On Saturday we made another small step towards our vision, when I went to help our neighbour with his house and barn renovation project.
German people seem to have a lot of practical skills. Saturdays project was to take down some scaffolding, Move it, and rebuild it alongside a section of wall which had old plaster smeared on it, remove the plaster, and get the wall ready for a new covering which will go on this week. Like you do. I'd never rebuilt scaffolding before, and I have Hohenangst -fear of heights- but that just made the challenge sweeter.
If we follow the aim of getting an old farmhouse as a starting point for the arts centre, then it will most likely need renovating, and the time to start learning is now, and not after we have moved in. Harald has been working on his house for almost six years now, which gives us an idea of the timescale involved here. He's learnt a lot of things the hard way, and he's willing to pass these lessons on. He has also explained me some of the background to what he is doing, what to look out for, and what not to worry about, and how this sort of project is typically financed here in Germany.
Building scaffolding was a bit scary, you have to build the platform, and then climb onto it and add the safety rails, I managed this on the first level, but no further. After holding a compressed air jack hammer and hitting the wall for four hours my right arm was like rubber, my hair looked grey, and I was chewing grit, but it was worth it for the sight of the clean wall, and the thought that one day, I may be doing this on our own building
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