Tile sample

Nope, not interior tile samples.  Not even a sample of outdoor paver tiles.  Nope.  Today, Mr. B stopped by today to drop off a sample of our ROOF TILE!  Well, that and to introduce Joern to our roofer as well as to discuss the roof with the roofer.

Although the roofer planned on starting this week, we've hit a few snags.  First of all, it is awfully cold.  Inhumanely cold.  Secondly, the scaffolding that is currently surrounding the house is not high enough to provide the roofers access to the, well, roof. Basically, the scaffolding must be redone.  After some negotiation with Mr. Builder, he agreed to fix the scaffolding. So the plan now is that the roof will begin two weeks from today. 

I guess I should spend a minute explaining the roofing process in Germany, and then a little aside about our specific roof.  In a typical German "stone on stone" house like ours, the only part of the construction that is made out of wood is the structure for the roof. Because of this, a German roofer is actually a carpenter, so in reality, the carpenter came to our house today, after the house was built. A German roof is made from a timber frame upon which tiles are laid.  The tiles are heavy and interlocking, so they won't go anywhere, pretty much ever.  They also have a built-in rain guttering system.   Normally, because of their interlocking properties, as well as their ability to handle rain and moisture, nothing is really necessarry underneath the tiles, just some good ol' fashioned insulation.  In our case, because the pitch of the roof is so low, we are going to have a special paper installed to ensure that no moisture accidentally backs up and leaks under the tiles.  Hurrah!  The discussion continued on that after the roof is set up, Joern will assist the roofers in installing the insulation. Obviously, he will be careful, and I am honestly not sure what material we're using for insulation.

But enough "blah, blah, blah."  I am most excited about receiving the sample of tile today.  It isn't the right color, but it is the right shape.  Our roof tiles are quite a break from traditional German roof tile, but they are sleek.  We both really like them.

The roof tiles are really big!

They are curved at the front, and will overlap onto another tile.

Unfortunately, I am now out of free photo storage, so I cannot upload any more pictures until I get this figured out.  Bleh!

No new news today.

Our one poor builder who was on the job all day yesterday in the freezing cold called in sick today.  I don't begrudge him.  It is freakin' cold here, and the poor guy had to work all day in the freezing house yesterday.  On the one hand, I would love to have the house done yesterday, but I feel so bad for anyone who has to work in the freezing cold house.
So, that's all for now.  I don't know about tomorrow, but its okay.

A new phase- the interior (Innenausbau)

Carrying over the surprise factor from yesterday, today was really no different.  It was another day full of house surprises, and it was yet another huge day, as we began another phase in our house building story.  Today, the builders started the interior.
Before today, there are a few "house building facts" that I learned:
1. After the ceiling is poured, the house needs to sit for a few days, and nothing happens.
2. The interior walls are installed after the roof is installed.

I learned the first "fact," through our own personal experience, and the thought never occured to me that the house was sitting because the ceiling of one floor became the floor of the next.    The second "fact," came through watching the duplex next door to us being built.  The interior walls of the duplex were installed a few weeks after the roof was completed. 
Obviously today, my "facts" were proven completely wrong.  The builders were back today, and they started on the interior walls!

Joern emailed me today at work, and told me that they were working on the cellar stairs today.  Don't ask me why, but I thought that meant the stairs from the cellar up to the first floor.  I had no idea what I was in for when I came home:

These are the stairs from our foyer into the cellar.  Just three weeks ago, there was a wooden plank!

The builders also chalked out the interior walls in the cellar and first floors:

The walls of the mechanical room.  The future home of our heat pump, water tank, and air filtration. 
This is also the home of our rinse shower for our muddy shoes, muddy dogs, and muddy kids.

The block closest to the front of the picture is a wall in which Joern is planning a built-in cabinet!

Our PANTRY!

                                        Joern in our kitchen.  There is a little line perpendicular to the chalk line,
                                                          which marks the one wall in our kitchen. 

                                          The wall for the living room/ bedroom is marked out.

                                                                      Powder room

Joern clarified the cellar wall with a plumber today, to ensure that it the technical room was indeed large enough for the behemoth that will be residing in our technical room.  We also clarified my error in understanding.  The roof will not be started in two weeks.  Nope, the plan is that the roof will be COMPLETED in two weeks!  I really hope that the weather will be a little warmer than expected, but as long as the weather holds out, we're set to start our roof next week.
Oh yeah, next week is only in two more work days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend's plan is to work on the Richtfest, which we have decided should take place after the windows have been installed.  According to Mr. B, the windows take 6-8 weeks once they are odered.  I am not exactly certain when or if the windows have been ordered, but hopefully, we're looking at our Richtfest in 8 weeks or so!  Thank goodness, because there is a lot of planning to do in preparation for such a gigantic event!

