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Back to One

The title is misleading, and it's meant to be!
We are a step further along the path, a path that's leading in a direction that we didn't initially intend, but one that we are excited about. 
We've decided to buy the second house too, and the plan is to knock through and create one home. We are not completely there yet though.
  • We have agreed on a price
  • The bank has agreed to the financing
  • The local council have agreed to sell the house to us
  • We have signed a document of intent to purchase the property
  • We have begun with the plans, and the negotiations with the Denkmalpflege will start soon
But we still have one hurdle. As the house is owned by the local council, the sale has to be voted on at the next town meeting.
The reason for the misleading title is not as misleading when you know that the two buildings were originally one building, or at the very least built at the same time, and we believe that there may be remnants of the connections between the building once we can get at the walls in the other building. So we are going to bring these two buildings 'Back to One'!
A recent visit from the Denkmalpflege to view the second property confirmed a theory that we had. Due to the way some of the elements of the building are, i.e. beams that appeared to go through to the other building, a lack of a proper separation in the roof, and the roof beams spanning across the two buildings, we had presumed that there was some connection between the two buildings, but weren't entirely sure to what extent. We now know that they were built at the same time.
If we are right about the two houses were originally one, then we hope to find some evidence of this while renovating. We believe that the buildings were separated previous to, or at around the same time that the larger windows were added, as each house has a different window design. The first house has an arc above the window, the second doesn't.
Something else interesting that came up during the Denkmalpflege visit was that it appears that the 1st house was used to make silk ribbons. There are some features in the beams on the 2nd floor that fit to design of the machinery and evidence of a hole in the floor that may have been for the counterweight. 
The one feature that I'm really hoping to find evidence of is Wehrgang (Guards Walkway). I would really love to bring this feature back to the roof if it was there. 
Some new pros and cons have come out of this new situation. We're happy to live with the cons though as they are outweighed by the pros.
  • - The costs of the renovations are going to go up
  • + We will get some subvention from the Denkmalschutz
  • - It will take longer than planned to renovate
  • + As we have a larger area, we may be able to manage the renovation in phases and move in earlier. 
  • + We'll be restoring a historic building and giving something back to the heritage of the town

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