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Second visit to the architect
Taking advantage of a family visit to Oviedo, we went to see how the project was progressing. They had barely begun to sketch out our first exchange of ideas, and both parties were aware that the initial sessions are where the working document undergoes the most changes. It is not easy to define everything we…
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On plans and architects
The property consists of two houses. The original one, dating from 1890, is a two-storey building with a loft, a three-sided roof, and the typical style of the Oscos region. Then there is the annex, which probably began life as a small porch at the back of the main house and, in the same anarchic…
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And we bought it
It dawned raining in Asturias. It was Thursday, 4 November 2020, in the city of Avilés. We got up at an ungodly hour to catch the plane and be there before midday to sign the purchase. With our heads full of doubts and determined to see it through no matter what, we presented ourselves before…
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A Human Chronicle of a Place
It had to happen. I had hoped it would be later, but it was inevitable that we would eventually have to face the reality of living alongside the local people. The social atmosphere in the region is not very different from that of any isolated community that has remained almost cut off from the main…
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Just a project; just a beginning
After the visit to the notary, after learning what it would cost to rebuild the entire house, and after realising that even the simplest bureaucratic procedures would bring countless headaches, we set off on the road back home — still carrying the weight of ruin. We had one final appointment left: with a provincial architect…
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A dose of reality
Dreaming is easy. It was to be expected that turning those dreams into reality would be far more difficult — especially in an unfair world where some barely have enough to eat, others die in senseless wars, and the rest look the other way, conspiring to hold on to the little they have. In that…
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Two days until the journey
This wall of days that kept us apart from that long-awaited encounter with another barely tangible reality is finally beginning to crumble. The distance in time is frustrating, yet it also offers a wonderful opportunity to dream — piecing together fragments of reality that suit you best and creating a new reality in which everything…
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Those first steps
It all started with an advert on a well-known website: a ruined house in a remote location. It didn’t take us long to make up our minds, speak to the seller, sort out the paperwork, and visit the place to confirm that our first impressions were correct. It sounds like the perfect description of a…
