Our HISTORIC house RESTORATION I Rural SWEDEN

So I think it's about time that I share some house updates with you. If you're new here my name is Benita and almost two years ago my son Wille, his girlfriend Victoria and I bought a 170 year old house in rural Sweden. It's a summer house for us which means we only use it from around April until mid October and this is our second season restoring it. The first year last summer was mostly about putting out fires, like restoring windows that were broken or were missing paints and cleaning up the very overgrown and littered yard. We also had trades people in to get the well running again, changing out all the old electrical wiring and get the chimney swept so we can use the wood burning stove. We also had a logger change quite a bit of the timber silt plates as they were rotten through, add sacrificial boards and new planks over the replaced logs. This is our first season of making things pretty again, and actually start building things up rather than tearing things down. The tearing things down bit doesn't involve removing historical features aside from old wallpaper, it's removing the later 1970s additions and reverting back to the 1850s. More on that later. But before I share more house updates, I want to update you about my family. Remember how I recently found out my DNA and that it turned out that I'm almost 100% Finnish? That was such a huge discovery and obviously sparked an even greater interest in my background so I dove deeper into my family tree and partnered with MyHeritage. MyHeritage is the number one family history service. It's trusted by 90 million users and it's so much fun and such a simple way to research, build your family tree and also find new relatives even if you, like me, don't know a whole lot about your family to start off. You have access to over 35 billion historical documents, but it's not all about records and dates, it's about discovering more about who you are and where you belong. Instant discoveries is so cool. It's where all the discoveries MyHeritage have found for your tree are stored, and it can basically add a whole new branch to your tree with just a few taps. It instantly gave me 40 new findings for my tree, which was so cool. I invited my son Ville to share my tree and now we're back in the mid-1600s, which is pretty mind-blowing. Something we also found very interesting is how the spelling of names changed over time. From the Finnish spelling of KS to an X and from K to a C as time went by, people emigrated, etc. If you're like us and want to know more about your family history, scan the QR code or click the link in the description box for a 14-day free trial. So I mentioned removing wallpaper. We want to have a clay finish on some of our walls and that means removing all the old There are about 8-10 layers on the walls and when we remove them, we keep a bit of every single one for reference and have started a house archive. It started out with the wallpapers but we've since added a lot of other finds to the archives, like glass, pottery, household items and bones bound in our yard and under the floorboards. We keep everything in this big chest that we got at auction. Or rather, almost everything. One of my favorite channels here on YouTube, My Tiny Estate, shared how they display finds they found under their floorboards in a glass display case and I immediately copied that idea and put some of my favorite finds in this one that I thrifted. Remember how I removed some of the old beadboard and said I would find a spot for it? We're adding more beadboard in the entryway and ordered a lot for that so it's all the same for that area and decided to use the old boards in the kitchen to make some repairs and additions. We need to replace some boards under one of the windows. We also want to add to the boards by the pantry where they had at some point cut off to fit a fridge. That left us with some shorter bits and we decided to use them to fill out the gap above the doors to the bedroom and entryway. Normally I would use the new miter saw we bought but on this day I was looking after Saga, my grand dog, for a couple of hours and the weather was bad so I just used a Japanese saw over a bucket in the kitchen. I worked my way through all the little pieces one by one. It was so satisfying to see that gap being filled. When Ville got back he tried out the new nail gun for the first time and attached everything. We still have the other bits to finish but those are the perfect little jobs for when the weather isn't great and this summer we've been pretty lucky when it comes to sun and warmth so we've been prioritizing other projects. I did do another little project in the kitchen and that was to fix the chimney breast above the wood burning stove. It had been painted with gloss paint and had several holes from things like lights having been attached in the past. Some of the paint was really flaky and easy to remove but some areas were super stubborn. It took me a few days to remove it all. I did some research on how to best fill the holes and what material to use. Turns out clay is a good candidate and since I had made a huge order for clay daubing in other areas I used a bit of that to fill the holes. I did get tools for the job but ended up using my bare hands a lot. Such a fun but messy process. The great thing is that it's all natural and you just wipe any spills with water. This is the first coat