Where I live.

The house.

The house we live in were built in 1913. The man who got it built was single and came from the district arouund our capital city, Oslo. He came here to teach in the dairy school ( opened in 1906). He hired a housekeeper and two maids. One maid was the outdoor maid and the other one worked indoors. The outdoor one still lived in our street when we first came here, and she told us a bit from back then.
This house were a large one and had an architecture more used in the cities, not in the countryside as this were in those days. In the year 1916 there were 676 inhabitants here, today we are 12897. Still just a small town, but in 2001 Bryne got the rights to call itself a City.

The house were a beauty in it's original form, but back in 1984 the owner had it fixed,, and during that process most of the beautiful details were removed. Fortunately he had some photos taken, so we can see how it was, and my dream is to bring it back to its original condition

Look at all the beautiful moldings. It's almost impossible to see from this photo, but each of the upper panels ends in an arrow shape and then there is that fat molding across it all.
First floor of the mid section had windows all around it, today right hand side has a solide wall. Not vivible in this photo. Behind the tree branch, you can spot a balcony, second floor, which also were removed because of its condition.

Below is the house as it is today. Can you see how it has lost much of its original soul, even though today, it's very different from how houses are built, and most people think this is very original. This side of the house faces south. We did paint it in 2004, and I chose to use a sand beige color for the house and a white one for the details.

There was a deck stright along the house wall when we first came here in 2000. We chose to open it up in an angle to have a better connection to the garden. Unfortunately we don't use it, it offers no privacy. This photo shows the west side of the house.

Below is how it was originally.

The entrance how it looked from the beginning. A tiny small "house" with a solid concrete stairway. Also notice the window. The condition of the entrance were so bad that we had to fix it. We thought quite much on how to do it. Should it be rebuilt excactly the same? We landed on a better solution, I think. We made a larger one that could meet our needs.

This is what we did. We ordered new windows, similar to the ones that originally were used. The double front door is not how it was originally, but it looks great now. The staircase has a history of its own. I actually sketched how I wanted it to be, and handyman constructed and built it. The two plant "pots" are round like suns, and the steps are like sunbeams from the center of the pots. Left hand steps leads to the garden and right hand side to the backyard. The deck (left side) is what I call the breakfast deck. I can sit out in the sun at 5.30 in the morning midsummer. That early there are no sounds, besides me and the birds awakening. Lovely spot. This side is facing north.

Seen from a distance. Here one can also see the tiny garden house handyman have built. All the windows used were originally meant for the house during winter. One layered windows needed another set of windows to keep the house warm enough during the winter. Now they serve as windows in our tiny and cozy garden house. Notice the stones in the backyard, we spent an entire vacation ( 3 weeks) to put them down and the rain were pouring down the whole periode.

Facing west. Here it's easy to see the stone walls of the basement. Mined stones which keeps the basement temperature fairly cold year around. An important issue back then with no other cooling opportuneties.

More to come.