La Maison Mirepoix

I had the honor to learn a lot in my life, and while I continue to learn new things, I also look behind me: at what I learned, and at how I can bring what I learned in the past into the future. Craftsmanship, social work, living in nature, art, coding… lots of things which, at first sight, wouldn’t connect well together.

But there’s a thing. I spent the last 10 years of my life with the only person so far whom I met and admired. Throughout the years, we thought about what we would like to build together and what we wanted to give to this world. The idea became a residence in nature, with ateliers and workshops to practise creation across the crafts and arts we loved, and space for other humans with the desire to learn, create and grow, who could come and find a place and support for their own creations and development for a while. And well, since everything has to come to an end… the relationship broke up… but I decided to keep that idea alive and to carry it forward anyways. Creating and maintaining a space where humans can come together to share knowledge, to learn, to grow and to create. Supporting and encouraging those who carry great beauty in themselves and who want to grow themself and their creation.

And hence, here we are.

And while I don’t yet have land in nature where I could start to realise everything, I’d rather look at what I already have, what I can do with it and what I can build on top of it, while everything ideally brings me closer to where I want to get with the project. Bootstrapping style: figure out the concept, just start, gather experience and learn from it, think about it carefully (but not too much either), and then just go for it without ever stopping.

And what I have here is actually quite solid. A now very empty but very big house, around 10 rooms of which I use 2, with extra constructions like a small hut in the garden; then, as said, the garden; and… well, I have a lot of time and no financial pressure, which is already quite nice. I also still have lots of my woodworking tools here, as well as an insanely crazy technical setup and space.

In September 2026, I got in touch again with old contacts from my time in social work, and since then I have decided to restart the social work and to host young people at my home for a time: young people who struggle to find their place in this world and its society.

My digital workspace is something I will transform into a small hack & tech hub, where I continue to build and code stuff myself, but where I can also welcome other people who are interested and want to learn about technology, equipping others with the tools and knowledge they need to use technology wisely and well.

Since I just started learning to play piano and to sing, I also just added the basics of a music studio: an electric piano, a mic, and all the stuff to connect the studio to my already existing digital workspace. Further thoughts led in the direction of setting up an insanely nice music studio which I can use myself to play and record music, but which I can also open up to other musicians looking for a place to record their music. So I decided to use some of the empty rooms in the house and dress them up as guest rooms where musicians can stay for a while to play and record music.

Then two other experiences happened which led to the overall decision. A few months back, I helped a woman near my village recover some lost bitcoin. I got back in touch with her and visited her project in another small, cute village nearby. She is renovating a big house and adding a restaurant & café on the ground floor, and while we visited the worksite, I offered my help to add some nice, unique wooden pieces, which, as you may have noticed, brings me back to practising craftsmanship. Since I already have the tools and the space at home for a nice wood workshop, the decision was made quite fast. So I will set up a nice wood workshop to build things on my own and for others, as well as to share knowledge and to teach people who are interested in traditional woodworking.

Next to that, I decided to also set up a small smithy here at home and to go back to the first craft I learned at a young age: art blacksmithing. Mainly because I feel my hands calling for it, and because I want to see how I can nicely merge my wood and steel working skills. It will be fun to figure out.

And while I was helping a neighbour with a small wooden construction, he told me about his idea to run a small, community-based pizzeria in his garden, right next to mine. He is a farmer, and his idea is to produce the ingredients himself, to offer fully locally made pizza to the people of the village once a week. Since my garden is larger than his, we discussed realising the pizzeria at my place instead, also because I was already thinking about what to do with my house and how to make it a living place, not only for myself. And so it was decided: a pizzeria will be set up in my garden, open once a week from spring to autumn, as a non-commercial community project. Oh, and also a stage for musicians to play during the pizza opening hours…

All of that should be ready and launched by spring next year. I will regularly give updates on the progress here on the New Projects page.

Yep… that’s very much it: some context on roughly everything that makes all this happen. I don’t think many other people will read this, and that doesn’t matter much to me though. I mainly write it for myself as a historic artefact and start to share some stuff, mainly for close family and friends, and simply publish it here. If you had fun reading it, that’s nice :)