background

this is my future view, still a bit hazy...
our house project started around new year 2004. our friends live in this village and told us their neighboring house is for sale. i love their house, every time we went for a visit, i got tears in my eyes, just because it was so wonderful. (they moved to another place after 7 years in that house, before we managed to get there.) me and Y were not looking for a house, or even living together at that point. i have always been dreaming about having a garden, but not about living in the countryside. (more like New York! and i love Tokio.) the price was cheap and so we went and had a look. after all, we bought it in may 04.
it is a small house, with a big enough yard and no running water. we are making the old side winter proof and building a new side, which is almost as big. there is a big veranda, bathroom and working room. then there is an unbuilt and quite low upstairs.
we are going to heat with wood and with ilmalämpöpumppu (hmm... it looks like an airconditioner) and we have an ekolet (composting toilet). we want to use recycled and ecological materials, all the windows and doors are old, found or bought somewhere. working room ceiling is made with the wood from an old barn. (i was actually pretty suspicious about that idea, but it looks great!)
after all, it will still be a small house, but we are happy that it took all this time to get into real action. now the extension is more carefully planned. originally we wanted to buy an old loghouse and move it to our place. (that would've been the dream house. dream houses are old stations and schools, i guess.)
to answer a comment kind of, Manteli is maybe not a dream house for anyone, or even for us, but it is very much OUR house. and i like the fact that you can get there by bus easily, there is grocery store close by, and a bakery-café! and most importantly, there are People living there already. people same age as us with little kids, house projects and alternative values. oh, and as V was born one year after we bought the house, moving there started to make more and more sense. now it's making so much sense, that i'm being very indifferent to my beloved Helsinki.
important thing is also that when we move, V will start a (Steiner pedagogic) kindergarten and i will have proper working time.
and this brings me to driving. the horrible thing about living out there is the constant driving. i work at home and Y will take the bus, but V has to be taken by car. i've decided that it's worth it, and we can share the driving with other people a bit, but still. (Y said this story is a mess, i tried to fix it a bit)