A few years ago, I started following Martijn Doorlaard’s exquisitely filmed weekly vlogs of him very patiently renovating a remote pair of stone cabins in the Italian Alps. For me these videos are the genre’s gold standard, they’re slow, calm, meditative and instructional, with hardly any commentary and unlike most of the genre, never include any speeded up-up footage of people working on an abandoned ruin.
One of the several reasons Doolaard’s so much better than most people doing this sort of thing, is that apart from being a superb craftsman and story teller, he’s a also professional photographer and a technical master of solo drone photography, One of his previous projects, the solo film and book Two Years on a Bike, documented his epic ride from Vancouver to Patagonia.
By contrast, most of what is out there is absolutely ghastly, poorly filmed, with too much talking and hand gestures, speeded up action with crappy constructional shortcuts and intercut with sentimental footage of the vloggers’ pets or offspring.
However, I’m sure there must be more decent stuff out there and I wondered if any SFers had recommendations as to better quality stuff that they’d come across
Domaine Sauvage is a Belgian couple bringing an abandoned and neglected French farm back to life. They are several years into the project. Very highly recommended, they now are our favorite.
Diego Leon is a Spaniard who has spent several years doing a complete singlehanded restoration of a French farmhouse to a very high standard. He finished that project and is now rebuilding an abandoned village house, he does everything himself and his skills and tireless work ethic are amazing. He is a master craftsman despite his youth.
On the other hand, there are Ricky and Victoria of Life By Living who are bumbling their way slowly, ever so slowly, through a farm restoration in Portugal. Amazingly infuriating, but curiously addictive. It is fun to watch them, even though I find myself shouting at the screen…..
As far as time lapse photography goes: there is a hard limit to how long I can watch all the boring repetitive work that goes into a house renovation. Chores like taping, mudding, sanding and painting plasterboard, chipping and repointing massive multi floor stone walls, tiling large floors, rendering stonewalls, pulling wires and connecting switches and plugs, etc. I want to see it getting done, but do I want to spend hours watching in real time? No I do not!
Yes I watch Diego as well. After he’s done the “little village house” he’s going to do one up for his Mum!
I also watch Dan of Chateau de Chaumont who I admire for his persistence in rescuing a very big and very fire-damaged place almost single-handed (he has more helpers these days than he used to, and also uses professionals for things like the new fosse and for renovating stonework).
I don’t know how good some of his constructional methods are, but he is trying to use origjnal materials and as mentioned he has had proper masons in to do stonework, and has had oak windows made etc.
Found this vlog the other day, which is high quality and a bit different to the ones above in that the person is an architect rather than a DIYer, who bought a very old ruin on a spectacular heritage site on the Amalfi coast.
Because of the sensitive historical location, it can only be restored within very narrow strict guidelines. She’s very articulate and personable, and after the first couple of episodes that were shot on a phone it’s well-filmed too.
Thanks for the Domaine Sauvage and Escape to Rural France recommendations above - polar opposites in many respects, but both well-made and satisfying to catch up.
