From the beginning with SPOR: they bought an old house and moved from room to room until they managed to renovate it

Born in Sibiu and left for Cluj for a few years, Izabelle realized, in 2020, that city life and the urban commotion are not bad for her. The desire to move to the country arose in her, and in 2020, during the pandemic, she and her friend, Alex, started looking for a house of their own. This is how they ended up, in August 2021, taking it from the beginning and moving somewhere a few kilometers from Mediaș. And so began their adventure, one strewn with many mishaps and challenges.

This article is part of the “From the beginning with Spor” campaign, through which we try, together with Policolor and SPOR, to find out what makes people leave the city behind and move to the countryside.

Because the work at the corporation he works for could be done from home, he realized that there was no point in clinging to a lifestyle that didn’t suit him. “I realized that it is not for me that kind of life and that I need space, peace and quiet, to be able to let my mind fly on the creative side, not on what tasks I have to constantly complete” , she tells.

So, for a while, he spent his weekends “running away” from Cluj, searching and viewing in the Sibiu area. “We were taking the villages one by one. Very disappointed with the offers and especially with the price of the houses, which were almost falling on you, in a moment of weakness we wanted to give up and get an apartment”, remembers Izabelle.

In the excitement of a new beginning, they did not realize what the process of renovating an old house really means.

In the excitement of a new beginning, they did not realize what the process of renovating an old house really means. Their luck was that they already had another weekend scheduled for viewings, which was lucky. That’s how they found their home in Copșa Mică, a town with a rural aspect, with no more than 6,000 inhabitants, located seven kilometers from Mediaș and 40 kilometers from Sibiu. It matched their requirements, so it was love at first sight.

More precisely, it is a single-level house with an area of ​​75 square meters. It has a living room, a bedroom, a spacious kitchen, a pantry and a bathroom. It was enough for the two of them, their bunny Bobi, the Mythical cat and Milky the cat. At least in the beginning, although they currently have plans to build another living room, so that the existing one can become a bedroom. And they added a few more family members, that is, two motans, Milo and Mojo, and the puppy Mia, whom they found in a field.

“I took care of the garden part and put a little bit of everything, with emotions and always with the books after me, because I know absolutely nothing about gardening, but we’ll see what will come out”, says Izabelle.

They did not expect all the vicissitudes that came with the process of renovating an old house. When they tried to remove the frame of a door to change it, half the wall fell with it. “In our excitement and naivety, the house didn’t look so shabby aesthetically, so we didn’t expect to have so many challenges,” she says.

“In an old house, the calculations will never come out the same as those on the sheet”

However, they discovered that there were water leaks, and because the walls were insulated on the inside, it was necessary to strip them down to the brick, let them dry and restore them. The original plan was to renovate only the bathroom and kitchen – they figured they just needed to paint and buy furniture. “In an old house, the calculations will never come out the same as the ones on the sheet”, that’s the conclusion he draws now, almost a year after moving.

In the end, they ended up changing absolutely everything in the house, from plumbing, to parquet, doors and windows. “Because our budget was allocated to completely and totally other renovations, at some point it ran out and we had to stop calling in workers,” Izabella recalls. Lucky for them, Alex was good at a little bit of everything, and she wasn’t intimidated either.b

In the bathroom, they replaced absolutely everything, from ceramics to sanitary ware.

Another surprise was the lack of sewage. Although the previous owners had told them it existed, they discovered it was just a makeshift, so they installed a septic tank. As for the other utilities, they were already connected to gas, electricity. They preferred not to connect to the water network due to malfunctioning and dirty water. They limited themselves to the well, from which they draw water into the house with a hydrophore, and also installed a water softener. “Now we’re still trying to set up a photovoltaic panel system,” adds Izabelle.

Everyone did something and thus saved labor money

They moved into the house in August 2021, on Alex’s birthday, and the site was completed in December. The works themselves lasted about three and a half months, during which they both worked on something. “Alex also did the electrician, and the plumber, and the salahor. I followed him, sometimes I sanded a wall, sometimes I hit a washing machine, lighter ones”, she remembers. They moved from room to room as they finished, all while each working in parallel on their own job.

The calculations made for the total invested stopped somewhere at 21,000 euros initially, money that they had set aside from the sale of a car, other money borrowed through a credit, and others received from their parents. In the meantime, the amount rose to 26,000 euros, because they did something along the way, investing from their monthly salaries. And it’s not done yet.

“We still have details around the house to finish, certain pieces of furniture to add,” says Izabelle.

They haven’t managed to do anything on the outside either, and they don’t plan any work in the near future, as they are currently focusing on the yard and garden.

Life in the village gave Izabella the opportunity to implement her ideas

Adapting to village life is still an ongoing process for Izabelle and Alex. At least in terms of the community, because they didn’t get to socialize much through the neighbors. In other chapters, however, everything went smoothly. It seems to Izabella that life in the city was more boring because she didn’t hang out in clubs or bars before. “I always preferred to go out in nature, now I have it in my yard, or a short walk away, with the forest close by,” he says. And that’s not the only good part.

One of her passions is interior design – she even completed courses in the field, but also courses in handmade, two things closely related. Now she makes macrame decorations, a hobby she would like to turn into a job at some point. And, more than that, any idea that pops into his head, he can implement.

“I’ve always been focused on DIY and manual work, but often for certain projects I wanted to do, the space didn’t really allow me, living in rented apartments, there was no way I could start sanding in the bedroom”, she explained. Now he just has to go out in the yard and he can work on whatever project he wants.

All in all, the whole process was fraught with mishaps. Most problematic were the unrealistic expectations they had before about the difficulty of renovating an old house. Along the way, some things started to break and new problems appeared to be solved. “That’s how I started to give up perfectionism, well not by my own desire, but if I didn’t do that, I’d never finish the house,” says Izabelle.

The real image of the Romanian village also took them by surprise, because they were imagining something completely different. “I haven’t heard a rooster since we moved here. The people, at least those around here, don’t really have animals, apart from dogs and cats,” she complains. He would have liked to find a village more anchored in tradition, less urban, but the reality is that he found a place with many abandoned animals and a lack of interest in sterilizing them.

Her advice to anyone who wants to leave the city behind to move to the countryside is to try to figure out if this is what you really want. Because living in the country comes with a lot of work, not only during the renovation of the house, but also afterwards. However, her exhortation is to put your fear aside and not be guided by all the negatives that you might come across in comments on Facebook groups or even imagine yourself.

“The change is quite big and then the brain will try to stop you at every step”, concludes Izabelle.