So much has been finished suddenly

Wow! It goes fast lately. The barnside is done completely by now and the studio will get insolated this week. And the windows and doors are expected very soon as well. It went so fast that we discovered some small problems, like the slightly smaller showers! Now the shower-thing we bought cannot fit…

Lots of details still has to be made. Where will the water tubes go? And the heating will be installed. The floor can only be finished after all these things are made. Also the electrician will start to work now. He talks a lot so the atmosphere at work will be even better!

Soon more…

The roof has finished

As you can see in the photo album the roof has been worked on very nicely. Hajni wanted to make more photos of the workers, but I had to restrain her.

By the time this post is written the tiles are on the roof as well and the barn is all saved for the next 30 years. Now work needs to start on the inside… still a lot to do!

Hajni goes to Hungary again coming week and Govert follows her by car on Friday. They will have some heavy talks ahead with the contractor (he doesn’t keep his own time planning). And they will bring a hole lot of money to pay the contractor, the plumber, the carpenter, the gaz man and the talkative electrician.

Finally work has started on the roof of the barn!

We waited for a long time, but at last the contractor started his work at the barn last week (at 21st of September). We allready saw the first low-res pictures of work on the roof structure and the news beams… ai ai ai, the contractor had to replace more wood then expected.

The barn will get a small living space in it very soon. The contractor expects to be finished before Christmas. This living space will be the base camp for all further renovations. The contractor will make a dormitory for 10-12 people next to the living space. We will try to do further renovations on the house: slower, without a contractor for everything, and for less money.

For the Dutch readers; the contracter is the same Jaap Scholten is writing about in this NRC columns. So we could know what to expect.

Donderdag 3 augustus

Barbara Wiessing

Woensdag 2 augustus

Barbara Wiessing

Dinsdag 1 augustus

Maandag 31 juli

Barbara Wiessing

Zondag 30 juli

Zaterdag 29 juli

Barbara Wiessing

Vrijdag 28 juli

Barbara Wiessing

Working all summer

We went with a car full of stuff and a cage with our cats. Four weeks must be enough to let them enjoy country side. All chipped up and with a cat-passport they arrived after midnight the 10th of July. At this hour our neighbour jumpt out of his bed to check on the noises with a huge torch. He is indeed a good guard.This is the first post in this guestbook about the buildingwork. About the vacation that Hajni and me spent in Kisbajom all July 2006. And in which we worked on the house and the garden that we bought together with my parents.

The first three weeks were hot and fun. We got up at 7 or 8am and worked untill noon. After lunch we had a rest for a few hours and did more from 3 to 7 and sometimes even 9pm. Together with friends we cleaned out the house. Six cubic meter of rubbish came out of the attic and barns then was collected by Saubermacher KFT (plastic, tires, dust, glass, etc). Another 5 cubic meter of garbage was burnable (clothes, paper, crappy wood, etc.). It gave some great fires!

We also digged some holes (I should say Jani, a great guy from the village, digged them) for waterconnection and electricity. We were jumping over holes and walking over bridges for about three weeks in total.

When Barbara and Paul and their kids came, we did the biggest thing of all; the roof of the barn. All together we worked on it with 10 people for 1,5 days. We took all tiles of and Jani and Sanyi finished it by covering it with a huge plastic foil. The weather shifted to cooler and wetter, so covering was the better thing to do! We also found a wesp-nest in the wall and three of us were bitten several times. Real agressive buggers they were.
What I did not write yet was all the managing that Hajni did for us. She called everybody that needed a phone call and she translated everybody that needed translated for me… [thanx by the way, kedves!] We made a deal with a contracter, an electrician, a carpenter and hired people from the village to help us out in the garden and the barn.

Well when we finally returned to Amsterdam at the 7th of August (after some struggles with our cat ‘Appel’ and a four hour search…) we could look back at a special and very successfull periode in Kisbajom. We did a lot, although our to-do-list only got bigger. I guess the to-do-list will keep growing the next 10 years anyway, so what the heck; I enjoyed the time in Hungary and the surroundings and I will come back soon. So much is certain!

Planting trees

Hi everybody,

This past Easter weekend I went to Kisbajom with a friend from Amsterdam, Jeroen to plant fruit trees in the newly bought garden. The first two day we were buying trees and planting them. Here you can find a few pictures. We asked the village gardener to plough a strip of grass for the line of trees. And importantly, the weather was great.
The uncle of Hajni, Miki, helped us as well as some of her Hungarian friends. They are great; they drive up to Kisbajom from Budapest just to help translating and watering some young trees. And they always thing of the drinks!

After this, Jeroen and me went to Balaton and north from it to search fossils and minerals in the areas of Bakony, Ajka and Vertés. It was a short but nice weekend.

PS: Jeroen found some turtels in the little river behind the house. Later, when we returned, they were not there. Should we beleave him. He also mentioned all kind of animals from which he recognised the tracks in the forrest. It must be very busy at night around the house…

We bought it !!!

Well, today we did all formalities… and the paperwork could take some more months. We picked up the Bakter family in Nagyatad this morning on our way to Pecs. There we signed all papers necessary for the complete purchase of the land and the old farm house on it.

We have a great help from a lawyer, Mr. Zeli from Budapest, who does many preparations and helps us to avoid expensive, corruptive procedures. I can advise everybody a lawyer, or ‘makelaar-achtige’ person to assist you in these things. It saves so much time and irritation.

Anyway; until we have more news about rebuilding plans and work we will start to do, I great you.

Bye,
Aaike