What does it take to renovate an old half-timbered house?
Germany is famous for its half-timbered houses, and these old houses can look spectacular. But renovating such a building can take years — as Jan Pauly found out.
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00:00 Could you imagine renovating a nearly 500-year-old crumbling half-timbered house on your own?
00:08 With almost no professional help?
00:11 Jan Pauli did just that, but he didn't realize the project would end up taking a full nine years.
00:18 First, he had to teach himself all the necessary DIY skills.
00:27 There's no way I'd do it again.
00:30 Because you'd never commit to doing all that work if you knew exactly what was coming your way.
00:37 But now Jan's half-timbered house is a thing to behold.
00:43 It stands by the Mosel River, about 150 kilometers west of Frankfurt.
00:48 Welcome to my house in Speyensee, that I put nine years of work into.
00:55 These rooms are 480 years old.
00:58 It's hard to imagine now, but when Jan bought this beautifully renovated half-timbered house ten years ago,
01:04 he paid just 7,000 euros.
01:07 Things looked terrible here at first.
01:13 The plaster had fallen from the walls, everything was yellowed, it was full of trash,
01:18 all the walls were totally black with centuries of soot.
01:23 Jan had to hollow out and refurbish the house completely.
01:27 He did almost everything himself and learned the techniques he needed along the way.
01:32 For trickier tasks, he got help from wandering journeymen.
01:37 We're now in what's called the hall kitchen.
01:41 You have to imagine, this is where life took place in this house for more or less 400 years.
01:46 People built the fire, cooked and ate here.
01:49 And things are similar now.
01:51 I can invite my friends here in winter for private home concerts.
01:55 Just next to that space, the former event manager has set up his music room.
02:02 This room was actually in the worst condition of all.
02:08 I might as well have demolished it.
02:10 But I decided to save everything, to remove everything down to the floor and then completely rebuild it.
02:16 And now this room has become the real gem of the house.
02:21 During the renovation work, Jan relied on regional and traditional materials.
02:26 Clay, limestone, wood and slate.
02:30 He felt it was important to open up the spaces more too.
02:33 These were all individual closed-off rooms.
02:38 I took out these fillings and exposed the old beams that are almost 500 years old.
02:43 Overall, I wanted to achieve a bit of an open living concept.
02:49 He created organic surfaces made of clay or lime throughout the house.
02:53 And now he's an expert in a broad range of plastering techniques.
02:57 For one thing, I used clay plasters.
03:03 In addition, I incorporated many details using a Moroccan lime plaster called Tadalact.
03:08 You apply it in two layers and then keep compressing it with trowels and polishing stones.
03:15 The house is almost half a millennium old, but its heating technology is state-of-the-art,
03:20 with modern panel heating in the walls.
03:23 It's concealed everywhere except here in the bedroom.
03:28 I made it so you could see how the wall heating is laid in one spot, here in the form of a spiral.
03:33 With his half-timbered house, Jan has saved an architectural treasure.
03:38 Half-timbered construction became popular in many parts of Europe starting in the Middle Ages.
03:44 It begins with a wooden skeleton.
03:46 The spaces are then filled in with clay or other materials.
03:50 In Germany, there are still about 2.4 million such houses.
03:54 Most are historical.
03:56 They became less common with the rise of industrialization.
03:59 The nine-year-long renovation of his half-timbered house changed more than the building itself.
04:05 Jan is a new person, too.
04:10 I think this whole process has really changed me because I noticed how DIY renovation work
04:15 gives you a feeling of self-sufficiency and immediate gratification.
04:19 Each evening you really know what you've achieved.
04:22 I learned to work at my own pace.
04:24 I've become much more creative and I'm not afraid of making mistakes anymore.
04:28 (upbeat music)