The house in Waldenburg Germany, by C H Perkins

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Be warned: Most will find the following quite boring! It's about my house. The only person that cares about my house, is me. I've used this page to simply put a few thoughts and ideas about my experiences buying a run down house in Eastern Germany.

You've heard the rumours. I can confirm it is true - most Eastern German towns and villages still look much like they did after WWII! The local authorities mean well, but they lack the available funds to make everywhere look like the Cotswolds. Waldenburg (val-den-borg phonetically) is a small town of large village proportion, in the German 'free state' of Saxony. Most people have heard of Saxony; it is of course one of the areas where the 'Saxon' bit in 'Ango-Saxon' originates and it is in fact the only German state that takes its name from the original tribe of people that lived in the area since history started being recorded in any reliable form. Later it was a Kingdom, and nowadays it is of course part of the Federal Republic of Germany, but like all German states - has a separate Prime Minister in the same sort of way that Scotland and Wales (and NI when they behave themselves) have their own assemblies and powers.

Waldenburg, unlike most East German towns, actually does have some plus points and things worth seeing. I was drawn to it for a number of reasons: the main one being the proximity to Altenburg-Leipzig airport, which had daily flights to and from London-Stansted. The airport is only 20 minutes by car, which means that I can be in London in 3-4 hours.... or at least, it did, as just to spite me, Ryanair have now pulled out of the airport and the only place you can now travel to is neighbouring fields in a hot air balloon! A few years ago I used to have to drive through Waldenburg on the way to the airport, and it struck me as having a certain charm in comparison to other places. It has a market place - on an island between roads, a Stately home with large grounds, a bridge over a wide river, park land, boating lake and in fact even an Englisch Garten! There's a cheap museum too, the contents of which belonged to one of the Counts von Waldenburg.

Here's a map of Germany showing Saxony (the state outlined north of the Czech border), and marked with the yellow pin is the exact location of my house. Another map shows the town of Waldenburg. It's about the same latitude as Brussels and the Isle of Wight:

The river that runs through Waldenburg is the Mulde. Some people have heard of that in England, too, as it's the same river that (30 mins downstream) runs past Colditz Castle, the infamous high security POW prison during WWII....The one with the escape glider stashed in a loft, fake papers, German officer disguises, Frenchmen in drag, and all that kind of goings-on.

My little house would probably be classed as a cottage (but there isn't really a suitable word for 'cottage' in German. Or 'dogging' for that matter) and is in the part of the old town, or Altstadt south of the Mulde, next to a dis-used railway line. From the front, it looks like this:

It was a bit of a nightmare actually buying the house, if I'm honest! I first saw it in April 2009 and told the estate agent lady that I'd take it. She then became pregnant, disappeared and I was referred to a new estate agent at the same firm. I also had to find a building society lady and a solicitor....all 3 of those essential people seemed to only work for 2 hours per day and take frequent long holidays when I wanted them! Eventually in November 2009 we got it all together and the solicitor had drawn up a contract. The 2-brother sellers and me had an appointment to meet the solicitor in order to sign the contract in December 2009. A week before this appointment one of the co-owner brothers decided he would hang himself. The contract that was drawn up was therefore invalid, because dead men can't sign papers (out of decency, his wife could have pressed the pen into his dead hand and moved it about on the document - but I didn't know her well enough to ask her at the time).

The credit had to be stopped and untold insurance policies also had to be delayed because everything was timed to happen in December. The dead man's wife and 2 children inherited his half of the house (brother has the other half, originally it belonged to their Mum - bear with me) and once they had the appropriate paperwork making them the legal owners, another contract could be drawn up and this contract was signed in March 2010. After a few weeks for things to be checked and money to be moved, the house was sort of mine by April, and properly mine in May 2010.

