Neph’s new house…
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The background post…
I've been living in the town of Bodø in Northern Norway for 20 years. It is the county capital and has a current population of around 50,000. The area around the town has been settled by humans since the Stone Age. The nearby maelstrom Saltstraumen shows evidence of early human settlements, no doubt because of the food source the maelstrom creates. As @Giles can tell you there are a lot of fish there. Still, a major settlement didn't start developing until the 19th century and by the start of WWII the town had grown to around 6000 inhabitants.
On 27th May 1940 3500 of those citizens lost their homes in bombing by the German Luftwäffe as part of their invasion of Norway. The attack used both incendiary and explosive bombs and its effects were devastating as one of the first things to be destroyed was the main water supply, meaning the citizens were unable to fight the resulting fires effectively. Despite the widespread destruction, there was relatively little loss of life. The accepted total is now put at 15 deaths.
More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodø#World_War_II
As a response to the desctruction of the town, the Swedish Red Cross, at the behest of the Sewdish government donated 107 houses and apartments. They were built tightly spaced imediately to the west of the town centre. The area became known as "Svenskebyen", or The Swedish Quarter. The homes were built in 1941 and the name lives on to this day. Due to the bombing it is effectively the oldest existing residential neighbourhood in Bodø that is architecturally intact. There are obviously individual buildings in the town that survived the bombing, but not entire blocks. @Anesthetist here are some brief architectural details in English: https://arkitekturguide.uit.no/items/show/689
Here is a picture from 1948. The Swedish Quarter is encircled in orange and our building (we own one of two semi-detatched units) is arrowed in green:
Because of its unique architecture and it's proximity to the town centre the area has become very popular. The houses are relatively small, and despite their tight spacing have a cottage vibe about them. The area is sometimes referred to as a village. Throughout the 50 and 60's the area was developed with new housing and became "Vestbyen" or West town. At some point in the 90's the town council realised the cultural and architectural value of the Swedish Quarter and decided that all developments of the houses in that block would be subject to strict regulations requiring the owners to return to, or utilise original materials and features. This includes slate roofing, windows of a specific design and dimension, weather boards of a specific pattern and dimension, as well as period specific doors, finishing boards etc. Even the pantones of the exterior paint to be used were specified and limited to colours that would have been available at the time of construction.
Next post will give you all an impression of the house itself and the amount of work we are facing
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Congratulations @neph93. It sounds like you've got yourself an historic house project and I can only image what that will entail.
In keeping with the building codes from that era, like you mentioned–the same materials, color schemes etc. it should be an interesting and rewarding project.
Would you go so far to say that the area today has become gentrified ?
Cant wait to watch the process:) -
Congats! Good luck on the renovations! I know how painful that can be.
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Congrats Rueben and Hot Ingrid. Vestbyen is lucky to have someone as intelligent and detail oriented as you restoring one of its homes. I can see the WAYWT "hard labor" thread exponentially increasing in activity soon.
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@neph93 Congrats !! MashAllah
I love the history more than architecture design . Looking forward to seeing your project
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That’s some great history. Looking forward to all your progress. Best of luck.
This might be a 2 pants job…I can’t begin to estimate the beers
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Congratulations @neph93 on the new digs! I would love to see a current view of the location from a similar vantage point. Looks like a gorgeous place to live! Plus you get to wear jackets WAY more often than I ever do…
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Congratulations, @neph93 . Now, I may have another reason to try and make it to Northern Norway. I've been known to do a little construction, from time to time.
You’re more than welcome, anytime buddy. We’re hiring contractors for some of it, but will be doing a lot ourselves too.
You’ll have to do 10 days quarantine on arrival but you can still work on the house, and drink beer [emoji6]
10 day quarantine….. and beer ? I may have to purchase a cemetery plot there. You know, just in case.
take the 10 days of drinking as pres and you'll be right
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@neph93
I am wondering how a relatively small house is going to work with your large number of children, though…The house we live in now is also relatively small, the new one will be an upgrade for sure. It is also spread over two floors, plus a full cellar floor. One major part of the project will be converting that cold cellar inot living space, with two bedrooms, a lounge and a WC. The biggest boys will then be banished there
To be fair, the biggest boys will be 18 soon and start leaving the nest. That will help. -
Well, tomorrow is when it all kicks off. Ingrid and I have been at the house today making plans for gutting it.
It is in a fairly shabby state, but that is fine as it is all going in a skip anyway…
Stage one will be totally renovating the top two floors. Floors and walls need levelling, floors and external walls will be insulated, the total electrical installation, new bathroom, changing the room plan and installing a new kitchen.
Part of the living area
A bit of kitchen
This is where the magic happens ( @Filthy ) [emoji23]
Lovely bit of carpeting…
Stage two will be making the cold cellar livable. And dividing it into two bedrooms, a lounge and a toilet. We also need to cut new windows, sink the level of the floor by about 30cm and work everything up from the concrete. This part of the job is massive.
Stage three will be insulating the house externally, changing all the windows, re-doing the drainage and the weather boards.
The exterior:
A bit of a garden
Off to bed now. Tomorrow it is crowbars and sledgehammers galore.
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the biggest boys will be 18 soon and start leaving the nest.
Are you sure about that ? Nowadays, most kids are staying into their 30's
Yeah, that thought has occurred.
The oldest lad, Jesper, is 18 in a week and will be finished with high school in June. He is keen to do national service which lasts a year. He is also desperate to move out. No bad feeling, but he wants his independence.
The next chap, Noah is a year behind Jesper and will be leaving for university in the Fall of 2022.
We’ll just change the locks then.
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Lotta potential there! Stoked to see how it goes. I need to do a lot of stuff to my house, so maybe this'll be a bit of motivation…
