Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, *Saturday,* and Tuesday

We had a lot of progress again on the house over the past few days.  Wednesday brought with it the very cool ability to walk on our tiled cellar stairs:

And he tiled the floors in the powder room and the pantry:

By the time I got home, Tile Guy had made considerable progress on the shower in the childrens' bath too (even though it wasn't right.)





Of course, it was on Wednesday that I realized that the subway tiles were incorrectly installed.  Almost a week later, I still haven't decided if I want the shower tiles redone, or just the powder room. 

On Thursday, Tile Guy completed the shower:

And, he installed the tile on the floor of the children's bath:

I know that the floor is totally dirty here in this picture, but the floor is so cool looking!  Here is a slightly less dirty corner:


Friday, was completion of the floor in the chidren's bath, and the backsplash behind the oven:

Joern was also super busy on Friday evening, he was installing the speakers in the office and Erbse's room:

Surprisingly, Tile Guy was back on Saturday, to build the wall around the bathtub:





Sadly, no Tile Guy on Monday.  We've started to realize that he simply may not work on Mondays.  But, we were surprised on Monday morning, by a visit from the EnBW, the electricity company.  They came to tell us that they will begin digging a new electrical line for us next week.  Evidently, the original plan was that we would share a line with the building lot next door, but the people from the electric company didn't feel comfortable with this decision, so they will be giving us a new line.  But, the good news is that by the end of next week, or early the following week, we FINALLY should have our own electricity and phone lines!

We also had a surprise visit with Mr. B.  I had the day off of work as a preventative measure (the doctor wrote me out sick,)  so I was able to be at the house when Mr. B came.  Mr. B came to check on the progress of the house.  He checked if we had ordered the interior doors, and also told us that someone would be coming to install the waterproofing on top of the garages.  Wahoo!

Today, Tile Guy was busy again.  He finished the backsplash in the kitchen:

And he started the master bath:

The plaster guys also started today.  They spent the day covering over the pipes:

Pantry

Erbse's room

Its really starting to look like the tiles, without the changes, will be finished by Friday!  I'm interested to see how long the plaster guys need.  Once the plaster guys are done, then it is time for the floors!

It looks like we're having a good week!





Reflections from watching TV

I have to admit, I am still house obsessed. Funny, I thought that becoming baby obsessed would help to relieve some of my house obsession, sadly, I now have two obsessions.
Last summer, we found a TV show called, "Unser Traum vom Haus" or in English, "Our Dream of a House," which follows 3 families per episode who are in some stage of acquiring their dream house.  We started watching it before our house building began, and it ran until around September, so not too far into our project.  Lots of people had lots of problems, and I remember being horrified.  What if we had similar problems?  I mean they had major problems- houses not completed, ground crumbling, people running out of money, and lots of fighting.  At that point, I could only hope that this would not happen to us.
Well, tonight, I was flipping channels, and a new season of Unser Traum vom Haus has started.  I eagerly watched the show, and quickly realized that I was watching it through much different lenses than those with which I watched the show last summer. 
There were 3 couples tonight.  The first couple was building a house with a company that was out of Poland.  Boy did they have trouble.  They were building a pre-fab house that was from a company that is entirely based in Poland.  The date of the house building was continually put off by a few days here, and a few days there, and then, a bus hit one of the trucks carrying part of the house, and the roof was damaged.  By the end of the one hour show, the house was one month behind schedule, and there was no word of when the house would be delivered. 
Lesson= building with locally based business worked really well for us.  Yeah, the electrician caused us some difficulty, but he is not as local as our builder or plumber.  It was nice knowing that if we had a problem, or if we had a question, we could stop by and talk with the owner of the company.

The second couple built a pre-fab with a German company that produces in Poland.  Everything worked really well for them, until they realized that their furniture did not fit in their living room.
Lesson=  plan.  This is one lesson that I would gladly pass along to anyone thinking of building their own home.  Plan, plan, and when you think you've planned everything, check everything, plan again. We spent countless hours planning.  Joern put all of the furniture in on his architecture program, and I hand drew everything, to scale, in on the house plans.  But the good news is that through planning, you really can get your house as close to perfection as possible.  One of the compliments we have heard more than once is that the house is full of thougthful details.  It was only because of our planning that we were able to have thoughtful details.

