USVI-On-Line

.....it also takes a lot of your time and cause many discussions about which is the best material, the
nicest solutions etc, and sometimes it gives problems, which can disturb your night sleep.
I think everyone, who has tried something similar knows it. For us this time it’s not only a new kitchen or a new bathroom, it’s a whole house. But of course it’s also exciting to create something .

Some of you might be interested hearing about the building process, and I would like to share it with you. Some of it, I have already told further, but here is the story:

For many years we have had a small cottage near a little fishing village and a beach.
We have loved the simple life there and have visited the cottage many weekends from spring to autumn. We have had friends and family coming too, and people knew what they could expect visiting us. A small and simple cottage, a beautiful nature and a nice beach.

But after we have had grandchildren, we had to realize that the cottage was too small for the family. And our friends are getting older – together with us –, so we cannot expect that they will sleep in the car or in a tent any more. We also would like to come there in wintertime, which wasn’t possible, because the cottage was too cold - not well-insulated.

So after many discussions we decided to remove a part of the house and built a new and bigger house in top quality, we want to avoid that we have to use time and strength to keep it up.

Our cottage before

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/szh ... site"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYBR ... 1.JPG"></a>


Our cottage after removing the part with the kitchen and the room.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/DY1 ... site"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYB1 ... 0.JPG"></a>



Last year we started the process. We communicated with different construction firms, but none of them were able to draw a house, which could fulfil our wishes. So what to do? We decided to try ourselves. Looked at houses every time we had the possibility, made different drawings and after
3-4 months work, we finally had a sketch. We send it to the construction firm, we had most trust in, they studied the sketch, made a few minor corrections, and we got an offer, we could accept.
Not very cheap, but we had big demands.

The building should have started last in June, but to our disappointment the municipality would not give us permission to build the house in the place, we want to. They claimed that our new house would be to close to a protected burial mound. It was totally ridiculous, because our old house is closer to the burial mound, we wasn’t aware that there was a burial mound near us, have never seen it, and our neighbour’s house is even closer. We of course made a complaint, but they still said no. At last we hired a surveyor to measure the distance, and the municipality had made a mistake. The distance was longer than they have said. So finally we got the permission. But all this meant that the building could not start before middle September, and in November we have got a lot of rain, it has been rain weather nearly every day. It means that the road to our house is muddy and damaged of the big trunks, which come with building materials, the builders have to go home some days because of the weather, the floor in the house is like a lake, and it will claim much energy to get the house dried up . We have written to the municipality again and told them the consequences of their mistake just to see, if they perhaps will give us an excuse or pay our costs for the surveyor.

Here some pics of the process:

The digging begins, and a lot of plants are destroyed.

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/yCt ... site"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYCQ ... 0.JPG"></a>


We are having geothermal heat and a sort of air-conditioning plant which take the warm form the air and use it to heating too. It claims a lot of pipes. In the ground there is 350 m of pipes

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/xrs ... site"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYCZ ... 1.JPG"></a>



<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/7He ... site"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYCk ... 3.JPG"></a>



<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/EyA ... site"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SuYXa ... 3.JPG"></a>




<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/SUd ... site"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxKdS ... 1.JPG"></a>






<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/ZlD ... site"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxKdU ... 0.JPG"></a>




<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/X0x ... site"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxKdU ... 4.JPG"></a>




<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/2fS ... site"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxKdV ... 7.JPG"></a>




- to be continued



Linne

Oh Linne what an adventure! I hope the rest goes more smoothly for you! I 'll bet it's going to be really nice when you finish it!

Wow, Linne, what a project you have there! It looks like it's going to be worth all the headaches and hardships. Thanks for sharing!

Looking great can't wait till the nest installment

Wow, Linne, I have never been a cottage person. After the way you described it and your clear love of your cottage--I am still not a cottage person--but atleast I understand why you love it! Congratulations on the new home getting started. Building a house has its up and downs but you will feel great when it is done!!