Surprise!

I called Joern during my lunch break today to ask him for a house status update.  This has become a lunch break ritual since the beginning of this school year, it provides me a little "pick-me-up" during the school day, plus, it helps calm my deep desire to be home watching the house change daily.  At 12:00 today, Joern told me that the builders were working today, installing steel mesh.  We discussed that this stage could last a few days, and we both hoped that the weather stay above freezing until the ceiling could be poured.  I hung up the phone satisfied that the house just may be completed by the end of the week.
Imagine my surprise when my phone rang just as we started "quiet time," with the kids around 1:15, and Joern told me that the concrete for the ceiling was on it's way to the house!
The builders started pouring around 1:30 this afternoon, and were finished by 3:30.

Mr. Builder arrived to take some photos.  You can also see the orange air filtrationon tubes under his feet.

Joern got a little "artistic" with the photography.

                                         

                                                              

                                                             

The last batch of concrete.

And now, the exterior of our house stands, completed. 

Obviously, we had quite a reason to celebrate today!  Mr. B also called Joern to tell him that the carpenter, who will do the roof, will be coming in 2 weeks!

Cleaning House

Yesterday was the first day that we actually worked in our house.  We cleaned!  So, not only was it our first day working in our house, but it was our first day cleaning our house!
All this came as a result of Mr. B's sly comment the other day that the house was really messy.  Of course, we had no clue that we should have swept out the house.  So, we even asked one of the builders last week.  He said that usually the builders clean, but that they were working really hard pushing through the second floor, and didn't really have time to clean this week.  But yes, he said that often the home owners come in and sweep up.  Huh.
But the builders did not only sweep up the second floor on Friday, but they cleaned out the first floor as well.  This left us just the cellar to clean out yesterday.
Of course though, we had to start off with our daily walk-through.

                                                           Joern inspecting the monster.

                                                        Looking up at the attic.

It was also during this walk through that we noticed that the elecricians were there on Friday, or maybe yesterday morning. 

And we saw that the plumbers installed the pipes for the air filtration system (the ones in each room.)

 We also saw that the plumbers installed the connection for the rain showerhead.

 But then we realized that the bath showroom, those people responsible for designing our bathrooms, neglected to inform our plumbers that we are installing two rain showerheads.  So, Joern had to call Mr. H, the plumber, to clarifly the situation.

The situation was easily solved, we need to mark out where we want the second showerhead, and it will be installed on Monday.

Then, we headed downstairs to the first floor.
We found new insulation waiting in the living room.

 
And we found many, many more cables- again!

 We finally made our way to the cellar.  It was a lot of dust, but so worth it!

                                                        

Afterwards, we went home to celebrate with some sparkling wine :)

Hello bathrooms!

I finally screwed up the courage to ask Joern if I could borrow his computer for a few hours yesterday.  I had a big project that I really needed to do for the house.  But I needed photo editing software for the project, which I do not have installed on my netbook.  "But what about the project?" you ask?  I made mood boards for the bathrooms.  This was so important because we have some important decisions to make upcoming soon, like the granite choices for the vanities, and of course, paint colors.  But I also wanted to take the opportunity to pull together the choices that we have made, to see if it looks nice before anything is acutally ordered.  So without further wait, here are our bathrooms:
Children's / Guest bath (a gentle beach theme)

 I posted two different paint choices on the right and left sides, I'm not sure which one I like more.  I also need some decor for the bathroom, but that can wait.  The flooring choice is not actually wood, we will use "wood look," tile for the flooring.  We also have a trim for the top of the beadboard.  And we will use a white subway tile for the shower.  I am also not quite certain as to which granite we'll chose yet. I think we'll have to go to the bathroom showroom for the granite or marble, tops.

Master Bath

 I'm pretty convinced the granite vanity will be a tough choice, as the floors are such a light beige.  My gut says a dark brown, but I don't think dark brown would go so well with the espresso wood.  I'm still not entirely convinced with the shower floor and accent tile, it will be a travertine mosaic, but I'm not sure which one is really the best choice.  Paint choices are also not so easy.  I would love to add a punch of color, and I feel like a dusty purple would be great, but then I would need to use a light granite and I would also have to convice Joern to be happy with a purple bathroom.  I am just afraid that beige paint will make the bathroom a big, beige cave. And yes, I am considering oil rubbed bronze light fixtures, because we have ORB accessories (magazine rack, towel bar, etc,) so I need the light fixtures to pull together the two metal finishes in the bathroom.

Powder Room (Istanbul theme)

In the powder room, most of the decisions are all set.  I just need to decide how dark I want the gray paint.  On the one hand, the room is small and dark paint would make the room oppressive, but there is a floor length window (which needs a good curtain,) and there will be a beveled white subway tile halfway up the walls.  I also need to find a good frame for the watercolor I picked up in Istanbul.

