Hinterholz 8 or The Money Pit?

For non-Austrians, Hinterholz 8 is the Austrian version of The Money Pit.

I've begun renovating the room where my inventory will be stored and I'm starting to feel like an extra in either one of these movies.

To be fair, the house is 78 years old, started in 1938. The original owner was a stonemason, so the foundations of the house are excellent. Over the years, additions were made, renovations became necessary and as always, budget is tight.

As a complete newbie when it comes to home renovations, let me share these fine tips for home renovation with you, as learned by my current house:

• Wasps have eaten huge holes through your 1/4" particle board wall? Just tape a single piece of paper over the hole and cover with wallpaper. No problemo!
  
  Don't worry that you can see sky behind the hole, Austrian winters are short, and in the summer it lets the hot air out again... right?
  
• Are fees for the dump skyrocketing? Adding a new layer to the existing stained carpet has the added benefit of doubling as your carpet padding.
  
  Besides, thick oak plank wooden floors are so passe. And who wants to sand and stain? Just screw particle board directly into the wood floor and glue a layer of industrial blue laminate over it and you'll never worry about finding those pesky screws again. In a few years, you can just add a new layer of sticky felt tiles. And again a few years later so that the door no longer opens without help from your shoulder.
• Newspaper is your best friend. It makes an excellent layer under wall plaster, evens out warped floor boards and educates future generations on the news of the day.
  
  In my case it's Aug 1971 - Oct 1972. Say 'Yes to the People's Party'. My 10 second research on this shows that they sadly lost by a few points to the SPÖ (socialists).
  
  If your budget can afford it - combine with tin foil for even more coverage.
  
  
  
  
• Both newspaper and tin foil make an excellent foundation layer for the next 5 layers of wallpaper over the years. When you're sick of the top layer of wallpaper, be sure to paint it white so that people think they are looking at a smooth finished wall, instead of one that looks like this. 
• When you add wood paneling to the slanted walls and ceiling, make sure you cover up all those layers of wallpaper to make a smooth finish. That will ensure no one will be able to remove the wallpaper without removing the paneling first. But no one will want to do that anyways, since you have excellent taste in gold and brown wallpaper!

But at least I'm down to the antique wood floor and I'll be putting filler in those screw holes (which had to be ripped out), sanding and refinishing. It took a whole week to get to the bottom layers though and I'm still washing wallpaper gunk off the walls.

As for the wood paneling, I ended up having to razor along the edge to get rid of the wallpaper. I'm not up to the task of removing the paneling. Hopefully in two more weeks my warehouse will be ready to move in my new racks!