Haugesund, housing | When Tina and her family moved, the air broke: – It took several months before we could take an instrument

It may seem tempting to many. Find a charming old wooden house and save it from rotting.

Go back to old adjectives and details.

At least it was a bit like that back then Tina Signesdottir Hult His wife, Therese Sørensen, is exhibited in a classic Art Nouveau house at the Erling Skjalgssons Gate in Hauge in spring 2020.

– If you look out the window here, you only see houses from the 20th century. We signed both home and district, Tina Seinensdottir Holt smiles.

She wears a red knit sweater, and her Christmas mood lights up like the rest of the lovely old house. With stars in the windows, delicately folded by old wallpaper, candles, green wreaths and a Christmas tree with real candles, it is as if Christmas was only meant to be celebrated here.

Although ancient magic isn’t necessarily nearly as practical;

– I was afraid to light the candles on the Christmas tree, Tina chuckles.

yields

After visiting Villa Art Nouveau, Tina and Therese quickly imagined that the house could be a nice home for themselves and the children of Amelia (13) and Sigurd (3).

This house was in need of rescue.

But first, there was a lot of work waiting for them, a project whose scope they may not have fully seen at first.

– We are both artists, and here we have to evolve with preservation, creativity and creating something. Tina says everything we do is part of getting the house back to its original condition.

Although it was initially scary to just tear up a shingle, the two embarked on a project that was not finished after a year and a half.

– We had renovated a couple of houses earlier, but then it was mostly paint. Here we had to work more comprehensively.

Treasures in the wall

Bravely and with a plan to renovate one room at a time, the couple took off.

For several months, the container was standing outside the house while Therese and Tina demolished the house from the inside.

– We dug ourselves up and down. He found hidden treasures, a secret room, a door hidden in the wall but also in the places where there was an electrical fire in the walls. And at one point, water started flowing into the woods in the living room. Because we tore everything up, fortunately it was discovered.

Part of the process of returning the house to its original condition was the use of eco-friendly living materials.

Which made the video a sensation overnight.

– Without Instagram, I don’t know where we would be. There we found other like-minded people with similar projects. We supported and supported each other and came out with good advice. You have to tread carefully in a house like this. Things are a little skewed, says Tina Signesdottir, who documented the process through Hauge’s Villa Instagram account, but they must be skewed.

unique atmosphere

After taking over the house in May 2020, the young family thought they would move in after the summer. It turned out to be very ambitious.

Then Christmas approached, and the deadline to get out of the apartment in Torvastad.

– We were completely terrified. The kitchen and children’s bedrooms were ready, but the house was far from finished. With that, we’ve moved on to a little Christmas Eve. Of course it was nice to be inside, but we were pretty tired.

Tired but happy. Tina says there is a completely different atmosphere in such an old house.

Which one are you making, or which one is there?

– he is here. It is noticeable that there are a lot of other legs that have stepped here before. We opened the roof, now the roof is three meters high here again. And the air is completely different from what is found in dense new homes.

– Everything seems fine

When they moved to celebrate Christmas last year, they hoped to go much further in the work they had to do.

– But when we moved inside, the air went out. You have to actually finish before you move in, it is much more difficult to start work when you live at home. It took several months before we could handle the tool.

However, they have gradually set smaller sub-goals and, over the past year, have steadily worked through the to-do list.

– We were able to lay the tiles, paint the ceiling, tile the kitchen and install glass doors that were in an old apartment building in Oslo. Everything looks fine now, which is a bit cool. But the biggest work is what you don’t see, what lies underground and inside the walls.

Buyers at the door

Because despite the hard work of the long, tiring days, the prize was always there.

– Now we’ll see what this house could be. Many of these homes are in tatters, but now we’re salvaging this one. It could last for another hundred years, Tina smiles.

There is at least no doubt that it was a popular area in which the family established itself;

– We brought people to the door and asked if they could buy the house. We live near the park area, and for us proximity to the city was important when we bought here, says Tina, who is from Norheim while Therese comes from Tromsø.

Being two creative people with a sense of detail proved to be both an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

– It makes us very careful. We prefer not to accept anything worse than the best. But when it turns out that the traditional wallpaper we like costs 40,000 per room, it goes without saying that we can’t pick it up for the whole house.

looking for joy

Although their home dates from 1910, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Tina and Therese personally enjoyed the style of the 1910s.

– We will not live in a museum, and although the project has become very intense, we cannot be fully Art Nouveau either. So we had to find a mix of what we like and what fits the house. Like fixtures and moroccan tiles in the kitchen.

Fortunately, this year’s pre-Christmas period wasn’t marked by the panicked panic seen last year. But even so, Tina describes it, it’s tough living on a renovation project with two kids, in the middle of a pandemic.

– We are trying to find our way to the joy of the project we originally wanted. Life happens in this too. Much remains unfinished at home, but fortunately great things have been accomplished.