I may have bought a house.
With a garden – of course.
It’s completely irresponsible and ludicrous for me to buy a house in the middle of nowhere, but… There it is. I bought it. From December 1st, this old farmstead is mine.
The house is 1100 square feet, and sits in 1/3 of an acre of garden – GARDEN!!!
It’s surrounded by fields on all sides, and from the very back of the garden there’s even a view of the local lake/pond.
I’m not sure how useful a greenhouse will be in a holiday home, though, but there’s only one broken pane so I might just let the grape vine grow rampant and use it as a “garden sitting room”.
Yes, fields all around…
Sorry the floor plan is in Danish… It does, though, give you an idea of what the house is like. Two wood burners – one in the larger sitting room and one in the kitchen – and in-door parking that I might convert to a studio-cum-guest-bedroom. And I am seriously considering knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the small sitting room (“køkken” and “værelse”) to make a large farmhouse-style kitchen with access to the added-on “udestue” – a non-insulated room with windows all around that is mainly meant as a semi-outside sitting room.
Upstairs there are two bedrooms, but the floor doesn’t feel too sturdy and the ceilings are just over 6ft high, so essentially that’s just storage space. At best people can “camp out” up there, but I won’t bother converting the rooms into actual bedrooms.
And the garden… Poul, the current owner, is 86 and has kept the garden in a near-immaculate state since his wife died a few years ago. But it was clearly her garden, with his part of it being the vegetable garden and the shed. It has a very effortless charm – not too formal, but still with borders and beds and ornamental shrubs. And it’s large enough to have space for an “ugly” part behind the shed, which is nice.
I love that garden… It’s in keeping with the rather utilitarian nature of the house, and yet it has so many charms – like the house. And the views over the fields are just stunning!
So there. I did it. I bought a house and will become a gardener once more.
Congratulations Soren. What a beautiful place and very much to my taste. I’m also going through the house buying process. Normally it is quite straightforward but this time it seems unbelievably stressful and is taking forever. I hope your move (holiday home nevertheless) is painless. Your house is very ‘Danish’ (no surprise there) from my memories of visiting as a kid (& from watching The Bridge)! Dave
I remember how horribly stressful it was when I bought my apartment – this time is so different because I don’t need a mortgage! (Yes… It’s so far out in the country that I can afford to pay it cash…)
And the house is not the stereotype of a country cottage, but it really is a smaller version of the farmhouse my paternal grandparents lived in. I rather like that. It doesn’t have to look like a postcard to be perfect…
Congratulations, it is a lovely house and even lovelier garden. I can see why it chose you. Now you have a whole winter to think about the garden !!
With a new roof and gallons and gallons of white paint the house should be quite lovely in the end.
And the garden… Well, it just needs to be kept and then I can get to know it and develop on what is already there. I already know I need more fruit trees, but apart from that I really have no idea what to do with it yet. It will come to me when I’m there, I’m sure.
I am so happy for you as this is your love…a house with a garden….you couldn’t have chosen a more beautiful spot!
It’s a very stereotypical Danish landscape; nothing too big, nothing too dramatic, but just rolling fields and a small country road. I think I can be happy there…
It does seems a bit extravagant to buy a house for myself, but I think this is what I love and what can make me happy. And that’s worth more than some extra digits on the bank account.
Congratulations on your new purchase. It is a very lovely spot! I would never tire of looking out across such a landscape every day. It will be wonderful seeing the surprises that the garden reveals throughout the year and being able to add your own details and dreams to it 🙂
It’s clearly a garden that has been loved and cared for, so there¨s likely to be lots and lots of pleasant surprises. And those views, the open landscape, the sense of SPACE… I look forward to getting the keys on December 1st and getting to know the place.
I already know I will want to have some sort of water in the garden. Perhaps like the Puddles in the Summer House garden (three sunken tubs) or perhaps something more ambitious because it’s just mine and I can be as idiosyncratic as I want to!
Hooray! Well done. I think it might be just what you need. It looks charming & peaceful & ready to love. Prone to flooding?
Funnily enough quite a few people have asked that question… But no, it should be safe enough from flooding. Obviously if and when we melt the entire polar caps, most of Denmark will disappear anyway, but at least this garden is not 1 meter above sea level but 14 metres above sea level. (The highest point in Denmark is 170 metres above sea level and the average elevation is 31 metres.)
And yes, I checked these numbers before signing the purchase. It’s far from the sea – which is a shame, but probably helped with the price – and the ground slopes down away from the house towards a small lake across the field. So at least there is a water view from the far end of the garden – but nothing too close!
That was my first thought, too — I hope that lake is far enough away not to be a flooding risk! The house looks and sounds wonderful. It does seem like one of those times when you just have to trust your instincts. When I bought my house in Maine to live in part time, even while I continued to rent in Pennsylvania where my job was, a lot of people thought I was crazy. Twenty-five years later, I have never regretted the purchase and am now living full-time in my beloved rural home.
Congratulations, Soren. You have a lot of enjoyment (and work 🙂 ) in front of you.
The lake is far away, down-hill and drains into a stream that can easily cope with the water. 😉
Unfortunately the deal has hit a bit of a snag, and while we have both signed, the contract is subject to an approved water analysis – and there are still issues with that. And clean drinking water really is quite important to me… It’s something that can be resolved, of course, because it will just be a matter of installing the right filter – but I didn’t have the water supply in my budget, so we are in a negotiation process while simultaneously the vendor has people trying to rectify the issue.
Either way, I WILL buy it. I already have far too many dreams and plans for this house, and if a water filter means I have to cut back on some of the other plans – or postpone them – so be it.