Eco-friendly garden and DIY projects with a young vegan couple in Bad Segeberg, Germany

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  • Last activity : 23 Sep 2024

Availability

  2024 

 Min stay requested: No minimum

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Details

  • Description

    Description

    !No hosting at the moment until September/October 2024!

    Hi! We (that's Hanna, 24 and Finn, 27) are a couple from northern Germany, who were quite lucky to get the chance to live in a pretty house with a nice garden in a small city in Schleswig-Holstein. The house belongs to my (Hanna's) mom and we've made it our task to renovate the kitchen and some other rooms. We also want to start some gardening projects like building a greenhouse and a stone oven, planting herbs, veggies and fruit, setting up a more eco-friendly environment, etc... We have a bunch of different projects for enthusiastic Workawayers! :-)

    Our living situation:

    We live with our senior cat Klinsmann, who needs a bit of care atm. Also we have friends staying over from time to time and we love spending our evenings having low effort quality time, like cooking together, having bonfires or just sitting and talking.
    Finn and I cook fully vegan meals and would expect you to do the same at this place. Although our pet obviously is not vegan, we want to keep this house as meat and dairy free as possible. Of course you're allowed to eat whatever you like when going out ;-)
    We're non-smokers, but you can smoke outside the house!
    We speak english and german and are very open to learning new languages and teaching german as well.
    I will start an apprenticeship in kindergarten in August 2024 and Finn started working at a place as a carpenter in September 2023.
    We spend our free time on projects around the house, going for walks, Finn goes to the gym, we meet up with friends to cook together and hang out, I like to attend events around town and practice yoga a few times a week. Of course you are very welcome to follow along to all those things. We want to make you a part of our family/friend group rather than just having you live and do projects with us!

    About the region:

    As mentioned, we come from a small city in northern Germany, called Bad Segeberg. It's about an hour from Hamburg and Kiel and half an hour from Lübeck. You can also reach the Baltic Sea in about 45 minutes. The town itself has everything you'd need, grocery stores, shops, cinema, pubs and a club, there's also some cultural events at our open air arena, which holds the famous Karl-May Festspiele and concerts every now and then, in the summer there's outdoor activities around the city. To get around, you can either hop on the bus, which drives by every 30 minutes or borrow a bike.

    The tasks:

    The house is a relatively new build (around 1980) so don't expect a cute farmhouse. We have 3 bathrooms (we only use one regularly, since the other ones need to be renovated), a kitchen which we just renovated and 6 rooms (one livingroom, one is our bedroom and the other ones are open to be guestrooms). As you can imagine, that's way too much room for two people, so we want to renovate upstairs as well to make it it's own apartment soon (starting next fall/winter probably).
    The projects that you'll get to help with around the house is:
    painting walls and doors, tiling floors, maybe be a bit artsy if you're into that (creating decorations), ((we won't be renovating until summer 2024))
    but also the day to day stuff, shopping groceries, helping us cook and entertaining the cat (he loves attention!)

    Our garden has about 600m² and is mostly grass at the moment. We want to change that, create an eco- (bird-, insect-) friendly environment and start growning our own fruits, veggies and herbs. We also want to build some stuff around the garden, like a green house, a pizza oven and an outside shower.
    Your tasks around the garden would be:
    plucking "weeds", sowing, watering when the summer gets hot, cutting trees and the hedge...
    ((during winter the garden doesn't need much work))
    Just ask us about current projects when applying :)

    Your accommodation:

    There's a guest room downstairs next to our bedroom. We just finished renovating it and it came out perfect :)
    You can also stay upstairs if you need even more privacy!
    As mentioned, we have three bathrooms. You can use the main bathroom with us, but the toilets on the other ones work fine. There's also a second shower, but we'd need to deep clean that thing before I'd let anyone use it ...
    There's one kitchen and we plan on eating together on a regular basis. If you like cooking, you're very welcome to cook for us every now and then or join us in the kitchen, but if that's not your thing it's also fine.


    What we expect from you:
    To make your stay as awesome as possible, here are some things you should think about, before applying...
    - We are looking for someone who won't just do the tasks and then disappear into their room for the rest of the day. Of course there are days that you wanna spend alone and that's totally fine, but please don't apply if you don't want to be part of our day to day lives.
    - Our cat is pretty needy. If you close a door he might knock on it and meow, so if you don't like cats, please don't apply, it wouldn't be fun for anyone involved.
    - As I mentioned, we cook only vegan meals. If you can't live without meat at dinner meals, which we plan on eating together most of the time, you shouldn't apply. We don't want to veganize anyone, but I don't feel too well when someone, who doesn't need to, eats animal products around me. So at home there's a pretty strict no meat and fish rule. Of course you are still allowed to eat animal products when going out etc.

  • Types of help and learning opportunities

    Types of help and learning opportunities

    Language practice
    Help with Eco Projects
    Gardening
    DIY and building projects
    Creating/ Cooking family meals
    Help around the house
  • Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Our city is a certified health resort. There's a lake and a forest just a 5 minute walk from our house and the summer has bunch of activities to offer: small festivals, plays, music and interesting people. If you want to explore Hamburg, Kiel or Lübeck our town is also a good place to start, since public transport will take you to these cities in about an hour.
    I don't think Finn and I practice a lot of 'german culture', but maybe you'll think differently.

  • Help

    Help

    I mentioned the general tasks in the text above. You will help for a few hours a day, depending on the current projects. Of course there will be days off. To stay with us, there are no skills required. If you're enthusiastic and like to learn new things that's totally enough! We're figuring most things out on the go.
    If you have knowledge in any field, especially gardening, feel free to teach us or even come up with new projects. We'd love to be inspired by you!

  • Languages

    Languages spoken
    German: Fluent
    English: Intermediate
    Russian: Beginner

    This host offers a language exchange
    We're interested in learning basics in any language! I am currently learning Russian and would be happy to have a teacher :)

  • Accommodation

    Accommodation

    You can choose one of two rooms to stay in. Either more private in the upstairs room or downstairs next to our bedroom. If you need your own bathroom, we will clean the bathroom upstairs together. Otherwise you can use our main bathroom. Dinner is spent together most of the time, the other meals will differ, depending on our working hours.

  • A little more information

    A little more information

    • Internet access

    • Limited internet access

      Limited internet access

    • We have pets

    • We are smokers

    • Can host families

  • Can host digital nomads

    Can host digital nomads

    You can use our WiFi, it works perfectly fine We also have spare desks

  • Space for parking camper vans

    Space for parking camper vans

    There's room on the driveway, but only for small campervans. Just ask us and we'll see if we can make it happen ;-)

  • How many Workawayers can stay?

    How many Workawayers can stay?

    One

  • ...

    Hours expected

    Maximum 4-5 hours a day, 3-5 days a week

Host ref number: 391882117227

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