Of a new beginning and a new arrival...

I was lately considering to delete this blog due to chronic lack of postings. But somehow I couldn't, on the one hand because it shows part of the way we've come with our old house and on the other hand because of you, readers of this blog, who are still regularly checking back here after two years of complete silence.
Therefore, I decided to give it another try - but as we have not been doing so much in and around the house lately, the topics on this blog will slightly change or rather be extended on things like cooking, preserving, gardening, handicraft etc. But of course I will still be blogging about our renovation and restoration projects.

And here is just a very short update - two major changes have occured in my/our life:

New beginning: I quit my job last year in December, after 8,5 years. I had been unhappy and rather frustrated there for quite a while and for many reasons and then I finally realized that filling an executive position (part-time) and being the mother of a toddler is much more difficult than I admitted. I had the impression to fail at both and drew the consequences. So I started on a small own business which developed quite well so far and offers better opportunities to combine job and family. At the moment, I'm not working for money at all though, because...

New arrival: On September 26th 2011, a sunny autumn day eight weeks ago, our wonderful second son was born. Everything went well and the 1st son is a proud older brother. The big brother, by the way, is going to kindergarten by now, isn't that incredible. Barely born, already a kindergarten-kid today...

I hope to see some of you back at my blog - old and new readers: A warm welcome (back) to all of you!!

Life over here...

No post since May on this blog...

Thanks so much for all of your lovely comments over the past few months - I'm really touched by so many of you checking back regularly on our blog!

There isn't actually much of an explanation for this long silence, just life treating us not too well lately. Nothing really bad happened, but still you feel the time for several final farewells coming closer. And a lot of questions on where to go and what to reach in life. I guess, becoming a mother shook me more than I could ever have imagined before, in so many ways.

The good news: The little one is such a darling! He walks (and runs) by now and is so curious and eager to learn new things every day. And he started to imitate our behaviour, so it's about time to act a bit more thoughtful ;-). He's not quite a big speaker yet, something I noticed with many little boys in our circle of friens. Funny enough, isn't it!?

We didn't do an awful lot on the house this year. Some smaller renovations, some interesting finds - but you didn't miss a lot ;-). We actually wanted to have some more new windows made, but then we found out that our little town will be part of a state-aided reconstrucion program from 2010 on and that there might be the possibility to get some public funding for bigger renovation projects. Therefore we postponed all bigger activities on the house.

And for the rest we didn't make much progress, hubby is still working on the nursery. Well, the little one is only 18 months old - I guess we'll be finished with his room by his 18th birthday :-)

And how are you all out there, dear readers? I hope 2009 was a good year for you - wishing you and your families all the best for the upcoming holidays. I hope to be back more regularly in 2010!

Is love of old things hereditary?

... our son grows up in a house that is more than 400 years old; he eats in an antique high chair; he sleeps in an antique cot; he rides an antique rocking horse (well actually it is a rocking roe deer, but that is another story); he plays with antique building bricks ...

I think you get the idea of it. And it will be very interesting to watch him grow up to become a person who will either love or hate old things. 50/50 chance, I guess ;-)

And here is what I wanted to show you: We found a beautiful antique swing and put it up in the yard. The little one loves it and so do I:

Hungry as a worm...

Another loooong silence over here, although I actually have a lot to post about. Being a working-and-diy'er-mom just leaves little time for blogging. We're all doing great and with our son taking his first steps, life became yet more exciting ;-)

We finally began to seriously work on the nursery, it's about time with the little one turning 1 in June... At first we wanted to leave the hated laminate floor in there due to practical reasons. But in the end we were too curious and just had to peek at what's underneath. After several layers (more in a separate post to come), we found: A WOODEN FLOOR, hurray :-) And it seems to be an old floor indeed as the planks are up to 73 cm wide (and 4 metres long).

In this post, I just wanted to show you the traces of a roomer called woodworm. Normally, we have those little holes:


But in that plank, someone must have been really, really hungry:



Some two years ago, we'd probably been in panic and afraid of the house tumbling down. After more than two years in our witch's hut, we are pretty calm. Typical dialogue:

"Oh, traces of woodworms."
"Any fresh sawdust?"
"Not at a first glance."
"Alright then!"