Building & Renovation

The Building & Renovation section documents hands-on experience across a range of construction and renovation projects over the years.

It begins with restoring an old house, continues with interior improvements in an apartment, and extends to building a frame house from scratch. More recently, it also includes ongoing work on a manor house project.

Alongside larger builds, this section features smaller DIY projects and practical solutions — all grounded in real-world constraints, budgeting, and learning by doing.

The focus is on process, challenges, and outcomes rather than theory — capturing what it actually takes to build, renovate, and improve living spaces over time.

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 home remodeling works,…

Night Office 2016

It's in the far future I will build a fancy working space in our rural country house, for now we are still busy of replacing log walls with aerated concrete blocks. For now to perform digital nomad…

First Rows of Aerated Concrete Block For Pump Room

Let's keep building walls from aerated concrete blocks - the material I really love - it's easy to install, it's durable and it should be cost effective in combination with proper insulation. Today…

Grading Soil Around Foundation

I could probably come up with an article How to grade soil around foundation, but I'm not an expert on this topic. In today's home remodeling series I will show with images how I leveled soil around…

When Foundations Crumble - Home Remodeling

When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3 Today was meant to be an easy day, we had to continue foundation works, pouring in concrete, nothing complicated in…

First plants for Rock Garden

Last summer we not only concreted a lot and demolished walls, but planted some plants and trees in the surrounding territory.  See: Planting an Apple Tree (Doch Melbi / Daughter Melbi /…

Shaping Rock Garden

It was on the same day when guys and I demolished walls and poured in concrete for home foundation, while the better part of me, decided to shape a little bit rock garden we recently …

Waiting For The Water Level To Rise In The Pond

In the mid Summer 2016, we did a major task - dug a pond, after pond excavation works we were left with a large hole in the middle of our rural property. There are no incoming streams actually…

The Last Row of Aerated Concrete Blocks Masonry

Now, it was pretty easy to build first six rows of wall from aerated concrete blocks, see Constructing Wall From AAC blocks + Finishing Foundation Concreting Works for Bathroom, Another Day…

Lintel Installation & First Coffee Break

If you have been following my blog and in particular home remodeling series you are already familiar with our construction works at our rural country house we started back in 2015.  In the…

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