The Building & Renovation section documents hands-on experience across a range of construction and renovation projects over the years.
It begins with restoring an old house, continues with interior improvements in an apartment, and extends to building a frame house from scratch. More recently, it also includes ongoing work on a manor house project.
Alongside larger builds, this section features smaller DIY projects and practical solutions — all grounded in real-world constraints, budgeting, and learning by doing.
The focus is on process, challenges, and outcomes rather than theory — capturing what it actually takes to build, renovate, and improve living spaces over time.
In mid-April, during our kiddo’s Easter school break, we traveled to Latvia for about 10 days — a trip packed with projects, energy, and transformation. A lot of pre-planning had gone into it before…
As June came to an end, our family embarked on a journey from Tbilisi to Latvia, skipping Renee's school year for the last week and focus on our frame house project. Here's a glimpse into our busy…
As the chill of winter slowly gives way to the warmth of spring, it's the perfect time to roll up our sleeves and dive back into the construction of our dream frame house in Latvia. During this…
As the sun rose over the picturesque landscape of Latvia, I found myself immersed in a fulfilling day of both physical labor and creative expression. With the mission of enhancing our frame house, I…
In October 2023, we enjoyed a week-long school break from the British International School in Tbilisi, Georgia. Seizing the opportunity, we made plans to travel back to Latvia to advance our DIY…
Just after we finished most of the framing for our frame house in Latvia, we left for a weekend in Riga. After spending good 4 or 5 days in the nation's capital we found a huge surprise when…
At the end of June 2023, we traveled to Latvia for about two weeks, during which I continued work with our frame house and installed both walls and rafters. In this article, I'm sharing notes and…
Over the past few weeks, I have been fully engrossed in the laborious task of constructing our frame house from the ground up. Unfortunately, amidst the hustle and bustle of the construction process…
Welcome to another interesting blog topic series - Frame house, where I'm going to share almost in real-time our endeavors of building a small 60m2 1-storey holiday house in Latvia. I decided…
This Spring we are planning another awesome DIY project - to build a Scandinavian-style house in rural Latvia. A simple, one-storey building, with a total area slightly under 60m2. The local…
After the tile removal in the kitchen and hallway area, it was already agreed - I will re-install laminate there. Additionally, after hydro isolation works in the bathroom I decided I will tile again…
A few weeks ago I did the tile job in the kitchen and hallway for our Vilgāle apartment. In the end, I was not happy with the result, not happy with the tile job (which could be done better), and not…
The time had finally come and I was ready to tile the kitchen and hallway floors at our Vilgale apartment. A year ago I would say - no way I'm going to do it myself, but here you go, I did it…
Welcome to another interesting project in the home remodeling series. - summer house with a garden in SouthWest Latvia. It turns out this is already the third, ongoing home remodeling project…
During the weekend I did a lot at our Vilgāle apartment, fixed some electric plugs, painted walls, and installed the floor, but first things first - it was agreed to save huge on the floor by…
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