Apparently the house dates from about 1900, but I have no idea how or who came to that conclusion. The upstairs rooms have wooden frames and ceiling beams lurking under the plaster and chipboard. All of the rooms are generally small and there was central heating, but the house had been very neglected and had been vacant for 5 years...including a couple of record breaking cold winters. The first job was to get the boiler/heating/hot water going again. The boiler and lots of the pipes had been damaged from being frozen and my plumber had to replace a lot of bits around the house. At the same time he replaced the communist era dry toilet (readers won't want to know how that used to work) with a proper flushing one and added a new sink to facilitate hand washing after one has used the new facilities. Previously the only sink was in the kitchen.

Here is my very own plan of the layout (to scale). The ground floor and first floor are shown. What isn't shown is the loft, which is accessible via a proper staircase, and therefore has potential in the future, to become living space of some kind:

Here are some 'before' pictures of a couple of walls:

Left image is the side wall in the kitchen in its original state. This wall will eventually have cupboards and the fridge/freezer. The right image shows the back wall in the living room. This was the worst wall and was very damp/soft.

The house has a heated Jaguar-Sized garage to the right, and next to that there is enough overgrown space to be carved into a long driveway. The Garden is triangular and isn't by any means large, but does offer a nice un-overlooked space to sit in and eat locally grown strawberries with lactose free cream.

After the heating was fixed, the next big job concerns the downstairs of the original house (i.e. not the extension to the back, or the garage, which have both clearly been added). The house has no cellar and the walls were damp, as were a lot of the floorboards. My navvy Ronny was at hand to rip out the floorboards, as if they were balsa, and my expert builder chap Gerhard set about removing the damp wall parts and replacing them with dry stuff. Here are some pictures of the walls after they were filled up nicely:

These are the same walls as above just after being filled. The picture on the right shows the insulation/plastic on the floor, ready for the concrete.

I arranged for skips to be placed next to the window of the future living room so that we could simply chuck out all the old rubble and nasty things. Once the rooms downstairs had been cleared and the walls sorted, the next job was to concrete the floors, starting with the future living room so that I'd have somewhere to put my 50in plasma HD TV and the Parker-Knolls. Initially we had to lay down a sheet of plastic in the room. Ronny stole the plastic from work, which was kind of him. Then followed a layer of 3cm hard polystyrene tiles for insulation, followed by another sheet of stolen plastic. The Master builder Gerhard made a smooth and perfectly straight floor with 1.2 tonnes of concrete that was tipped out of a lorry.

It dried to be much lighter in colour, but when wet, it looked like this:

The right wall is the same 'problem' wall at the back of the living room.

In the mean time, while waiting for the cement delivery for the kitchen floor, I did this:

A 1950s English Royal Mail post box is mounted outside for my private letters.

The future kitchen, which connects to the living room, is next on the to-do list. To save labour costs, I felt I was up to the task of doing the basic levelling myself! I did this after receiving another delivery of concrete. It may not be pretty, but it's certainly hard - and roughly even, depending how you hold your head when you look at it. Next came the stolen plastic and the polystyrene, then Gerhard made it pretty. So that's the concreting finished in the main part of the house.

I won a kitchen (including an oven, fridge and dishwasher) on eBay for EUR530.00 and will collect it with Ronny on August 14th. It can't be fitted yet, because even when the floor is finished, I'll need to get an electrician in to add lots of new sockets and probably re-wire most of the house, as the wiring is very old and the electric doesn't work at all upstairs. I expect that'll mean another massive bill.

The kitchen parts are now in pieces in the garage, ready to be shifted into the kitchen. The plan is to roughly set it up without screwing it down, in order to work out where the power sockets need to be.

April to June 2011, flooring and the kitchen.

I've still been busy doing things on the house as time and money have permitted, although I haven't updated this page for ages.

Another wonderful eBay purchase was about 40 square metres of parquet flooring, that I nabbed from some people in Chemnitz for about EUR450.00. I collected it with the old workhorse Range Rover and trailer and stored it in the garage while I organised an electrician to come in and complete 're-wiring stage 1', which consisted of a large new and re-located fuse box and meter as well as entirely new cabling/lights/switches and 23 new power sockets. It was important to get this all done to enable me to concentrate on the kitchen and get all that installed to facilitate making cups of tea and chips.