The third couple purchased an existing home, that was super old, and wanted to renovate.  The house was very cool, and had potential.  The problems started though when they found out that the house required much more extensie work than they had realized. They moved into the house and were living in one room while renovating.  They had no heat, no hot water.  And then, they realized that they were running out of money.
Lesson= there were two lessons this time.  The first lesson is to plan on living somewhere while you are building.  This living problem is a major house-building problem in Germany.  You are required to give so much advance notice of when you're leaving an apartment, that it is nearly impossible to smoothly leave a rental and move into your new-build.  But, you need to plan an alternative living location.  A nice thing about this country is that family and friends are usually more than accepting of you staying with them for a few weeks while your house is finished, but you still need to find somewhere to store your stuff.  The second lesson is the money lesson.  Expect to go over-budget, because no matter how hard you try, unexpected problems will come up and you will need extra money.  Either you will need to take a little more money than necessary though your mortgage (your architect may need to "pad," the costs a bit to make this happen,) or have an extra stash of savings somewhere.  The second option is usually more difficult because usually when people are building a house, the majority of their savings has gone into their down payment.

I found it very interesting to watch the show having had a year's worth of house building experience.  Now that we're at the tail-end of it all, I have to say that it has been a fantastic adventure.  I love walking into our house, of course while diverting my eyes from the tile in the powder room, it feels wonderful.  When people give you complements, you are truly touched, knowing how much hard work we put into the house.  I am looking forward to watching further episodes of my favorite house building show!

A little mistake

When I came home on Tuesday, I was very excited to see our powder room wall tile.  BUT, then I said to Joern, "Of course, you know it will look much better when the grout is in."  I didn't know why at the time, but something just looked off.  On Wednesday, when I got home, the majority of the subway tile in the shower in the kid's bath was complete, and again, I said "It should look better when the grout is in."  But I didn't have such a good feeling.  Here, you can see why:

It looks off, right? 

So, I went home and checked my pictures, sure enough:

Check out the installation pattern.  Yup, they are installed in a brickwork pattern, NOT in a grid pattern.  That explains why the tiles didn't look right to me.

UGH!  I don't know what's wrong with me!  I have come to every situation armed with 1,000 photos just how I want each detail in our home.  And then, I forget to show Cute Tile Guy just how I want my subway tiles installed!  OH MY GOSH! 

The worst is that I can't leave it.  I can't just say, "its okay," and walk away.  It needs to be fixed, at least in the powder room, but possibly the shower as well.  I talked to Joern that it was important that Cute Tile Guy be made aware of the problem, because the kitchen was next, and I'm pretty sure it would be harder to redo the backsplash in the kitchen, plus its a waste of money and time to keep redoing our tiles.  So, Joern had to talk to Cute Tile Guy.  Turns out, he feels just as bad as I feel. 

Joern and I were discussing it all last night.  Cute Tile Guy is right, the tile in a grid pattern looks like a swimming pool- which in my head translates to it looks horrible.  It has to go.  I brought up with Joern how I can't believe I didn't advise him how the tile should be laid, and then Joern also brought up the fact that Cute Tile Guy asked how I wanted all the tile, except for the subway tile.  So, it looks like we are both in error.  Joern told him that I want at least the powder room reinstalled.  Not sure when we'll be doing that, but it needs to go.  We're running into a little time problem though, because Cute Tile Guy is finishing the master bath next week, and the plaster guys are starting next week.  It may not be possible to redo the powder room before the plaster guys need to work. 

I guess in all, if this is the biggest problem, it isn't so bad.  But slighlty aggrivating.  Hopefully, it will be fixed sometime this winter.



Monday, Tuesday

The past few days have seen a lot of progress house-wise.

Yesterday, I was shocked to see the house when I came home from work.  When we drove by the house yesterday morning, this is what we saw:

And here is the same view at 4:30:

Yup, the guys came to take down the staging yesterday.  But not before an emergency downspout installation.  On Saturday, the owner of the stucco business came in the afternoon to fix a small problem between the house and the wooden part of the roof overhang.  While he was there, he asked Joern who was coming to install the downspout in front of the house- the downspout that could not be safely installed without staging.  This realization, that we did not have the downspout installed, caused a bit of scrambling on Joern's behalf, as the guys were planning to come at 7:00 am on Monday to take down the staging.  After a few frantic calls, Joern was able to get the plumbers to the house at 7:00, and the guys removed the staging around 10:00.

