Villa Bellevue: December 2015

I have to remind myself to not wait for eternity before making a blog post about the small things we are doing around the house. Finding the pictures or a sense in the pictures that can be found become quite an activity.

During the past half a year, there hasn't been any major makeover, purchase or discovery however, we haven't been inactive and we have accomplished many small and medium tasks, or at least some have been started.

Spring and summer (and part of the autumn) are the months where I get some itchy sensation and, a part from wanting to clean everything possible, having major plans that will never take place, I try to spend as much time as possible outside, sorting out the mess that is our garden.

This outdoor season was spent pruning some apple trees (next year I will not touch them and if I do it will be in the summer!) and cleaning out the compost area which was a scary operation. At a certain point we found some plastic sacks and we were afraid what the content of such would be (luckily it was just soil... but why!??!?!).
One of the things I manage to dig out from the nassle jungle was the old original gate which unfortunately, by being abandoned there, will be probably be used just as "inspiration". Most of it is rotten.

Original wooden gate from 1906

After cleaning out the area from the worse (still incomplete task), I did cut the hedge and some of the beech hedge had become quite some tree and required my intervention with the chainsaw.

The chainsaw solves most of the issues in a overgrown garden

Probably too late, we have started also our major tasks. Mattias should paint/fix/repair the metal sheet while I try to take care of the windows.
For the metal sheet, we got a very good contact and after a very informative meeting, Mattias got all the equipment he needed and he started the operation. I think this will last at least other 30-40 years considering the speed ;-)
Jokes apart, it is never easy to start something completely new and the first time one puts the hands in something like this, everything is very slow and one is wondering if he is doing right or what.
Anyway, at least during the spring, this should go a bit smoother.

Removing the first rusty layer with a rotative metal brush applied to the drill machine

Our metal sheet on the cornice looks awful. Most likely many tinsmith would try to make us change that, but the expert we got was not that dramatically impressed and told us it is fixable.

Brush a little

Cut a little

Apply a special tape that will "melt in" with the metal

Now the metal sheet is patched and one can paint over it. We bought Isotrol, although we first wanted to use järnmönja

We decided to go for Isotrol for the infinite amount of recommendations we have heard, although possibly it is not exactly the correct thing to do, since this is not the traditional way to fix a metal sheet. But fixing the metal is not exactly so easy anyway... I think a practical "shortcut" which is though still compatible with a proper way of handling the metal sheet is absolutely ok to embrace.

We have even used it for trying to save our railing (which hopefully will receive more attention next year).

Saving the railing

I took care of our windows, once again. Pity I started too late with the operation, so, although we are completely off season, I am still working on windows (!!!). Luckily, this has been a mild(er) autumn.

I had very big plans when I started. I haven't yet finished.... These two windows are in not very good state.

The putting has fallen off from most of the sections and the bottom part is rotten.

We have renovated the door with the droppnäsa a couple of years ago, I was hoping I had just to paint it red...instead also the door had surprises

This has been a lot of scraping, and I haven't finished yet!!!

The window frame of this window was rotten in the corner, the bottom part of the window too. Luckily the rest was ok, but I managed to crack two glass in the window when scraping it.