So, we decided to start a blog! First of all, we want to wish everyone a Happy New year!

Let’s make 2020 awesome!

We’re Jeanette and Pascal. And as you probably already guessed we’re a Dutch-Norwegian couple. I (Jeanette) am Norwegian and Pascal is Dutch. 

It’s quite some time ago that I first mentioned starting a blog to Pascal. After months of researching and preparing we’re finally here. One person is reading our very first blog post. Hopefully more than one, but you have to start somewhere right? 

• Our life
• Language for the blog
• Why we’re blogging
• Content
• Goal
• You

Our life

In this blog we’ll write about our two big passions, home renovations and travels. Today with our first post we’ll explain you why.

Our life is not really ordinary. 1,5 year ago we followed our dream and bought a house from 1952 in my hometown. On an island in the west coast of Norway. Which we’re renovating. On our own. Using A LOT of time. 

Pascal quit his job to renovate full time one year ago. While I’m still working. But my job is quite different to what you might think. I’m an officer/DPO (Dynamic Positioning Operator) on a drilling rig. I work and live onboard for 2 weeks, and then I get 4 weeks off. This means that totally I only work 4 months of the year and can renovate and travel the rest. Previously I travelled a lot on my own, because as understandable most people I knew had to work every day.

I wanted to see the world. 

So, I went. 

And it’s the best decision I ever made. 

There are many good things about traveling alone, I’ll tell you more about my take on that later. But since Pascal and I met, we’ve of course been travelling together. Which I find more relaxing. Do you feel the same?

Language for the blog

The question why we’re writing in English is simple to us, but maybe not to all of our readers. Especially our Norwegian readers. So, I’ll explain. I’m Norwegian. Pascal is Dutch. We know people from all over the world. So, for us when thinking about starting a blog we immediately thought that we’d write in English. So that everyone we know can be able to read it. My family, his family and all of our friends. Not that we’re writing only for them, but let’s face it – family and friends are where you need to start out. And in the end, with English we can reach out to a much bigger crowd.

Why we’re blogging

We’re starting this blog because we believe you’ll find what we do interesting. Do you like to make stuff with your own hands? Do you dream of doing a house renovation, big or small? Do you get butterflies in your belly when you’ve booked your next trip? Is travel the reason why you work so hard? If you answered yes to any of these questions – then you’ve come to the right place. You can do this too, and we’ll show you how!

Content

As a person I’m very consistent. So I promise you that we’ll post something new every single week. (Head to ‘About us’ if you want to learn more about me and Pascal). We’ve already come quite far on our house, so we’re really excited to show you guys everything. And teach you how you can do this yourself. We’ve also visited 9 countries this year, in between all the work and have great tips to show you from each and every place! We’ve also started planning our travels for 2020, and we can’t wait to reveal where we’re going. The two first destinations are already booked! But first, check out our post from the Christmas Market in Münster. We visited this magical place on our trip to Germany and the Netherlands in December! Have you ever been there? It’s naturally the two countries we visit the most, because we have family there. Do you also love to travel in December?

Goal

Our main goal with this blog is that both of us one day can do house renovations, travel the world and blog about it full time. That’s why we decided to make a blog that covers both travel and renovation. If you’re only interested in reading about one of the two, you can easily navigate in our menu to find posts only about travel or only about home renovation. 

One year from now we want to have achieved 10.000 readers per month. And have a blog that continues to grow every day. Will you help us get there?

You

Your ideas, comments and critic will be very important to us. And don’t be afraid to disagree with us. We’re hoping that you’ll let us know what is good and what could be better. What YOU want us to write about, and if there’s something you want to see. We promise to always answer you within 24 hours. And you can choose to write to us in either Norwegian, Dutch or English. Our email information can be found under «Contact».

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