I can't believe how beautiful the house looks now!  Not only were we unable to see the house exterior for 2 months, but our windows have all been covered over for the same amount of time.  I love it!

Cute Tile Guy also made tons of progress yesterday.  He tiled the entryway, the part of the foyer between my garage and the front door.  I love how light everything is!

It was also the first day that I walked on the tiles, so of course, we had to record the event:

We also found our first mess.  When we were in the house over the weekend, Joern told me that there was a bird in the cellar, but as he walked into the cellar, the bird made its way over to the garage.  But, the bird didn't go without leaving us a small gift:

It goes without saying that I cannot wait for our doors to arrive!

We went back to the house last night, once it got dark, to see the official result of Joern and Marcel's lighting project. We cannot be more pleased with the results:

Today was another day full of progress.  Cute Tile Guy finished the foyer steps.  I know that home decor is all a matter of taste, but I love how our foyer turned out!

Cute Tile Guy also tiled the walls in the powder room.  Don't freak out like I did: he will be using white grout between the tiles, which will totally change the look.

Unfortunately, the cap tile did not arrive yet.  It will look even better with a cap around the top.

I also noticed that the opening above the window in the entryway was closed, and Joern told me that the stucco guys were at the house yesterday to work on the outside of the cellar.  So, we had to take some more pictures:

It was exciting day again at the future home of Joern, Allison, and Erbse.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Outside, Inside, its all looking different

Its been a busy past few days in our house.  We've had the stucco guys, painters, "Cute Tile Guy," and Joern hard at work.  Today is Friday.  The stucco guys finished the stucco on the first and second floors on Wednesday.  Today, the painters came to paint the exterior of the house.  From far away, you can't even really see the stucco, because we chose the finest stucco available with the highest quality.
Here's what the house looks like today:

Its tough to see the bumpy texture from far away, which is good.  I am NOT a stucco fan, and would have prefered anything to stucco.  But, Joern said it best today when he said, "we really took what we could work with, did the best we could, and have created as close to an American looking house as possible."  He's right. 
Here's how the house looks close up, you can see the texture of the stucco:

Okay, this is an extreme close-up.



                                   This picture was taken about a foot away from the house.

                                   You really have to be up close to see the texture- Hooray!

Its also  really hard to tell from the picture, but the exterior of the house, minus the garages / entryway, is finished!  The staging is set to go next week!  Wahoo!  I can't wait to see the windows again from the outside.  The stucco guys and painters will need to come back to do the cellar entry-way, but I am very happy with what we have already.  The goal was to complete all the areas where the staging was needed as soon as possible, because we have been paying weekly rent for the past month. 

 

Cute tile guy is done tiling the majority of the cellar.  He has not done the triangular shaped part of the foyer before the two steps, but the entire rest of the hallway and the media room are now complete.  Cute Tile Guy explained to Joern that the difficulty was in lining up the grout lines in the two rooms evenly, because we have two doorways, so the grout lines need to be even between the two rooms the entire length of the house.  The tiles are kind of difficult to photograph, because they are shiny, and such a light beige, but here are a few views:

Here is a view at the bottom of the stairs.

Media room

The upper-part of the foyer, and the hallway.

What I love about the tiles is that the don't stick out.  It is such a huge space, that if the tiles were too much visually, you would get a headache.  They are really neutral, so we can use many different rugs in order to pull the space together, if I feel like we need rugs.  I also love that they reflect the light.  If we had gone with a matte finish tile, the light that we have to play with, would just get eaten up by the matte finish.  These tiles reflect the light so well, they add to the brightness of the space.  It is really hard to tell when you walk in to the entryway, that you are, in fact, in a cellar, which is just what we wanted. 

I'm really excited to see what next week has in store for us, tile-wise.  I think that Cute Tile Guy will start with the foyer, and the stairs, maybe?  I know his plan was to be done tiling by the end of next week, but I don't really wsee that happening.  Its okay, we planned for this, which is why we told the plaster guys that they should expect that the house is ready by the last week of September. 

Joern also worked on a surprise this week!  I'm not quite certain how long he planned this, but I have so say, so far, it is really cool!  Joern has planned to install LED spotlights in the overhang underneath the roof. 

