Saturday, July 28, 2012

New shop and other changes

It's been quiet on the build-front the last year. Been getting lots of fun tail wheel practice doing glider towing in the Pawnee, but that is hardly count as building airplanes. Besides being busy with work, the main thing that has happened is I have gotten married to my fiancée (since 10 years), and she has moved into my house. She also brought 3 kids with her, so now we are 2 adults and 6 kids (age 11 to 19). The two oldest have moved on to study other places, but still require a place when visiting, and the rest of us require considerable more room than what was required before.

The end result is my shop has to go to give room for bedrooms and living rooms. A new shop is being built. This will be a 35 m2 room on the ground floor. The room will be built with electricity, water and sewage. The last two is not strictly required, but may come handy and is good for future use. It will be easily converted into more ordinary house usage if that is needed. On top of the shop will be a large terrace connected to the main living room in first floor of the house (3 floors in total). The financial part of it is rather amusing. Living in a dense populated area (by Norwegian measures), in a pressure area regarding growth, the average house price is around 25 kNOK per m2. The new shop having ordinary house standards regarding heating, insulation and so on will cost me around 7 kNOK per m2. So the added value is around 18 kNOK per m2 (of course not usable until I sell the house - and the market for houses hasn't collapsed, but it's a nice thought nevertheless). The most important thing; my wife is in total agreement with this project.

The plans and drawings have been done by an architect (Resell, an old glider pilot), and the construction will be done by an entrepreneur. In the old house, 6 rooms has to be made/redecorated (new walls, new floor etc) and some additional changes, this I am doing myself at the moment. The RV-4 is in storage mode until the new shop is ready in a couple of months.