Here you can see Domnul Căpăţînă (or rather, the son of, because his father has now retired) and team building the new roof covering.  The tiles are authentic old tiles and not new ones.  We were lucky here because our friend Bianca is friends with another couple in the village, and they are going to renovate an old Saxon house which had a lean-to that they didn’t need.  So, one chilly, early morning in early September me, with wheelbarrow, went a hunting.  It’s amazing how many tiles you really need, even for a small roof covering, and how heavy they also are.  But it’s all worth it because the french doors overhang now looks as old as the roof itself, as if the Saxons themselves built it!!

Anca hard at work

The poem we had put on the facade is a very traditional, vernacular poem from the Saxon region.  Painting a poem onto one’s wall was very common for hundreds of years, and is still practiced in parts of Germany, Austria and German-speaking parts of Switzerland.  Nowadays it is not done in these parts, although it seems to have died out long before the Saxons left in 1989.

The idea was to paint a poem which said something about you as a person, or family.  We wanted something traditional, and which conveyed something of the temporariness of life (that sounds morbid, but it’s not meant to be!).  The poem was reproduced in a Nineteenth century book by Emily Gerard.  Emily was the English wife of an Austrian soldier who moved around the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and wrote about the places they were stationed in. 

The poem reads:

Heut in diesem Haus zu Gast

So lang der Herr mich leben lasst

Doch ruft Er mich, so muss Ich fort

Denn Ich muss folgen Seinem Wort

The date of the house we painted on the wall, ie. 1766, triggered some conversation in the village.  It appears that the house is unlikely to have been built so late, and would perhaps have been renovated then, not built.  And the house was at one time a monastery, which confirms my theories about the way the house is currently built - I’m sure the walls were completely turned around and the courtyard moved at some point in the past.

 The hatch to the attic area is also now installed.  It doesn’t look too pretty at the moment, but we are going to paint it and maybe put a Saxon flower motif over the main flat face, to hide its impact on the ceiling in that area of the landing.  You can also see the great work done by Laurian’s team to repair the chimney brest after we took the decayed lime plaster off.  We decided against re-plastering because, hey, you an’t be too authentic all the time, now can you!!  Any alternative ideas for the attic hatch gratefully welcomed…

The final picture is of another restoration heresy…..

When we bought the house we found a purpose-built hole leading from the living room to the cellar.  I can onlu speculate it was for taking up provisions without having to go outside, perhaps for heavy things which needed winching?  Anyway, we considered just planking over it, but thought it would be a shame not to try to make a feature out of it, so we decided to put a reinforced glass panel over it, and light it up from beneath.  I know, I know, it’s probably a faux-pas….

Secret tunnel? 

We have seen this type of chute leading from a house into the cellar before, in Transylvania, so it could be quite normal and innocent.  On the other hand, in the cellar there is a corner of the wall, facing the church, which has a very intriguing capstone.  We have heard that Sara Römischer used to tell the village children who played in her house that it has a secret tunnel leading up to the fortified church, and that Biertan used to have two such tunnels.  We haven’t enquired yet about whether the other tunnel entrance is known about still, although there are hints it is.  So, next time we get a chance, we’ll try to see if it is the same as our own.  Many of the Saxon villages had one or two tunnels leading from the church, just in case they needed to escape or get more provisions in, as they were being besieged by the Turks in the mid to late Middle Ages.

 Secret tunnel entrance leading to the Fortified Church of Biertan……..or corner shelf?

Now all we need is a big woodpile!

Anyone up for chopping some wood???

Here are some pics of the progress of repair of the facade, from pulling off cement render at the base, straightening edges and repairing the decorative pargeting, to the final colouring of the lime plaster.  We did change the colour of the facade slightly, but only because the colour it had become over the years was not really that traditional.  After a wobbly moment when Sandel painted the grapes above the upstairs windows in a shocking blue, which we quickly changed back to green, you can see the high quality workmanship put in by Sandel’s team.  The next stage is the side walls and the back of the house.  These things will have to wait until after the last of the Spring frosts.  Frost is bad for wet lime plaster, causing it to expand and crack.  You can also see how great the new windows look with the new limewash colour.  We also changed the colour of the base from black to a dark pink, because the black although traditional, detracted so much from the finished pink (and was so large compared to how it is normally) that it had to go! 

The facade - before	Mid-August	More mid-August
Cleaning up the plaster	Blue grapes become green again!	Finished facade!!

Villarenters.com

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What is so beautiful about them is that the old Saxon locks we had repaired look really good fitted onto them.  The house only had the main door left whilst all other doors had been taken off and probably used for firewood when times were bad.  So we only had that door to work on as our template, although it was very similar to the doors of our house in Galeş, which were originals fitted in the 1890s.  The door hinges, whilst not like the originals, are a nice modern take on the medieval style - eat your hearts out, you puritan renovators out there!  We are really excited to get over to Transylvania to see how the house is taking shape and as Laurian tells me that the carved oak staircase, our piece de resistance, is being installed as we speak, the suspense is killing us!

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Whilst the cherries are red and starting to ripen down in Oltenia, things are only just hotting up in Siebenbürgen.  House stuff, as ever, took up a lot of our time, but being there for two weeks meant we had some time to ourselves as well. 

One day, in early May, we took a lovely walk over the hills from Biertan to Dupuş with friends Bianca and Codruţa, from Biertan, not forgetting Micky and Oscar (Bianca’s trusty collie and scottie dogs). 

 Edge of Biertan                             Gaura Dupuş                       Edge of Dupuş

The Transylvanian hills in this area are famously beautiful.  They are medieval in style, rarely fenced, with fantastically diverse animal and plantlife and rolling hills and valleys with woods crowding the tops of the hills.  In the far distance, you can make out glimpses of the Carpathian Mountains. 

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