Finding, Buying and Renovating The House

We bought the house in July 2005. We organised a week's stay in Veliko Turnovo, during which we spent three days viewing with three different agents. Fortunately the house we liked best was with the agency we liked best, VTBulgaria.
This is Ivelin and Silvia from VTBulgaria. They handled the house purchase for us. They also set up our registered company, our bank accounts, and so on. They have been very helpful, friendly and professional.
	The house is a traditional village house, built from stone in the 1930s, and extended later, probably in the 60s or 70s. It has 3 rooms upstairs and 4 downstairs.
	The entrance from the road is through a large stone barn at the bottom of the plot.	There's another barn at the top of the garden next to the house. This was used for the rabbits and chickens.
	This is the inside kitchen. Like most Bulgarian country houses, it also had a separate "summer kitchen" in an out-building attached to the house. This out-building contained the only toilet and shower.
	Ahh, the old fusebox. Within half-an-hour of arriving at the house, we blew up the water heater in the summer kitchen, which then blew the main fuse. I'm VERY pleased to say that the place has now been completely re-wired.	There was a wood-burning stove in most rooms, and an open fireplace in the kitchen.
	The dining room in its original state....	...and the cellar.
	So, the renovation begins. The old door to the kitchen was bricked up.... ....and the wall between the kitchen and dining room was opened up. You can see some of the lovely new wiring on these photos.	This is how the kitchen and dining room look now.
	Traditionally, a layer of earth several inches thick is used to insulate the space between floors. Floorboards would normally be placed over the earth. This shows the bathroom floor with the boards removed in order to lay the drains.	The bathroom after renovation.....
	Lovely new plaster. There's an internal staircase, which is a rarity in a village house, as most have an external staircase up to the first floor. I suspect this was also added at the same time as the house was extended.
	Fireplace. The builders constructed a new open fireplace in the corner of the living room. Ivelin Ivanov from VTBulgaria, was the project manager for the whole renovation (and took most of these photos to keep us informed of progress).
	The star feature of the house is this balcony with its view towards the Stara Planina. The floor of the balcony is the concrete roof of the living room, and it was just beginning to show a few cracks and signs of leaking.....	...so we had the balcony sealed and tiled.
	New Tuscany. Our friends in Yantra, Steven and Nicky Pegg, run a property management business called New Tuscany. Here's a link to their web site.	There are a LOT more photos of the house before, and during, renovation. If you really want to see more plasterwork and wiring yet, you can see lots more on these pages.	The house before Renovation Work in Progress Oct/Nov/Dec 2005