Madness???

OK, I might as well come out with it. We have embarked on another big adventure, having sold our large and by now comfortable house on the hill over Krumlov to buy a smaller, dilapidated one on the river instead. Everyone thinks we are mad, or obsessed with renovations - which may well be true. Well, what are we losing? A house that was lovely, but too big for what we need, and expensive to run. And what are we gaining? Hopefully some means of doing up the Lake house properly, and a promise of a 'just right' town house in the most romantic street in Krumlov - even though it remains to be seen whether there be enough money to do both up 100%. But we'll see. Houses on this part of the river don't come up on the market as a rule, so the opportunity was too hard to resist.

The biggest challenge is the practical situation of having two houses under total reconstruction so we'll live in chaos for a while. Also, as the riverside house is classified as a National monument, there's much paperwork and dealing with conservation authorities - but I don't mind as my philosophy is to give the house what it needs, historically, so I am happy to cooperate with them. It just all takes time and effort.

Well, what can I say about the house itself? All the houses in this street (Parkan) date back to the Middle ages when the two parts of Krumlov were each surrounded by defence walls. People started to use them as handy support for dwellings, so the 'heart' of each of these houses is the old wall, some 2m thick. Over the centuries the houses have undergone many shape-changes, mainly to the upper floors. And so we have found, for example, an old (16C?) wooden carved ceiling, hidden between the 1st floor plaster and the attic floor - in a pretty poor state, alas (the photo is taken by camera suspended under the attic floor). The worst shape change happened during the last owners' residence, when they built seemingly illogical new partitions in the first floor, and (for example) put a wc INTO the old chimney! There'll be much that needs looking into, researching and restoring.

Here are a few photos to illustrate this adventure. The interior ones were taken yesterday, when we finally got the keys. And I shall keep you posted of the developments. Fingers crossed..... Meanwhile, here is the Summer view from the garden, which shows what has driven us to do this. Isn't it a view 'to die for'???


(apologies to the author of the aerial photo for having pinched it off the web - but then I hope he doesn't mind the extra publicity??)