Hermann Nenning

Mr. Nenning, could you tell us the story about how your house came into being?

Before we built this house, an old, pretty desolate building that had to be torn down was here.  We wanted the new building to communicate with the surrounding buildings and so the construction job was given the title „Modern Tradition“.   Tradition is shown in the shape of the roof and the façade, and the modern elements were, for example, the sliding shutters.  Earlier, the so called knitted facades on the farmhouses were unprotected from the elements which is why each storey of the house overlapped the storey below it by 5 - 10 cm.  This was done so that driving rain couldn‘t run down the whole façade.  We used this idea in the new building which meant that the tracks for the sliding shutters could be integrated into the levels of the facades.  Another traditional design idea can be seen in the wood-clay combination.  The wooden internal partition walls are lodged with clay panels and the floor heating was integrated into the 6 cm. clay panels under the floors.  The walls and floors are made from Silver Fir, my favourite wood.  But Silver Fir is not more expensive than other types of wood.

It was a natural step for me to build a wooden house since I am a carpenter myself.  I learned about the advantages of the Silver Fir compared to other types of wood after working with it for many years.  One advantage is the fact that it is resin free, and the other is its pale colour with just a hint of light violet, and of course that in comparison with the spruce, the fact that it doesn‘t yellow.

You were very consistent with the use of Silver Fir for your house.  What makes Silver Fir different when it comes to the atmosphere in a house compared to other materials that would make a house feel homey?

To put it in a nutshell:  You don‘t really feel like you are in a furnished flat, it is more like a feeling of living in one big piece of furniture.  Besides careful planning, one condition for the feeling of living harmoniously is the use of high quality, local Silver Fir and of course, consistent, proper workmanship.

Is a rough hewn floor, like the one you have here, alright for small children?  Aren‘t there problems with dirt or the danger of injuries?

We don‘t only have rough hewn floors in the shed, but also in the bedrooms.  It is perfect for all of those areas that don‘t come in contact with water.  The floor isn‘t rough, it has more of a velvety feel to it which is especially noticeable in the winter because it is warm and exceptionally pleasing.

Once you have decided to do the entire room in Silver Fir, how do you avoid making it feel oppressive or confining?  Are there things that you have to pay attention to, like lighting or the height of the rooms?

The important thing for the impression of the room is not to have any skirting boards.  The room should look as if it was drawn with a pencil.  The rooms are the normal 2.40 m high, but we did make the doors the same height as the rooms and the windows are set right up to the ceiling.  A lot also depends on the quality of the wood.  A wall that‘s tranquil, doesn‘t feel oppressive.  We wouldn‘t have been able to achieve this effect if we had used, for example, Spruce.