The other side

Wow... things are going extremely fast!! If you don't believe me... look at the picture sequence. This is the South facade. In a couple of days: DONE!

I can't wait to reveal the East facade. It will look amazing, I promise!

Advent calendar

Even though I'm not a Christmas freak, I have to admit that since I became a mother I started to love Christmas decoration. And, isn't it the best way to start the countdown with an Advent Calendar?

There are a thousand ways to create an Advent Calendar, and this is what I have chosen. Some stuff I have bought it, and some other I just made it up myself.

Here's what you will need:

• Silver string to make a braid cord
• Clothespins with a number attached, from 1 to 24 ( I found them at CasaShop )
• Two color envelopes ( mine are green and red )
• All types of candy to hide inside the envelopes
• Tiny plastic bags to put the candy in (this is optional, but important in case some of the candy might melt) 
• Blue-Tack, to stick the clothespins on the wall.

Procedure:

Place the candy inside the plastic bags and then the envelopes

Braid 3 silver strings. It has to be long enough to place 24 clothespins.

Stick each clothespin at the wall using Blue-Tack, wherever you like it the most.

One of our kitchen walls is chalkboard painted. I chose it so I could also write Christmas stuff on in to make it look a little nicer.

It's very easy... then, just hang the filled envelopes, and it's done!!

Finally, remember that something very special needs to be in envelope number 24, since it's the last one, and the one that kids are expecting the most...

Just letting you know that, my oldest son (my baby girl twins are just too young to understand what's going on) is in delighted with his new calendar, and can't help asking me every single day what's in envelope number 24!! (I already caught him trying to spy a few times...)

Enjoy it!

Finishing of the North facade, beginning of East

I confess I have a load of pictures and it's becoming hard to handle... the following are last week's!! North facade is almost finished.

And, here's East facade. A EWI (External Wall Insulation) is installed here. The main difference from the rest is the outtermost layer, which will look exactly as it looked before (but clean and new).

The whole facade is then covered by 10 cm thick EPS boards. Sorry for the next picture... I took it... to avoid bothering the workers I take pictures from down below with all the trees... and it's not very easy to identify what's going on!!

Thankfully, August takes pictures from up the scaffold. What do you think?

Upon the boards, a protection net needs to be installed, harden mortar, and finally the finish of the chosen color. By the way, we have chosen white.  Considering that windows are green, I believe that white is just fine. Don't want to be the house that people laughs at.

If you have taken a look at the blinds, don't worry, they will be insulated from the inside!!

To insulate the blinds from the inside, we will use a reflexive insulation from the french ACTIS. But I'll show you this in a future post!!  :)

First insulation boards

Wow, this is going faster than expected!!! Almost in one day the whole North facade has been covered!

First of all, getting rid of the remains

Deconstruction always needs to go first!! So, so far, we're "losing shape"here! I'll explain myself a little. This house belongs to my hubs August. But, before us, others have lived here before, his grandparents in particular.

So, it turns out that they also thought that the house was a pretty cold place to live... and they built a double wall in one of the sides in order to insulate a little. I doubt a bit about the idea, specially because in-between, it had an air gap all the way...

It seems then that we had a proper ancient ventilated wall system!! Too bad that we live in a quite cold climate!

Anyway, the first thing to do is getting rid of the old double wall.

Step by step, same thing when you go through your closet when it's time to get rid of old clothes that you don't wear anymore... it has become a rubble pile.

Once the big mess has been cleaned up, August and I jumped up into the scaffold. You know...? It has been a long time without doing it. Have you ever tried? I went back to the feeling of those old times when we were teenagers and, after a long and boring summer vacation, we would "live" in new buildings structures.

And so I can't help but wonder.... where do teens "live"during the long summer evenings?

The big project! Remodeling an old house...

To all of you that might not know, it has been 3 years already that August and I have been living (and working) in this old house. This is what you can see from the outside, so far.

The place where, some time ago we thought that we might not like to live in, I believe it has become HOME, in big letters.
I have to admit that it has been a hell of work, and I have to admit too that, somehow, we just got started!!

Sorry for not starting this blog before. I wish you could see the original house in the inside. I did not even take pictures of the very beginning. I hate myself for this.

Anyway...the current project is located outside: Energy efficiency in facade refurbishment.

It hasn't been easy to explain the guys that I wanted 10 cm of insulation, instead of the "maximum 6 cm" that "is the tops thickness used in the area", but I finally got it!!

By the way, we are working in any facade but the one you just have seen. This one is very particular and it will not be easy to refurbish, so it will happen in the future sometime, not now.

As our house is very long compared to the next-door neighbor's we had to insulate also both sides of the house. 3 facades in total, the one in the back, and two sides.

The house (officially) dates back to 1950, even though we think it's from the mid 1940's. Anyhow, back then there was no building law, and therefore the house does not include any insulation.

Let's hope this will be a warmer winter.

This is the back facade...

The acces door to the garden...

And the balcony... if you close up you'll see that a part of it is missing!!

What do you think? Lots of work, huh?? In the next post I'll show you some of the works that have already been done.