Building & Renovation

Notes from managing and developing properties in Latvia: renovation, construction, land and the practical work of improving them over time.

Tapping Birch Sap in the Backyard

Can't decide on a new hobby? Think about tapping birch sap in early spring. Depending on the region you are located and availability of birch trees you might even enjoy this drink…

Grass Trimming 2017

It was back at the end of June 2017, we had just returned from about month-long travel (Turkey, Georgia, and Greece) to notice that grass have more than overgrown.I took my old…

Planting Onion Springs and Radishes

For the past three years, it has been already a tradition planing some veggies in the garden.For this year's early garden works - planting onion springs and radishes.Planting…

Winter in Bākūži 2 - 2018

A couple of weeks ago I made a couple of HDR's back at Bākūži (Bākūži Winter 2018), despite it was still a winter, we had little to no snow back then. Now at the end of February…

Bākūži Winter 2018

Made a couple of HDR's back at Bākūži, the country house where for the last couple of years we have done some home remodeling.In today's Piece of Life series, simple winter mood…

DIY Open Wooden Compost Bin

A compost bin is a must-have garden construction at our rural property - fallen leaves and trimmed grass mostly go here. It was on early May 1st, 2017 evening I decided to…

Home Remodeling - Season 3 (2017)

We had some great plans for this Summer's home remodeling works, unfortunately, we faced some obstacles, and decided to stop any further home remodeling works for this year.…

Autumn Harvest in The Garden

Back at our rural country house in Latvia, we have a pretty international garden, plants, and flowers from different countries across the world, so, for example, we have a tulip…

Summer Solstice 2017

This is already fourth Summer Solstice featured on this blog. see how three years ago we made a barbeque on our Tbilisi's balcony and how we celebrated our …

Home Remodeling - End Of The Season 2

Wow, that was a ride. In this post I will write down all major tasks we performed during Summer 2016, which was second year since we started to manage and repair our rural…

Planting Strawberry Plants In Fall

It was at the end of September (2016), when we planted 80 strawberry plants in a field which was prepared few days ago with a tiller. See: Ground Milling With A TillerEarlier…

Temporary Window For Bathroom

This year's (2016) home remodeling works are coming to the end, though one problem were left - a window for bathroom. As just outer constructions of walls were performed, and…

Ground Milling With A Tiller

During the Summer of 2016 we met some new faces, and so back in July we met with a neighbor (Ok, he is actually living some 10 km from our rural house) with a tractor with tiller…

Inner Wall From AAC Blocks For Pump Room

Last home remodeling works are carried out for this end, in today's article - final inner wall from aac blocks, for auxiliary room, where right now just pump is stored in the…

DIY - Bookshelf From Wooden Boards

Time after time I love to excel as a Do-it-yourself guy, for today's DIY article - how i built bookshelf for our rural house from wooden boards.Let's start that we have a complete…

Demolishing Inner Walls To Build AAC Block Walls

In today's home remodeling series a story how I continued to build a bathroom and how we demolished an inner wall to later rebuild it from scratch, again with aac blocks.Let's…

Rock Garden Extended

It was at the start of the September (2016) - we were finishing wall replacement works and already had installed first bearing beams, there were still some things left on…