So We Bought a House!

This is us. Mr M, little mr. N and me, Miss M.
Mr. M is a carpenter in a theatre, a damn good father and partner and a history-facts-sports lover.
I am a set and costume designer for theatre, a wannabe children's books illustrator and a baking enthusiast.
Mr. N is six months old and just fabulous.

And we bought a house!

In the country!

An OLD and BIG house!!!

And we are going to make it our home!

The house was built in the beginning of 1930s and has two storeys and an attic with whooping 250m2 of living space. It seems to be built of  timber beams and under the asbestos there is a wooden roof.

Mr M has since managed to discover that it was at first used as a vacation rental house where you could get a room with or without catering and some time during the Soviet time it was turned into a place where local school teachers and students could live so tens of people have been inhabiting this place during the decades.

He also has sent out a load of letters to people supposedly connected to the house (thank God for Google and Geni) so we are hoping to get better knowledge of its origins and original appearance.

If you rightfully think we are crazy to buy such a big place and ask WHY? The answer is actually simple - we saw it and we loved it. Also we now own a hectar of land with fruit trees and a polytunnel, no close neighbours, a trip to the centre of the capital is less than an hour and local school is basically next door.

But of course everything is not as rosy.

We got the keys about a month ago and since then we have discovered that it holds some dirty secrets. Like a house fungi serpula lacrymans that is more or less lethal to wooden houses, a lot of bug damage and chimneys that had not been swept in about two decades and are falling apart. None of these details were mentioned while we were buying.

Apart from that are some issues we were aware of like only dry toilet (stinky!) and no bathroom nor kitchen. Luckily we do have water and local drainage in the house. 

All this means that we cannot start with quick renovation to move in but need to pick the house apart at first, get it fixed and then find a way to inhabit it. 

So mostly this blog is going to be about fixing the house and settling in the countryside, but most probably I cannot resist putting in some recipes or talking about theatre