This summer we’ve been posting quite sporadically because we were very busy with some big afk projects.
One of us lives in an old, solitary idle water mill in the countryside. There had been an old smoke sauna, converted from a forge. Last autumn a large ash tree fell over it, ruining the roof and the construction completely. We had decided to tear it down and build a new one, preferably as similar as possible to the original. First pwf made a blueprint for the wooden construction, using Google Sketchup. If you’re interested, drop us a note and we will upload it somewhere.
We got together at the end of June, then we were frantically packing, buying materials and tools, welding a table, a grill and a shelf, loading and unloading stuff for a week. When we landed in the countryside, we promptly tore down the old sauna. This was the easy part.
The ugliest job, I think, was laying the concrete foundation for the building. It was raining intermittently, we had to dig a lot of ditches, the job was dirty, rather dull, and very important.
The old bricks. We had to reuse them, and it was a major pain in the ass: the bricks’ age spanned some 100 years, and their height ranged between 5 and 9.5 cm.
Sadly, we had to cut a huge ash tree that was growing next to the site. It was old and its roots were already rotten. ioch climbed up and chopped down the branches, then pwf finished it with a chainsaw.
When the foundations were ready, dinama and miceuz set to work on the construction, whereas me, ioch, Steph and shrq tasked ourselves with the brick walls of the warm chamber of the sauna. I’ve been whining a lot and ioch sprained his back, but at least I’ve got some decent biceps now.
All this consumed a better part of the month, together with some other projects that had sprung up in a fractal manner. At least the river was close.
The construction is finished. Note the spectator’s armchair.
The sauna stove, designed/built/welded by ioch.
Finished exterior walls, by rxdtxd and hroble. The doors are authentic.
The sauna was tested upon completion, and, barring some minor mishaps (like me and pwf making really uncomfortable benches during the last night, or the stove cracking and a window falling out), it turned out to be quite awesome. Now it even has a chandelier.
Interior – the outer room. The chandelier pulley is visible above the sofa.
Inside the sauna chamber, darkened after a few uses. The scribble on the tin ceiling says ‘CLOSE THE DOOR’.
pwf and dinama made a 10 cd chandelier out of an old carriage wheel. Raised and lowered with a pulley.