done and I have since added a second smoother coat. We haven't decided on the finish yet. We can keep it natural clay colored and in that case just add a cellulose layer over it to protect it. Or we can paint it white which is traditional for a chimney breast. We haven't made any color decisions in the kitchen yet though so we'll just hold off on painting until we decide the rest. Right next to the kitchen is the downstairs bedroom. The curtain pole in there was almost coming off and as I was fixing it I noticed that there's a void above the beadboard ceiling in there. Standing in the doorway of the kitchen and bedroom it's suddenly very obvious that the ceiling in the bedroom is much lower. We obviously had to take a peek. Wille used our multi-tool to cut off a small piece of the board and we made such an amazing discovery. The original ceiling seems intact, beams and all. Some pretty cool wallpaper remnants are still stuck to the walls. This is one of those projects that we want to tackle right away but stop ourselves and save it for later. Removing that ceiling is probably not a huge job but it is a messy and dirty one. They used sawdust and other crumbly bits for insulation back in the day and that tends to come out between the boards after a while so we'll need to fill the gaps with linseed oil putty first and also sort out whose leaves where in the meantime. So exciting though! Moving on outside, or barely actually, the porch. I've been working on the entryway quite a lot this season and it's mostly been not so exciting things to show you so I'm saving those clips for another video when things start to come together more and I can show you some nice results too. Instead let's step out on said porch. This porch is part of the 1970s renovation that Aunt Mary did. I can totally see how she must have been so excited to get this done along with modernizing the entryway. She was a farmer and lived here permanently so for her it was all about having a practical entrance to her farmhouse. For us who only come here in the warmer months, the modern additions like the front door and very 70s exterior panelling around it are a bit of an eyesore on this old house. So we ordered a new front door and we're so excited! It's custom built in the next village by super talented craftsmen. I'll show you in a bit but first I need to prep for the installation of the door. It's going to be a double door which is most likely what was here originally considering the old opening that had been partially blocked off. We're adding a six paint transom window above to let some light in and the timber will need to be cut accordingly during installation. That meant taking the beadboard ceiling on the porch down to reveal the structure. The beam against the house is being lifted further up and we're also removing the middle beam so the ceiling in there is completely vaulted. We're repainting most of the exterior and interior of the porch in the same traditional red as the rest of the house but we might do something else to the ceiling. We'll keep you posted. And I promised you a peek at the doors. Ta-da! Such beautiful craftsmanship. We're painting the door ourselves and it needs three coats of linseed oil paint and a few weeks drying time so it's fully cured before installation in late August. As you've noticed I'm jumping back and forth a bit in this video to show you the progress at the house so far. I mentioned clearing up the yard earlier and aside from piles of junk we also have so many mystery lumps and bumps. As I was doing something else and stuck my shovel in the ground I hit rock. Turns out there's a little detour to our path in front of the house. It makes total sense to have it but it was completely overgrown and invisible. The slabs aren't stone they're just very utilitarian concrete but still a fun discovery. A few weeks later I attacked the bump next to the stone step and flattened that out. Not huge progress on the yard but still such satisfaction when it's done and it all adds up to a nicer yard. We plan to extend the porch to include the door on the right down the line so we can walk to the future incineration toilet without an umbrella when it rains. Here's an image that ChatGPT made us and it sort of shows what we're going for. Across the road we have the outbuilding that used to be the village laundry. We currently keep our gardening tools and supplies in there. Again the outside was very overgrown and little by little we're clearing things. Another semi-hidden stone, this one real and partially covered in grass. Such a great feeling to uncover it and clean up around it too. On hot sweaty and dusty days I'm so happy that while it wasn't a priority for me during our house hunt Victoria insisted on us getting a house near water. Not lakefront or anything fancy like that, just so we can go swimming fairly easily. Just a five minute bike ride from the house is a beautiful lake. We joined a private association and we pay a tiny fee of around $15 each per year for the use of the jetty, picnic tables, outhouse and changing rooms. It's so well kept and convenient and taking a quick dip there is the perfect way to end a day at the house. Don't forget to check out MyHeritage and get a 14 day free trial so you can find out more about yourself and your family. Scan the QR code or click the link in the description box for a 14 day free trial. Thanks so much for watching, I'll see you in the next one.