Johan
Dandanell


The Swedish House



Södergård its called.


We bought a house in the Swedish forest in the summer of 2017. Its builded in 1850, some neighbours even proclaim its even older than that. For a few decades, it was abandoned, until we arrived!






The beginning



'Det til salu, Johan det er til salu!'

Me and my wife drove around in Småland in june. We had already seen three houses, on our way back to the first one we saw, I wanted to drive around the small roads through small villages, instead of the long, yet fasted roads. I thought there might be a chance to see a moose. In day light.

Well there it was. Not a moose, but a house. The house. Our house.

We knew it by the moment we stepped out side. Tall nettles and raspberries surrounding the house. Obviously abandoned.




Details



Even though the house have had rain damage, there is still some historic and unique elements we are able to preserve. We seek to highlight some of the details in the future progress of the project, and want to combine them with modern elements and simpel materials.



The plan



The house is old. There is no running water yet, and the toilet was ones outside in a small hut. Because of more and more dry summers and low water in the existing well, we need to get a new one, that goes even deeper in the ground. Thats why we also need to build a new porch with a technical room underneath, where the water can go in and distributed around the house.The porch will also increase the size of the kitchen and bring more light in to the house, which honestly is needed.





West



South



East



Situation plan



The house is located on top of a smaller rock projection, which makes the level of the front yard, some meters taller than in the backyard. There was ones a lot more trees in the garden, but since we are surrounded by forest, we didn't see any problem cutting a lot of them down, to bring more light to the house.

As in all other areas of Småland, we also got a lot of old stone fences surrounding the site.



Site plan



This is the plan for the ground floor, which is the first priority of the house. The second floor will come later when everything is in place here. Due to the small windows, and low ceiling, there is lack of sun light in the center of the house. Thats why we will combine the entrance, the kitchen and the porch together to make one room stretching all the way from west to east of the house. The tall panoramic windows of the porch will also open up the house to the forest in the backyard, and bring the nature in side the kitchen. Whilst hard wood planks is the main material for the floor in the rest of the house (as in all other houses in Sweden) we have some other thoughts on it. The floor of the entrance, kitchen, porch and bathroom will be a terrazzo kind of floor, with hand cuttet stones we have collected around the garden. We want to continue the story of a house builded on local and honest materials.



Section



The difference of levels is seen clearly. The step between the entrance and the kitchen, is a result of the old floor had fallen downwards towards the backyard. When digging out we discovered that we were able to lower the floor in the kitchen and bathroom and get an extra height.



Design plan



Preservation



What we have reached so far



Its a slow process, but in the slow process You also discover something and learn of your mistakes. What we thought was the plan in the beginning, have changes through time, and in the process we have also learned how to do things better the next time. Over all, we believe that if we just had the big budget it takes to build and renovate such a big old house from the beginning, we would have missed our chance of knowing the house completely and utilize the full potential. When You are 170 years old, seen in the big picture, those years we use of our life is worth it.



Process of the bedroom