A very quick update

Since I have a lot of laundry to do, and some vaccuuming, I will just write a quick update on the house. I will do a more thorough job in writing about it hopefully during the week.
Since receiving the building permit, we are now waiting for the "Rote Punkt," or Red Point which allows us to actually start building. Mr. B needs to register himself as our project manager, which will allow us to receive the Rote Punkt. We've also met twice again since the beginning of the month with Mr. B. We've worked on optimizing the design of the house. We've moved around a few walls. In the cellar, we've enlarged the rooms, and reduced a little width in the hallway. We also enlarged the mechanical room by removing the wall to the toilet room. It may seem odd to have a toilet and shower (for rinsing purposes,) in the mechanical room, but Mr. B suggested that we place our heat pump and water tank in a way that it can be covered by a curtain most of the time.
On the first floor, we've added one meter to the dining room, and removed the shower from the first floor bath. Although it would have been nice, it will give the bathroom a much more airy feeling, as the shower really made this bathroom cramped! We also changed the design of the window in the kitchen and widened the door from the kitchen to the side terrace.
Upstairs, we redesigned the children's bath, optimizing the space, which will also give me room for my Pottery Barn sink console and some shelving space for the laundry supplies. We also worked on the design of the master bath. Mr. B gave us a few suggestions for the bathtub. He did talk us out of making the shower too big, but I'm not totally convinced on that one either. We also made the hallway in the master suite a bit smaller, which gave more space in the walk-in closet. We eliminated two windows, one in the bedroom behind the bed, and one in the bathroom. It is fine.

The blueprints are complete, and Mr. B has started the paperwork for estimates. The paperwork is huge, he fills out an enormous booklet with explicit details on the house to send to builders, excavators, etc. This way, all contractors give us an estimate on exactly the same terms, which allows for a fair comparission.

We've also booked our container. We are going with a US shipping company. Turns out, summer is high season for shipping, thus, not the cheapest time to ship. We've chosen to self-pack our container, and have two hours to pack the container, before incurring an hourly rate for packing. Ugh!

Lastly, we also booked our tickets- hooray! We'll be home from July 5th to the 20th. A nice long time!