Renovation

A recurring theme in the more than 80 year's existence of the
Open-Air Museum has been the maintenance of the many buildings,
their contents and their surroundings. Right from the opening of
the museum in 1927 its employees have been working against time -
time that sometimes has been quite hard on the old houses. The
primary building materials - straw, clay and wood - used in the
construction of the houses require constant maintenance so that
they do not fall into disrepair and make maintenance a major
operation. There have been periods in the history of the museum
(the years after the war) when it was not possible to undertake
repairs to the buildings for economic reasons. Unfortunately, this
has meant that restoration work has been extensive and demanded
much from the craftsmen. Luckily, the museum received economic
support for the extensive renovations so that the museum and many
of the contents of the houses were able to undergo a major
restoration in the 1960s and 70s.
Today, maintenance of the Open-Air Museum's buildings is carried
out on a running basis and in many cases the museum endeavours to
do this in connection with some of the events that are held there.
For instance, the museum holds a lime washing, timber frame and
thatching day in May, which precisely focuses on the materials from
which the houses are built. During these days, work has been done
to renew the sills in the farmhouse, houses have been lime-washed
and maybe some of the many thatched roofs have been repaired. Once
a year the museum holds a regular tradesman's day where up to
between 25 and 30 of the old crafts are represented. This day is
used to illustrate old craft traditions and shows that the museum
tries to maintain the place with historic authenticity. The museum
also makes different experiments in partnership with Jura-Kalk,
with slaking lime, and tests are made with different kinds of
mortar, such as mediaeval type mortar.
Sometimes there are large extensive renovation projects at the
museum, e.g. when one of the houses needs a new roof or when the
museum's old post windmill from Fejø was totally restored and
rebuilt from 2009 - 2011.