So, that's what we have right now.  The fourth bath is in the cellar, and I'm not so worred about decorating that right now.  I am just so very happy to have this projected completed!

The ceiling!

Today was not necessarily the smoothest of all days.  First of all, this is what we woke up to this morning. 

Yup, that's snow.  Just a little, but enough to make me feel bad for those poor builders, outside in the cold. 
And then, well no big suprise,  my car is in the shop again.  So, Joern had to drive me to work, which meant that he missed the arrival of the ceiling.  He also missed the first half hour of installation.  Fortunately though, Joern was able to see a good portion of the installation of the ceiling.
Here, the builders are lowering the portion above the back bedroom.

To help keep up the morale of the builders, Joern bought some food for break-time, and brought them some tea.  During break-time, Joern ran in and snapped a few pictures.  Here is the house at 9:30 this morning:

After the builders returned from their break, they got to work cutting out the hole for the attic stairs. 

By the afternoon, the entire ceiling was completed.  The house definitely looks more like a house now, and of course, we are thrilled!  We just have to keep our fingers crossed that the weather holds out until they can get the concrete poured.  Then, it looks like time to wait for the spring thaw. 

Tomorrow morning at 8 am

Tomorrow morning at 8 am, our second floor will no longer look like this:



Because, the pre-fab portion of the ceiling is being delivered tomorrow morning!  Of course, we're both a little sad at how much darker our upstairs will be with the ceiling on top, but we are so much closer to completion than we were three weeks ago!

I really need to get back into the daily blogging routine, since December was pretty much a bust in terms of house building.  I should have posted yesterday though, because this week, just like last, the builders again made great progress!

Yesterday, the builders continued working on the load bearing walls.  They completed the wall that makes up the border between the stair well and bedroom #2.

Silly poses come pretty natural when your house progresses along so nicely!

The builders also continued working on the wall for the master shower, which is now above my head.  

They also completed the entire wall for the master suite!













Standing to the doorway to our bedroom!

We also noticed how different our view to our neighbor's house is now

 Compared to the same view from September:

 

We also had

We also had a surprise visit from our architect / project manager yesterday.  Normally, he visits the house on Wednesday, but he was in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon, so he decided to stop by.  It worked out well because it was right as Joern and I were coming home from work.  It has been a long time since we both were able to meet with our architect, so it was nice to do a walk-through with him.  Of course, it all started off rather strange, when Mr. B entered the house and seemed a little surprised that we had not yet cleaned the floors.  Really?  Germans sweep out their houses during construction.  Wow, I never expected that one!  Obviously, we are a little upset and embarassed that no one told us earlier that we were in charge of sweeping out the cellar.  Okay, we are quite embarassed.  I am starting to think that there should be a book about building that all people building a home receive when they sign with a builder.  It would cover things like home builder etiquette, Richtfest "rules," etc. 
But once we got past that, the walk-through went quite well.  Mr. B was satisfied with our new stairs.  We clarified the repositioning of the wall in the mechanical room.  Upstairs, Joern said that he would like to push back the living room wall 40 cm. into the guest room.  Then, Joern and Mr. B both laughed at me about wanting a guest room, to be a guest room, complete with a bed.  I think it is a cultural thing, but sheesh, what is so bad about a guest room?  Afterwards, we went up to the second floor.  Everything looks great, except as of yesterday, the builders had no clue where the cut-out was going for the attic door and stairs.  It was good that Mr. B was there, he was able to clarify it with the builders.  Since the pre-fab concrete ceiling has already been ordered and made, it is too late to have it cut before installation.  But, if it is in fact, not in the ceiling, the builders can cut it out before adding the steel mesh and pouring the rest of the concrete.  We also discussed with Mr. B our experience with the bath showroom.  He also gave us some money saving tips and hints. 
Despite the few "jabs," it was overall a very worthwile visit.  We were able to clear up quite a few items, and were happy to hear that he was pleased too.

The builders worked hard today, completing all the interior walls that need to be completed before the ceiling is installed.  They also put up tons of metal supports in anticipation of tomorrow's big event.  Sadly, I am having trouble uploading any more pictures.  So, maybe tomorrow I will post pictures of the before and after shots of the second floor!

Well, that's all for now.  The word for the day is anticipation.

Load bearing walls

The builders worked on the last set of load bearing walls.  The cool thing is that now, you can't through the hole in the floor and tumble down the stairs. 

I shouldn't forget to mention that not only are the load bearing walls exciting as protection, but they are also walls that form the bedrooms.

                                              Standing in the master shower

                                                                Back bedroom (bed #2)

                                                        Joern standing in the master bedroom

And then, we watched the sunset from our bedroom window.