I am looking forward to the updates!

Gina

can't wait to see the finished product! where is the cottage again? is it Spain or am I confusing stories here?

Yes, keep up the posts. I found it interesting that the construction is different, but the annoying regulations are the same everywhere! Great photos. Good luck Linne.

Wow, Linne! That's going to be gorgeous! It's going to feel like a castle compared to the cottage! You'll have lots of room for guests... like whenever I come over to Denmark!

I can't wait for more pictures! I hope you can get the municipality to take some of the responsibility for your late start! Keep us informed on how that goes!

Cid: I noticed that also. Linne, it really is interesting to see how they build houses as opposed to what we are use to. Ok, is it sick forum members, to be interested also in the burial sight? Who is buried there (I am not asking for names--just were they land owners, kings, or other??) Also, what is the water view we are seeing? It appears that you have a couple of nice windows facing that view. Really, there isn't a bad view all the way around.

God help me I am always so darn curious!

Gina

Linne, congrats to you. I know it's alot of work, but in the end I know you'll love it. Just take one step at at time. Let me know when it's done, I'll come over and do the inspection

Fine if a building process interest you. I have it in the same way (not the technical stuff, but how you create a house and how you arrange the rooms etc.), so that’s why I posted it.

And yes, we have a cottage in Spain too. Instead of one big cottage, we have two small, one in Spain and one in Boennerup. Both of them we have had for many years (I have told the story about the cottage in Spain in another thread). It’s in Boennerup we built. Boennerup is placed in Jutland by the sea Kattegat, and it is a drive for about one and a half hour from where we live. We will have view to the sea from the living room, the dining place in the kitchen, our bathroom and our sleeping room. Because we wanted so much view as possible, it was not so easy to draw the house.

The walls you see are the walls inside, and they will be painted white. Later on they will build the walls outside. But some of the walls inside are built with the same stones, as the outside will be.
You can see the stones in some of the next pictures. It is the stone by the sea, which inspired us to choose them.

We have been up there in this weekend so here are some more pics

<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/rxp ... site"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxLr5 ... 7.JPG"></a>



<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/gK- ... site"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxLr6 ... 4.JPG"></a>



<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/ibe ... site"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxLr5 ... 8.JPG"></a>



<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/zdM ... site"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxLr4 ... 0.JPG"></a>




<a href="http://picasaweb.google.dk/lh/photo/SQt ... site"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_4aSBK_jB-gs/SxLr3 ... 1.JPG"></a>


THE BURIAL MOUND
I have perhaps used a wrong word for the place. It’s a sort of relics of the past. In the Bronze age there were many settlements in this area in Jutland, and when they buried their dead especially the leaders, they made a burial mound for them. There are many of these mounds in the landscape in Boennerup, and the government want to keep them as a part of the landscape. So today there are rules for what it’s allowed, if you built near such one. I understand that, but from our house you cannot see the mound, and you cannot see our house from the mound. So the case was silly.



Linne

Your new house is looking very nice! I used to work for a municipality, and while they do screw up often they very rarely apologize!

Hi Linne,

Looks great!

It's great to be able to build what you want to...I was able to do that here in NC (I'm in the biz (wholesale bldg matls) so I knew the "extras" I wanted)...put the $$ into the structure/quality and you can always add later what the budget doesn't allow right now. (there's always more to want than you may need during the initial build) Very interesting slab photo...much different than in the US.

Hope all works out well for you and yours.

All the best,
Scott

Wow, Linne, it is so interesting. I did a web search and found a few pictures. Is it anything like this??

Also, I tried to search Kattegat and came up with this:



What a beautiful place you live!!

You home looks like it is coming together quickly. What are you going to use for the roof??

Gina

Linne, thanks for the update! The white/grey stones are really pretty! Your house will blend nicely with the landscape. Also, I think taking advantage of the geothermal heat to heat your house is brilliant (and very green)!