Creating a home in an old chicken house in the forest, basically for free!

So I am still very much out of reach and not much possibility to update - but I want to share my new (temporary) home with you!

As you may know, I am creating an eco village from scratch in a forest on Bornholm, but I needed somewhere to stay while building!

BEFORE

AFTER

So this is not really suited for winter, as it is not insulated or anything, but instead of buying a caravan while I renovate one of the old houses in the forest, I decided that I might as well move into the old chicken house!

It was a brick building with a close roof and no funky fungus growing around! Just a lot of dirt, stuff and graffitti..

So I cleaned out all the old stuff and leaves and dirt from the floor and started taking off the old paint from the walls

We cut down all the trees growing up the side of the walls, apart from the big birch in the front, which needs a bit more expertise!

Roberto with the scythe

Painted the walls and got some carpets for the floor!

(still under construction)

4 of the windows were broken and we got a glass cutter and experimented cutting glass and putting up! It didn't go smooth every time, but we managed to get glass (from old windows on the recycling station) in all the windows!
I also had to clean off a lot of old graffiti from the remaining glass!

Roberto helping me with the windows

I left a few "windows" to the old graffiti wall, for memory ;P

Pretty much everything, apart from the paint, in this project, are things that I got for free!

The bunk bed was from a hostel that had to get new beds, mattresses, pillows and covers, because they are no longer a part of "DanHostel", which was written on the mattresses and duvets..!
The couch and the bookcase was on the property already. The round table I got from a friend who moved into a furnished house, but had to make space for their own furniture!

The rest of the furniture and carpets are all from the recycling station (it's legal to take anything from the recycling station here on Bornholm, which is amazing! A true treasure mine!) I also found all the cups and plates there, together with children's books and even light chains!

90% of the plants are also saved from the bins of the supermarkets!

evening time with candlelights and light chains is the best, but hard to photograph..!

One of the light chains from the recycling station over my little kitchen

I realised that I don't have any good photos of my "kitchen", but I want to share this post, so you'll get the nicest after photos later..!

picture taken from the back side

I put some wallpaper on the pole in the middle

I have been considering insulating the floor and the roof and get a fire stove in there, but I just really needed a fast place to stay, so I just moved in quickly to start with and hope to be somewhere else in winter (still don't know where, but we'll see!).
It could be a possibility, still, to insulate this house and make it more livable, but for a quick summer house, I am pretty happy about it.

I don't have water and electricity, but have some glass bottles with taps that I fill up from our main tap, and it works just as well. I have a little solar charger for my phone.
For now I just cook with a trangia kitchen - but cook bigger meals in our communal kitchen with gas or fire. And for toilet I use our simple compost toilets.

Now I have a base from where I can start creating my real home!

Thank you for reading and visit my patreon if you want to read more about what I am doing in this forest!