Renovation

Starting with renovations

When we decided to buy our house in the forest, I was really charmed by all the old things in the house; the wood stove, the old double windows, the ceramic tiles on the chimney… I wanted to keep them because it was so cozy, but I also had to face the reality, and how romantic it may sound, we cannot really cook on a wood stove. Even heating the house on wood is not realistic. Of course it is possible, but it is a lot of work, and nowadays there are more sustainable and more environment friendly ways to heat a house. So unfortunately we had to let all these romantic details go…

Gabrielius worked as an architect before he became a yoga teacher, so he made all the drawings for the renovation. We really wanted to open up the space, and of course add a bathroom and a new heating system. We found a really good construction worker Saulius and when he started to demolish everything we quickly saw how beautiful an open space is. Under the old plasterwork we found the old red bricks from which the house is built of. And to keep at least something from the past we decided to dedicate a wall to the past and leave the red bricks visible. I am really happy about that, these old bricks are really beautiful!

Of course on the way we faced many problems. But this is how renovation of an old house is. You open up some constructions and see that it needs to be replaced. For example we did not plan to change the beams of the second floor but we discovered that they were rotten and need to be replaced so the house will not collapse. And off course these hidden things took a big part of our budget.

Also the chimney was collapsing, but Gabrielius’ dad made a really nice supporting wall from old red bricks that we found in the barn. These bricks will stay visible and it will look really nice when everything is finished!

We are experiencing that renovation is a complex process and not everything we wanted is possible so we have to make many compromises. We really try to preserve the authentic details from the past but some things just have to go in order to live a comfortable life. For now the construction part is finished so that means that the fun part will start; picking out tiles, kitchen design, bathroom things, wall color paint, new stairs, and so on… We will keep you updated. And if our blogs don’t come fast enough for you, always feel free to send us a message, we can share the latest pictures with you!