cute wallpaper hiding.  Unfortunately ( or maybe for the better, so I didn't feel guilty removing it) it was in too bad a shape to keep it, so we took in of.

Nostalgia... (and a butt-photobomb! photobutt? )
While Joost and my mom started attacking the rest of the walls (all covered in old, grainy wallpaper), my dad and I removed the old heater.

after that we came to the best part of the project; removing the lowered ceiling. I was so anxious to see what was behind that utterly ugly ceiling! We began by removing the white softboard panels, and saw... more ceiling ;)

cool, but not entirely what I had in mind...
But wait, there's more!!

what is behind that ceiling?!
ooh, old wooden beams!!
even that paint job on the ceiling is probably from around 1910..
I love wooden beam ceilings!
Although some nutter had drilled some unfortunate holes in some of the beams, and the electrity over there is a complete chaos, I am thrilled with that ceiling. And our ceiling is at least 20 cm higher now! i can;t wait to restore and paint it all.

Meanwhile at checkpoint dad...

the old wooden floor we bought for 175 euros!
and check that garden, also;)
My dad started sanding all the wooden floor while I made the underfloor ready. Then, while my mom started gardening, we began laying the floor.

I knowI'm going to paint it, but I kinda like that wall as is...
 And that's where we are now! Quite a bit of work for one day, right?

It's beginning to look quite pretty....

'ello, new home!!
oh man, my feet and back are killing me, but I'm so happy with moving so far... Having a proper lawn, not waking up to your neighbour flushing the toilet, overlooking the fields from the living room window... I think I'm going to like it here:)

How do you like our progress.. so far, so good..... or complete mistake to demolish those remains from the sixties?

6 comments:

  1. Coool! I LIKE what you did - a ceiling above a ceiling, who'd thunk? But to find those beams - oh yeah.
    Will you ever be able to use the fireplace? What have they done to it? That insert was AWFUL.
    Looking forward to your posts on the amazing things you are going to do to this place!

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    1. thank you!! we had a hunch of the wooden beamed ceiling because I knew that was the common way to build ceilings in the 1900's, but still, finding them felt a bit like treasure hunting!!
      And yes, we are planning on placing a proper stove back in there, in fact we bought a cute second handed stove yesterday.
      I will keep you updated on our progress.

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  2. Love what y'all have done so far. I can't wait to see the other changes you do!

    I hope you'll be able to use the fireplace.

    I live in a small, Texas town in the country and I love it.

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  3. It's amazing what you got done and NO, not a mistake to get rid of it! Like you said, it was ugly. And now it's going to be beautiful!!

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  4. What a great house. I look forward to watching as you make it your own.

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  5. Thank you all for those kind reactions! I will keep you updated!!

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