We bought an ABANDONED BARN in Italy. 7 MONTH RENOVATION TIMELAPSE restoring Old Stone House.

[Music] last year we purchased this Old Stone Barn in the foothills of the Italian Alps and for the past seven months we have been working to renovate this historic property to be our new home here in Italy the house sits on approximately four acres of land which has been beautifully terraced with hand hewed stones from the mountain likely seven to eight hundred years ago like the stone Terraces the house itself is dry stacked and predates Records so there is no way for us to know exactly how old it is it was used to house animals and hay but also has a small living room with a large fireplace this week we look back on our time here and everything we have accomplished in the first seven months of renovating this home [Music] if you're new here my name is Heather this is my husband Brady and we have two amazing daughters Alexa and Chloe every week we release new episodes documenting our journey turning this property into our own Italian Homestead we would love to have you follow along but for now allow us to back up and share with you everything we have done in our first seven months starting from the beginning foreign this feels so bizarre when we first arrived on the property it took our Breath Away we were not thinking about the work we had ahead of us but we were overwhelmed with joy that this was our new home [Music] is on the property exploring the land and finding Treasures everywhere we looked [Music] boys [Applause] [Music] foreign out of all the jobs to come what took priority was fencing off some of the Steep Terraces to keep the kids safe thankfully at the top of the property there's a large Forest full of chestnut trees [Music] [Music] all right girls thank you [Music] foreign [Music] we wanted to do our best to utilize what was already on the property so it was time to build our outdoor kitchen we repurposed old fencing that we no longer needed in order to get the job done nice one high five [Music] don't hurt yourself that was a good hit that was a good hit it's much faster than me it is really important for us to involve the girls in our projects as much as possible as we build our home together we are all able to take pride in our hard work and enjoy the fruits of our labor [Music] [Music] foreign thank you all right you wanna help me carry this let's go [Music] hi Alexa are you ready to build a gate let's do it foreign [Music] foreign all right kids let's load up a wheelbarrow full of rocks okay you got it yeah it's heavy whoo how about daddy just does it by myself no it might be easier oh [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] thank you thank you [Music] in order for us to convert This Barn into a home legally there are many hurdles we have to jump through one being digging up the stone floors and eventually digging down far enough to insulate the house properly on the count of three one two three okay watch fingers good job Chloe nice one oh whoa nice muscles kiddo Chloe you got it all loose enough for me and I really appreciate that oh my goodness oh my goodness oh okay let me how can I help you wow that's a big one it's gonna want to tip the bucket a little bit to keep it everyone let go let's go okay good job everybody [Music] [Music] thank you oh that's heavy almost there almost there we're so close we had heard from the previous owner that there was a hole that was covered up in this floor that used to house the animals foreign it was there for all the runoff of waste we originally thought it was just for liquids but it quickly became clear that it was for all waste so I feel like we're learning things as we Dig Down so this was clearly cleaned out mostly and then buried once they no longer needed it but as we get down deeper so this was by far our most interesting and disgusting job yet this is not what I thought we'd be doing today what do you think that is poop [Music] foreign it was time we called in some reinforcements so our dear friends and newbies came to visit and helped us set up some monkey bars I'm not tall enough for this nonsense oh man I can't wait that's brilliant though right and finished fencing off one of The Terraces all right Alexa come over here crew so do you want to help too so noisy can you help me [Music] another log last night it snowed most of the night and this is the first time the snow has managed to stick and it's still snowing wow I wasn't sure if we actually were gonna get to see snow this year and this is gorgeous [Music] okay now you can move [Music] upstairs foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] look at this wow it looks so nice you can go potty fancy I can go potty now thanks Chloe alright see you later foreign [Music] works out perfect [Music] thank you why is it so far away [Music] foreign so if you're wondering why we're removing such a beautiful floor it's because we have to I know we've mentioned this before but just in case you haven't heard it in order for us to live here we have to change the designation from a barn to a house this was classified as a barn before and in order to do that we have to meet certain code requirements such as having a moisture barrier underneath the floor having insulation things like that now had this house been classified as just a house before then we would have been grandfathered into a lot of these things so we wouldn't have had to go through the effort of digging up the floor but the requirement to go a step further remove the floor lay down moisture barriers and all of that will make the house so significantly more livable because if you were to go ahead and close everything up currently you would have massive moisture problem and Rising Dam problems which leads to mold and health problems so it's a longer Road for us to get there but then the house will be infinitely more comfortable and livable had we not gone through these extra steps ahead all right then lift okay oh gosh [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so I think I'm gonna try for one last wall this week which this one should be a pretty cool reveal because the fireplace chimney runs right up through the center of it so you have these massive large Stones which I'm really looking forward to uncovering [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] oh boy technically you should have a level out and all that good stuff why are you so nervous [Music] Well that took more time than I will admit to on camera it took me a while to learn how to do it but I think we are solid and secure now you're ready to go let's do it I've been waiting for this moment for a far too long for way too long let's go are you climbing up there no [Applause] [Music] That's it man well there's there's a spot right here is that a treasure map is there buried treasure in our house it almost looks like a rolled up piece of leather or something I assumed we'd