Here in our little village, there are quite a few other timber frame houses, but few of them have been taken care of like ours. Some of them have recently have the timbers covered up because it was the cheapest option to repair them – and many (if not most) of the old houses have had their original windows replaced with plastic-framed windows. This last little action makes us physically sick because not only is it tacky, but it’s actually very bad for the house. The original wood frames allow the house to “breathe” which means less risk of condensation building up in the house and slowly destroying your beams and walls. Yes, you can open the windows during the day and allow the moisture to equalize – but during the winter this really doesn’t seem like a very nice option.
There is one house, though, which is about two blocks away from us, which has been beautifully restored. In fact, they actually one a prize for their restoration work a few years back. We’ve been told the owners did a lot of work themselves and used original materials whenever possible which is something we have at least mildly attempted, especially when working on the old parts of the house. Part of our reasoning is because we know that using modern materials will just result in it having to be redone in a year or so versus 10 years so why not take the extra effort now?
But the point of all this rambling is that we are very intimidated by the owners of this house, particularly the husband who we generally refer to as “The Guy.” Since we’ve lived in the house, we’ve seen the couple quite often, usually when they’re driving their ancient tractor past our house to one of their farming plots – or riding in a wagon being pulled by his huge work horses. These people are living a life more back to the roots and do quite a bit of haying and field work around there themselves. That’s an admirable task already. But we’ve also been told that “The Guy” also works in the food additives and chemicals industry and a few years ago, he just decided he couldn’t take it anymore. So they grow most of their own veggies and fruits and try to live off their own land as much as possible – hence we call them our heroes. And of course it doesn’t hurt that “The Guy” looks completely rough and tough when he passes by. His eyes will just stare right through you and he’s always got on a well worn hat, suspenders and big work boots. He’s got the rugged cowboy look down pat and looks so cool doing it – as well as scary! And did I mention he’s probably only 40-45 years old?
We’ve lived here in the house for about a year now and this past Sunday was the first time we’ve actually talked to “The Guy.” We have at him and his wife whenever we pass each other but no opportunity has really come up to talk to them and we didn’t just want to wander into their courtyard or anything. We were out walking Ayla and he approached on his wagon with two of his massive horses strapped to the front. We moved over to the side to allow him to pass on the little farm road (barely big enough for a car or wagon to drive down) and keep Ayla from spooking his horses, when he did the most incredible thing – he pulled over to talk to us!
He said he wanted to finally say “hello” since we have never really met and even told us to come by his own place so we could see what they’ve done in their own house. He offered names of some of his contractors as we discussed putting in a second set of windows in the two rooms that face the street (to cut down on noise and keep some more heat in the house) and told us several times to drop by some time to see how their own windows turned out. We were stunned to find out he is incredibly nice and we probably didn’t need to be scared of him to begin with – but he will still always be “The Guy” to us.
Not only is he a potential wealth of information about the renovation of old houses (they personally worked on theirs 8-10 years, he said) but he is also head of the local city council which we would really like to get involved in. We’ve recently learned that the township (“Gemeinde“) our town belongs to is doing nothing good for our town at all. One of the three towns is having all the funds concentrated on it and we even heard that the current mayor actually moved into that “privileged” town before the last election because he felt he wouldn’t be elected living in the smallest of the three. I’m sorry but I just find that absurd and totally unacceptable. So we’ll see what happens over the next few years in our little Büdesheim – and hopefully we can change a few of the backwards ways!
