Forever Learning

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(Edited)

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I don’t even know what I don’t know when it comes to renovations.



Before buying a house that is more than 70 years old, I had never even painted a wall. Well, I have painted a few metal roofs at homehome using a crane and industrial spray painter thingy, but that was a completely different playing field.

We bought an old house knowing we have renovations to do for the rest of our natural born lives, and beyond. With an old house, you can renovate, paint, upkeep, replace and repair every single day and you’d still never be done, yet, I am not the least bit bothered. I think I have misplaced a gene or something because my anxious self that overthinks everything in normal daily interactions, is not at all worried or scared about doing renovations in my own home.

I really have very little knowledge, not an ounce of experience, and yet I think I could totally demo and tile a whole bathroom myself at some point. Like fuck it, there are dumber people building houses, it can’t be that fucking hard. I have all the faith in the world that we can make and mend this house into something amazing, yet cozy and functional, better than it ever was before.

Luckily, especially if you ask my man, there is this thing called being broke as fuck that hinders my crazy plans to demo everything that was put in place during this century and restore the old that can be saved, and to make better interior design decisions than the previous owners.

I have had the pleasure of getting my fix here and there by removing the ugly laminate floors from all the bedrooms, the latest being today. Before I can destroy anything permanently, I want to learn about how to properly care for an old timber frame house.

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I ordered four different books, three by the same author, that are especially made about Finnish houses, most of which are wood. They explain with lots of images, details and history about the frame, roofs, floors, windows, stairs, materials used, all the way through to interior design details.

I’ve always loved old houses, anything from 1950 and earlier, so I’m really eager to learn more and put that knowledge into practise with our own house. Even when we can’t actually do everything ourselves, like replace the roof, I think it’s really important to know what works for this kind of old house, both funtion and style wise.

I’m not trying to make this house look like it is still in the fifties, but I want to bring back the great things like original wood flooring, without sacrificing modern luxuries. It’s quite the task, the most fantastic and interesting kind, to try and make all the different elements work in harmony when you gather pieces all the way from late 1800s to this modern era.

Houses were never build and decorated in a vacuum with only elements from that particular decade, so that gives me peace with how I like so many different styles from the past 200 years. It’s always a long story with lots of layers, people and history.



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