find some kind of cool stuff hidden in the walls I don't know I've done demolition for like old like 100 year old wood houses in the United States and you always find stuff buried inside the walls like newspaper clippings like when you're building walls people to stuff things in but this this is that looks old okay oh there's a newspaper newspaper matches [Music] thank you [Music] unprepared for the things you told me I hope I didn't scare you buried in my thoughts thank you I hope you know [Music] how much I think I need you so I ride another poem [Music] I hope that that's enough [Music] doesn't seem like we have but we've dug at least 60 centimeters 20 more to go huh more to go [Applause] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] you guys sure you want to help Pig yeah all right Lexi here's your shovel foreign the ceiling got taller Isn't that cool since we dug downstairs oh my God [Applause] [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] [Music] you want to do the garden with Mommy yeah okay maybe Alexa could do painting with me and you could do gardening with Mommy it's one [Music] that is that is cauliflower cauliflower yeah okay welcome to your new home we're going to be planted in the ground and it's going to help you grow nice and strong all water you every day some days foreign [Applause] foreign [Music] foreign ultimately I think Heather and the kids would like it because the kids love to come in and water something whether we keep this for garlic or flowers or something it's a nice safe place in closed space for the kids to come in practice some gardening skills [Music] why not everyone ready thank you foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh my goodness well you've been busy in here a bit deeper than holy moly oh my goodness good job thank you you don't need me anymore do you no I need to do reinforcements I'm a little nervous about some of these walls some of them will need a little bit of work done to them that back wall perfectly safe but assuming this back ball is perfectly safe but the two main Spots I'm worried about is this one here it's not a load-bearing wall so I don't I haven't dug deep enough but so far it doesn't seem like they sent the walls very deep so you might have to do probably we'll have to do some underpinning there so I'm taking it slow there and then I think there's a greater than 50 chance that we needed to underpin the fireplace which is um scary yeah that I find that to be scarier than the walls foreign foreign I'd like to think that Heather would forgive me if I let anything happen to the fireplace but I'm not entirely sure that's true so we're taking things very slowly making sure it's done properly to make sure it's if needed underpinned perfectly safely and properly [Applause] oh [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] thank you so this should be a good break from digging they're really excited I know I've been saving this so it's it's really kind of hard to show on camera but this is one of the historical features of the property but there's some kind of Step here that kind of flares back into the barn and it's since been covered up and we would like to uncover it and have it be a feature of the property [Music] [Applause] thank you oh my goodness that's cool that's really cool and it looks like perfectly level yeah assuming that these are probably the original stones that were here maybe that that looks so much cooler than I thought it would foreign well there we go we now more or less have a floating fireplace at least temporarily uh for reference and a reminder the floor used to be right about here maybe a little bit higher so we're only about fingers width away from the wall and then I spilled this funnel to kind of funnel it in yeah foreign thank you [Applause] foreign [Music] they'll show up [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] thank you thank you [Music] foreign [Music] foreign so the more that we have traveled the world and now that we live here in Italy I've actually been getting a lot more interested in learning about my Heritage and where my ancestors come from and today we're actually partnering with my Heritage and we are using my DNA to find out where my ancestors are from and I'm actually about to open it right now my Heritage is a leading Global family history and DNA service which makes it really fun and easy to discover your Origins and possibly even find and connect with new relatives in the process my Heritage makes the process extremely easy with a simple cheek swab that you can mail off to the lab and within three to four weeks you will have your results plus with my Heritage you are the sole owner of your DNA data I mean all I know about my family history is that both of my grandfathers their families immigrated from Germany to the US so other than that like so you're assuming mostly German I'm assuming mostly northern European I don't know that's what I think okay I'm nervous though I don't know why like I hope it's interesting like I hope there's like some spice in there but I don't know we'll see okay 69 English ooh Iberian it's like Spanish that's cool yeah Irish 13 Irish Scottish and Welsh okay that's cool because that's not surprising yeah that's like that's it there's like no German it's not even I'm not German at all okay so if you're like me and now you're a little bit jealous because you want to know your actual ancestral Origins then consider using the link in the description below to order your own DNA kit from myheritage you can even use our coupon code raising which will get you free shipping whoa good job I did [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] hello foreign you guys ready [Applause] thank you this is really nice yeah there's something about like it's a little moist like it's not um which it hasn't rained in Forever oh good grief look at this there's water where's that coming from I think we just found a natural spring whoa whoa no is that what I think it is there's a bone what else are we gonna find what I want to know is how come my brakes from digging involve digging [Applause] [Applause] [Music] all right wow wow it looks so good it looks so clear this is so cool [Music] over the last six months we have accomplished a lot on our property but more important than that we have grown so much as individuals and as a family our dreams of living off-grid in this beautiful house in the mountains are slowly coming true we cannot wait to see what the rest of the year holds for us thank you so much for following Along on our journey every step along the way we have only just begun [Music]

Channel: Raising Voyagers

Views: 3,838,546

Keywords: Timelapse, renovation, historic property, stone house, stone barn, barn renovation, Italian stone house, italy, Martijn Doolaard, The Newbys, ateliermavi

Id: 5sPrswrO6gQ

Length: 55min 22sec (3322 seconds)

Published: Sun May 07 2023