| I recently moved to the country side on a former farm with around 3 acres/15k sqm of "garden" around the house. It's around 30 minutes away from my old apartment in Denmark's 2nd biggest town and around 15 minutes from my parents. I live there with my girlfriend and our 1 year old son. We are very happy with it, but it comes with some downsides. It's not really cheaper to live here. Our rent is much lower, but we need two cars. The house is much bigger than an apartment that would have fit us, so heating and electricity is much more expensive. There is no district heating, so we have a furnace that we need to feed wood pellets, which is a major pain. We're considering earth heating or something similar, again, additional expenses. I bought a tractor and a mini loader which is use every week, for various maintenance jobs on the house and garden. This is also a significant extra cost, but it would really not be comfortable without it. We wanted too have animals but we abandoned the idea due to how much work there is just maintaining the buildings and garden + the kid :-) We love the summers where we get to hang around in our outside areas, but the winters (nov-march) can hard. You look outside the window and it's all just completely dark. I'm planning on buying a small field and trying to grow some vegetables. We already have an area in the garden, but I want to experiment with actual farming with my tractor :) Considering some grains so I can make flour and beer :) I learned so much about electricity, building stuff, gardening etc. which makes every day exciting. Maybe it will eventually not be fun anymore, but we're having a good time for now. I miss the restaurants and take-away from the city, but that's it. We have the friendliest neighbours, although we do not hang out with them, but they are always very nice if you meet them on our small road or ask them for a favour. |