Vaccuum and electrical

Since we have another week or so to go before the plaster guys come, this week is all about finishing up any rough work. 
Have I told the story of the 110 V outlet yet?  OMG.  So, when we first met with the electrician, Joern brought up that we needed place in the kitchen to store our step-up/ step-down transformer.  The electrician jumped on that and suggested instead that we put the transformer in the cellar, and run cables up to the kitchen from the transformer and install 110V outlets.  He told us only to buy outlets when we were home, which we were very careful to do.   When Smokey Old Electrician (may I please shorten this to "Ol' Smokey?")  was in the house last week he informed us that we had a problem: the boxes for German outlets are circular, and our US outlets were rectangular.  Talk about putting a squareish peg in a round hole!  This sent us into a little craze about how to fix the problem easiest and quickest.  The plan was to order the boxes from the US and pay the ridiculous amount to ship abroad, because well, we needed them.  At the end of last week, Ol' Smokey came to us with a possible solution.  In the electrical catalog, he found an outlet that was I guess, multi-voltage.  all we needed to do was to change out the plugs on all our 110V appliances.  We weren't too excited about this idea.  Then, on Saturday night, Joern and I were barbecuing at the house, and I decided to look through the electrical catalog.  My reason was to see what the electricians were paying their suppliers for light switches.  As I thumbed through the catalog, I stumbled upon a two-page spread for export appliances.  Yup.  Export.  Their supplier has outlets for British appliances, Chinese, and- American!  Joern will talk to Ol' Smokey tomorrow, and hopefully, we can fix this mini mess.

But, the electricians were at the house today, and they worked on wiring outlets and switches on the first floor.

Electrical in powder room.

Switches for the stairs to the second floor and for the kitchen.

And, the plumbers were back today!  To install the pipes for the central vaccuum!!  They installed most of the pipes for the vaccuum, and only need to connect the pipe from the cellar to Joern's garage, where we will store the vaccuum.

The blue pipe running from the guest room area to the fireplace is for the vac.

I am very excited about this feature, a toe-kick pan for under the kitchen cabinet. 

Connection for the hose upstairs.

A very long pipe running along the media room.

Hopefully, we see the electricians tomorrow.