Archive for the 'Photographs' category
Storm Damage
March 2, 2008 1:15 pmA bad storm on the night of 29 February caused some serious damage to the house. An original roof truss (due to be replaced) blew down, in the process knocking over a section of the front wall (not due to be replaced). Luckily the wall fell outwards, without damaging anything else.
This underscores an argument we had with the town planning people in Leuven when we applied for a building permit. The sensible thing to do would have been to knock down the existing walls and build from scratch. Not only would this have been less expensive, but it would have resolved the doubts everyone on our side had about the strength of the walls.
Let’s be clear about the walls: this wasn’t Hadrian’s Wall, or the Great Wall of China. These were walls built to keep “inside” from being “outside”, and possibly hold up the roof at the same time. These were functional walls, never intended to do more than they were built for. They weren’t built to keep out the damp, or the cold. They weren’t built to last a hundred years. They were simply built and added to over the last 80 years or so to encase an animal feed mill. So when someone intends turning this feed mill into a house, the walls shouldn’t have to be part of it.
To this day, I still don’t understand the rationale of the town planning people’s decision to make us retain the original structure. There’s no point. If the building was of potential historical interest or value (which it isn’t), we’re messing it up anyway, even if we don’t change the outside skeleton. If the building was even just slightly aesthetic or important to the local architectural landscape, I would understand. But it isn’t, and the local architectural landscape can only be diplomatically described as eclectic. Even if the building tied in to the windmill in any way, I would understand keeping a matching set, but the building was designed in a very functional way to mill animal feed. It has nothing to do with the windmill, and only served as a carbuncle on the landscape.
So today, due to the inscrutable wisdom of the town planning department in Leuven, we have walls that might or might not fall over in a storm. At least now we have one section of wall less to worry about, as we rebuild it using proper bricks and cement.
A large wooden hopper/sorter we hoped to have in our living room was also badly damaged, as the wind blew it hard enough to break both front legs. The original can be seen here on Flickr, and this is what it looked like after the storm:
More photographs, as always, on Flickr.
Wood Grain
February 6, 2008 11:01 am
Some exposed wood in the windmill.
Demolitions Completed
September 15, 2007 11:53 amIt’s taken some time, but actual construction has started. These are some photographs of the state of the site before the actual building work started.
Construction
September 6, 2007 1:49 pmConstruction continues, in its way. Most of the demolition work has been completed, and a crane has deposited the lovely old Ruston & Hornsby diesel engine, a wooden feed sorter, several millstones and some assorted bits of industrial debris in the garden. This is where my pond / Ilze’s swimming pool will be, so until there is a clear winner we’ll pretend it’s a modern art exhibition.
Voeder Goffin Leuven
August 10, 2007 9:59 amThere are a dirty great pile of old feed bags lying around in the windmill, most of which have now been classified “rubble”. I am allowed to hoard “collectibles”, but “rubble” is to be consigned to the appropriate bins provided by the building contractor. If I had my way, nearly every little screw and half brick will be reclassified as a collectible and consigned to my growing collection of junk, but Ilze is keeping a tight rein on the definitions.
First Demolition Photographs
July 25, 2007 1:47 pmDemolitions have just started, so there isn’t much to see yet. Apart from the obvious great big ruin which is supposed to be our house, but let’s just leave this elephant and never, ever speak of him again.
This should be a bedroom one day, with a lovely large skylight looking out on the green fields of Flanders:
This is my bedroom. Will be my bedroom. Unless the wall falls down, in which case my bedroom will be a nasty cardboard box under a nearby overpass:
Another view from what should one day be our bedroom window:
More photographs as always on my Flickr set.
Storm Damage
February 4, 2007 4:37 pmRecent high winds and heavy rain over Western Europe caused massive damage to property, while we got off relatively easy. There’s a hole in the roof of the barn, about 30cm x 1m big. I’ll have to improvise a fix to keep the load bearing walls and wooden beams dry, although it won’t be worth fixing properly. The roof will be replaced completely in a few months. A tree next to the windmill split close to the trunk, which is now pressing against the outside of the wall. I’ll have to get in there with a chainsaw and cut the branch down before it causes structural damage. Pity I only have an electric chainsaw, and we don’t have electricity on the property yet. Time to either buy a generator or a non-electric chainsaw, I guess. A man can never have too many chainsaws, right?