A grainy picture of the floor being laid in the kitchen (unpainted radiator visible).

I laid the flooring on my own (getting better as I went along), and once the wiring was compete I could get Gerhard in to tile the kitchen area. With some help from Ronny the pair of us then installed the kitchen units and cupboards etc and I got the electrician and the plumber in again to wire up the oven and plumb in the kitchen sink. During the installation of the kitchen, it looked something like this:

DURING: A couple of images of the kitchen units, mid installation.

BEFORE: The same areas in gutted (left) and original (right) states! The floor was dirt.

It's still not quite finished as it lacks detailing: the skirting under the units and a few trimmings around the edges to cover unavoidable gaps, for example. I'll add some shelves later and will also lower the hob extractor. At least it's useable though. The fridge, oven, sink etc are always in action. With the kitchen basically in place we were able to start decorating. The walls and ceiling are all wonky, rough, uneven and without a single right-angle anywhere. I do find that quite charming. However, it meant that the only practical way of ending up with an even finish was by strategic use of slightly textured vinyl wallpapers (NOT woodchip). Gerhard and I papered the ceiling with a slightly knobbly pattern and I selected a pattern of embossed vertical lines for the walls of both the kitchen and living room. During all this, the parquet floor was safely covered by Ronny's 1001-use plastic sheeting, which has unfortunately just run out.

Then the walls were painted, a light brown in the kitchen, with the exception of the front wall containing the window, which I decided to paint white, accented with light brown around the window frame. At the same time I tackled the door frames, doors, window frames and the radiators, which were all rather disgusting and sporting yellowy stains of cooking fat, tobacco and lord knows what else. Gloss white, naturally. The rads were sprayed with heat resistant paint and the doors/frames were given 3 coats of gloss, in some cases 4. This was very time consuming, as one has to wait 24 hours between coats and most importantly, each brush stroke has to be consistent and neat. The end result is pretty good if care is taken. The doors and frames look like new, even though they are just the re-cycled originals.

The kitchen with its painted walls etc, now looks like this:

The new lamp and sink area (left) and the door to the larder and door frame through to the living room (right).

For when it's finished I've sourced some wonderful 1920s chairs (currently at the carpenters, being restored) and a gorgeous extendable dining table, as shown here:

The dining area table and chairs.

July to August 2011, work on the living room.

Now for the living room: I was confident after helping Gerhard, that I'd be able to wallpaper the walls on my own (Dad and I took care of the living room ceiling late in 2010, so that was already done). I ensured I had the right equipment and took my time papering. Initially the walls that were destined to be painted solid light grey, or white - in the case of the front wall containing the window. I decided to add strips of colour/pattern to the main side wall, which contains the wiring for the lights after I'd planned it so that the lights are within strips of plain grey. You'll see what I mean below! I then carefully masked up as appropriate and painted the walls using a specially mixed colour that matched the elements of grey in the strips of patterned wall paper.

I then added the electric sockets, switches etc and to finish, I fitted coving around the ceiling edge, which really adds a nice period touch. It merely took a paragraph on this page, but in reality it was an awful lot of work!

Pictures of the back window (left) and front window (right), both showing the patterned wallpaper areas. The plastic sheeting is still on the floor.

As reminder, and for motivation, the images below show the same rear window/side wall as shown above in the left picture!

The left picture shows the original state when the house was purchased and to the right is the same area during gutting.

The next thing to take care of in the living room is the skirting, which needs to be large enough to cover the radiator pipes as subtly as possible. I also need to give the window frames another coat of white gloss and then take care of fixtures and fittings. In the mean time the house has a telephone line and wireless broadband, which means I can listen to UK radio stations while working!

To be continued....