September 14, 2011

Renovating a Serbian Rural House 3


When the outer walls where finished, we fixed some of the inner walls and installed electric conductions where we needed. We indulged in a new 3-phase electric installation so we had to change all the cables.
I made just one ground plan and I tried to fit in everything needed (floor materials, furniture  to decide where we need electric sockets).
For the tiles, my husband went to supplies in nearby Leskovac and tried to find the most similars to my suggestions. For the wooden floors we reverted to a Belgrade based firm where my brother had already ordered fantastic floorboards and imported them to Switzerland. There we found the ideal floor: rustic oak boards and 21mm thick. (Saga Drvo d.o.o)
Below: they way we layed the boards.
One thing that was a bit of a struggle, was to find answers to our questions, because it was extremely difficult to relay on people's advise. The answers drifted so much apart like from "No chance" to "No problem" ....on us to find out the right way :-) In this context I learned an interesting word for people who know best: they are called "Pametnjakovic" (from Pamet=mind/brain) .... or in english the classical "smartass"!
The picture shows how big the impact of the renovation was. Where now the bathroom is, there was a little room with one WC before. My husband's grandfather already built a septic tank with a canalization when he built the house and that was a great help for us.
Water is a big issue here on the village, because in summer there isn't enough. It exist a village pipeline with water, but in summer they let water flow only two hours a day...and not every day...but in 2-3 years the municipality will send constantly water to the village, and because it's a way to make money for the municipality (it will cost the community of course) this plan will be quite sure.
We decided to build a water-reservoir for us anyway, as we need just water in summer, when the water situation is unstable. The reservoir is made in concrete and it's in the hill behind the house. We use the natural incline to transport the water, under the trees the reservoir stays always cool and the position allows to be filled up by the watertruck ithout problems.


Right in the picture is the water reservoir. It sticks out of the ground just half a meter, the rest is subterranean.
Following I post just a couple of sketches we used to study some details:
Above: a 3D sketch of the future kitchen

3D studies of the terrace size and roof
 We took pictures of the materials we liked in the surrounding supplies to watch them in calm and to compare with other materials.
 We also took pictures of household appliances to remember where we saw them and to imagine where they stand in the house



Enhanced by Zemanta

No comments:

Post a Comment