I haven’t done much work on the mill for a while. We’re at an impasse with the building contractors of Ilze’s choice, as their quote came in at three times our budget. And then Belgians — and those who have lived here a while — shake their heads and say, “Never tell them your budget, they’ll always go higher.” But that’s why I told them my budget in the first place, so they won’t go over budget. I have nothing to go over into. But they went over anyway. By a factor of three. And the locals tut tut tut, and shake their heads, and appear to think that Belgian builders offer to do things for free as long as you simply don’t tell them your budget. Construction sites are filled with contractors and sub-contractors driven mad by the insecurity of not knowing what the magic number is, in much the same way as little old ladies of a certain good-natured Christian bent are driven to know that David Copperfield is demonically posessed because he can walk through walls and has devil’s eyes.
When, oh when, did I fall down a rabbit hole…
Categories: Finances
No Comments »
At long last, we’re entering final discussions about the house plans. We have a meeting with the architect next week, when we’ll hopefully be able to sign off on the plans. We’re still in discussions with the contractor about the price of having all this built, although he did come down from three times our budget to two.
For your viewing pleasure the plans are available on Flickr.
Categories: Architecture
No Comments »
Belgium is known for paperwork. Like its larger neighbour to the west, the Belgian civil service is fueled by a passionate love of bureaucracy and red tape. But living in Belgium means dealing with paperwork and senseless rules and petty bureaucracy, so we braced ourselves and filed our revised house plans at the Lubbeek town hall last week. Correction: we braced ourselves, but only Ilze and the architect went to file the paperwork, taking the approach that feminine wiles will warm the heart of even the most recalcitrant civil servant.
The new plans mean that the volume of the house will be increased from 1,000m3 (for which we had planning permission) to slightly more than than. Wonder of wonders, the Lubbeek town council had no problem with that. The architect smiled, the clerk smiled, Ilze smiled, stamps were produced, paperwork was approved.
But nothing happens that easily in Belgium. If this was a regular property, the paperwork would have been ready for handing over to the building contractors. But alors… the property is classified as “duel use”: we have a bit of land in the back zoned for agricultural use, we have a part (on which the windmill stands) zoned for light industrial use, and we have the part where the house will be built, which is zoned for residential use.
This rainbow of zoning means our building application has to be bumped up for approval on a regional level, which has to happen in neighbouring Leuven. This is not a process as simple as smiling and having your paperwork stamped, and can realistically take up to three months to complete. That takes us into May before the contractors can start any work.
If we’re lucky the house will be habitable around the end of July, beginning of August. Lovely.
To top it all, a drainpipe has come loose on the windmill. If I leave it like that, rain water running down the walls will surely lead to staining and ugly marks, perhaps even structural damage. So I’ll have to don my monkey shoes and climb up 14 meters with a frame better suited to staying on the ground and shouting instructions. Even lovelier.
Categories: General
No Comments »
Buying a run-down windmill will make you question your own sanity. Many times I’ve stood at the bottom of the muddy trench that is our driveway and asked myself: “What did I get myself into?” (Actually, I usually ask: “What did Ilze get me into?”) But then I stumble across someone like Fitz, who bought a missile silo on eBay. Good luck Fitz. At least I know there are people with even more daunting projects than mine! [Found via Houseblogs.]
Categories: General
No Comments »
Some jobs require a top-down approach, while others work better bottom-up. Building a house, for example: I’m a firm believer in the traditional way of doing this. You lay the foundations: check. You build a few walls: check. You add a roof (for which the walls come in handy): check. And so you continue, until you get to hanging curtains and reorganising the furniture for the tenth time. This is the way sensible people do it.
So why is Ilze in London at the moment, shopping for doorknobs? We don’t know whether the foundations will need reinforcement, our walls need to be lifted to increase volume, and the roof needs to be replaced completely. In addition, we have several tons of industrial equipment littered about what should one day be our kitchen and living room, and no obvious way of shifting them.
So Ilze went for an alternative approach, getting the doorknobs first and making sure the rest of the house matches them. She comes from a great contrarian tradition; when all the other rats appear to be swimming downstream, why not break your back going upstream, because clearly this is where the greater reward will be. By the end of the week we will own several pairs of spiffy English doorknobs. Now to just add some doors to those…
Categories: General
2 Comments »
December 15, 2005 10:27 am
This is what I have in my attic. The wheel itself is solid steel, and approximately three feet high.
Categories: General
No Comments »
December 12, 2005 7:50 am
This drawing from July 1924 (click for a larger version) shows the windmill in its original state, with sails and the wooden section at the top. The entrance used by carts can also be seen at the bottom. We’ve been discussing the should-we, shouldn’t-we of having new sails made, but I suspect we might not restore it to that state (a combination of costs versus aesthetics — I actually quite like the gothic look of the structure without the sails). On the other hand, using the sails to power a generator for supplying electricity to my server farm sounds like a geek dream…
The document this image was taken from states (translated from Dutch): The windmill was constructed by Jozef Vrijdags in 1870. The mill was later operated by miller Frans Verheyden, who retired in 1944. The last owner was Emiel Timmermans. The sails were removed in 1936, leaving only the body.
Categories: Architecture
No Comments »
|