Here is a rough idea of what his project will look like:

But the cute guy won't always stay up there, just the light :)

And here is what it looks like at night, (please excuse the crazy angle of the picture)

Joern plans on installing 4 on each side of the house, which works well, since the house is a square.  He spent about 3 hours in a shop here that I refer to as the "Geek Shop."  After 3 hours, he called me to tell me his plans for the lights.  It was important to me that the each side could function independently, because, I can see how the back or side could annoy our neighbors, but I think that the front illuminated would look fantastic, and feel we will want to illuminate the front most often.  So, Joern very proudly told me that the lights will run independently on each side, and that they are remote controlled.  Oh, and this is the coolest- our IPHONES will serve as the remote control!!!!!  I'm sure there will be some other way to control the lights when IPhones are no longer in, but it is so cool!  This way, we can turn on our lights when we aren't home.  Joern currently has plans to run the lights off of a photo-sensitive cell, that turns the lights on at dusk and turns them off automatically when the sun rises.  But, we have the option to turn the lights off with our phones.  I only have a little apprehension to something that automatically turns on for the entire night as soon as it gets dark only because I will forget to turn off the lights, and I don't necessarily want to illuminate the whole house all night, but I guess we'll figure out something!

Joern has a lot do finish this weekend, because the staging is going to be picked up on Monday morning at 7:00 am, so the lights need to be installed by Sunday evening.  It is exciting though, I'm sure this weekend will merit another post! 
See you soon!

Kitchen update, and progress towards the tiles

This weekend, we were allowed to take the cabinet fronts home. I figured it would be best to bring together as many of the kitchen elements as possible in order to make a decision.  So, I brought a bar stool into the house, and put the bar stool, floor sample, and paint chip card all together with the cabinet fronts.  Turns out, we were surprised by the outcome:

We agreed that the high gloss was MUCH nicer with the gray beiges that I love!

On Monday afternoon, we went back to the kitchen showroom.  It isn't fully completed yet, but we did make some more headway.  We decided for the high gloss cabinet fronts.  We also discussed our options on the built-in wall.  It turns out that our coffee maker may not be the same size as the oven/ mircowave.  If they are not the same size, we will have a symmetry problem.  The kitchen guy offered a suggestion of a plate warming drawer.  The good about it is that it would balance out the two appliances on both sides of our "breakfast prep center."  But, putting it under the coffee maker is a bad idea because, you'd have to run all around the island with plates of food, and, of course, its 600 Euro.  Joern had an even cooler suggestion though, he asked if we could do a stainless steel drawer underneath the coffee machine, that we could line, so that Joern would have a little drawer for coffee grinds from our KitchenAid countertop espresso machine.   This would be a good solution, because well, Joern is a little bit of a slob when it comes to coffee grounds, and as long as we clean out the drawer once a day, it would be a very clean looking solution, plus solve our symmetrical problem. 
We also discussed the material for the exposed cabinet bodies.  We have quite a few exposed cabinet bodies, especially when we enter the kitchen from the back door or come downstairs.  We also have exposed cabinet bodies in the "breakfast prep center." The two options are high gloss or matte cabinet bodies.  We decided that not only did the high gloss cabinet bodies look better, especially with the lighted shelf in the "breakfast prep center," but also helped to solidify our decision to go with the high gloss cabinet fronts. 
We still haven't made a decision about the drawer configuration, but we will have our final meeting with "Kitchen Guy," next week.  We have until the meeting to decide on the drawer configuration.

Also, this past Tuesday was the last day of tile preparation.  It was a busy day in the house, with all sorts of new and exciting changes!
The plumbers came to install the shower in the children's bath:

They also delivered, but did not install the shower floor for the rinse-off shower in the cellar:

And very excitingly, they installed, although not completely, the bathtub!

Cute tile guy was also super-busy on Tuesday.  He fixed our cellar stairs!

Although it is hard to tell from this picture, fixing the stairs was a huge deal.  These three steps had huge height differences, so that the first step was about 3 inches high, the second was about 8 inches, and the third, was close to 12 inches.  Obviously, the human brain, nor the body, does well with such varied heights in one set of stairs.  Once it all dries, he will tile over the stairs as well. 

You can also see that the Estrich (concretish material,) is darker at the top of the stairs than at the bottom.  This is because "Cute Tile Guy," also applied a primer for the tiles.

