From a 200 year old ruin to a workshop, a 3 year journey... #1: A big pile of stones....

It all started in 2007. After selling our Dutch Art & Frame shop we were looking for a new challenge. We traveled around the globe a bit looking for a nice place to settle down and make a new start. (something you should consider every 10 years or so..) Yes, we’ve seen the wales at the coast of British Columbia, lived in a cabin on the beach of Roberts Creek for a while, but to start in the beautiful vicinity of the sunshine coast takes more money than we could ever come up with. We thought about moving to The Gambia but legal issues made that impossible. Having lived in Turkey before we looked for a piece of land to get our new dream started but although the people there are very nice….. the government decided otherwise. The good thing about traveling around is that it makes you look on pro’s and contra’s. What’s important? Coming from a busy life, being involved with almost all artistic and community projects, having worked 12 hours a day for the last 10 years, somehow a quiet and peaceful place looks like the best option. At some day in the spring of 2007 we saw this view from the balcony of a little 200 year old cottage in the heart of Portugal. It felt good. It forced us to decide.

Now this blog is not on the restoration of the cottage, this community is all about woodworking. After a few years we bought the old ruin next to the house. The village counsel ordered the (former) owner to take down the second floor because it was so unstable that it could fall on the street. So, he did. All that remained was a big pile of stones. Then we, the strange Dutch couple living on top of the hill, bought that pile of stone….

A big bulldozer made sure that the unstable wall…...

... turned in to a big pile of stones and broken beams.

How and where do you begin? How to move all this without heavy machinery?
By hand… stone by stone…

Next time; Cleaning up the ruin.
(English is not my native language, so I apologize for any mistakes)

-- Não só Serradura, Tomar, Portugal http://www.notjustsawdust.com