Well, this week certainly got off with an exciting start, but I can assure you, it got even more exciting from here on out.  But, that will have to wait for another post!





Kitchen and tiles

Thursday afternoon, we had an appointment with the kitchen studio.  It was to finalize our decisions- we didn't really finalize anything, and after 3 1/2 hours, decided that 8:00 pm was time to call it quits for the night.  We have to finalize next week.
We were assigned to a new designer, as our original designer retired in August.  I really liked our old designer, but after a few hours with our new guy, I realized that the original guy was ready to retire.  This new guy had so many fantastic ideas. 
He started out by informing us that the kitchen company we are going with changed the drawer size. This means reconfiguring the set ups of the drawers.  Joern and I have quite a bit of homework here, trying to decide how to best utilize the space for our needs.  He showed us a lot of options for things we can put inside the drawers to better organize everything.  Wow!
We also discussed the countertop.  Our new kitchen guy showed us a honed granite countertop, which we really loved.  It works nicely for both of us, because Joern was never a fan of the high polish, and I was never a fan of high polished black, because I heard that they are a total pain to keep streak-free. 
It is still black, but with a slightly uneven surface.  I really love it!  Of course, it is more expensive than our orignal choice, but it is about 100 Euro per sq. meter more expesnive, and in reality, we don't have that many square meters of countertop space. 
We also discussed our range hood. We have a unique, but growingly more common, problem with our range hood: because we have an air filtration system and our high efficiency air-heat pump, our range-hood cannot vent outside.  Our air has to be filtered, and recycled into the house.  We're fairly certain that the air-filtration system will deal with the damp, but Joern was so worried about the smells.   Joern brought up his concern with the new kitchen guy, who promptly had a solution- an active charcoal filter that can be installed in any range hood.  The filter is HUGE and heavy. It is refillable, and the kitchen guy suggested that since we like to cook, we refill the charcoal once a year.  The packets are about 40 Euro, which seems like a good investment if we're considering keeping smells out of our living area!  The kitchen guy also made a few modifications in the range hood, so that the air can be properly exhausted. 
From range hood, we went over all the rest of the appliances.  We flip-flopped the dish sink and dishwasher, because even though the designers agree that the dishwasher should be on the left of the sink if you are right-handed, ours is currently on the right side of the sink, and I love it there!  The designer also has to play a bit with the location of the dish sink along the wall, as well as the cabinets.  I guess there was a little poor planning involved, one of our dining room outlets will endup being covered by the kitchen cabinets.  Hmmm....
Then, it was on to the microwave.  Joern brought up that the interior space of the microwave was really bothering him.  We microwave a lot, and usually use our lovely, gigantic Pfaltgraff plates.  Joern was really concerned that for us, going from our countertop microwave with tons of space to a built-in tiny microwave was going to be miserable.  New kitchen guy had a solution- which excites me :)  He suggested a combination oven / microwave.  Since its an oven, it has much larger capacity than a traditional built-in microwave.  Plus, I was already worried about Thanksgiving, when we usually use our oven, my mother-in-law's oven, plus a tiny countertop oven.  This way, I am getting THREE ovens for our Thanksgiving party! 
From there, it was on to the prep sink.  We need to look at a bunch of prep sinks and decide which we like the best.
New kitchen guy also asked us about solutions for the garbage.  Joern really wanted a hole in the island, this way he could just sweep the scraps from the veggies away.  So, New kitchen guy showed us a system, basically a hole in the countertop, you just pull up the cover, and the scraps go into a little bin underneath the countertop, which you then empty out.  He also suggested an alternative, an electrically supported drawer underneath the prep sink.  You just bump on the drawer and it opens!  So, you can have your hands full of veggie scraps, and bump the drawer with your knee, and the door opens like magic! We decided for the drawer, as it was cheaper, and for me, who empties the garbage, the better choice.
The final discussion focused on the cabinet doors.  The doors we origianlly chose is no longer in production, so we had to chose new doors.  Our original plan was a white, high-gloss, mission style door, but the new version had slightly more undefined lines.  New kitchen guy showed us few other white door options.  I pointed to a matte finish beaded cabinet, saying that those are the doors I usually like best.  But, when we took out the two door samples and held them together, we both decided we liked the high-gloss one much better.  The color was just a lot nicer.  Well, thank you very much, New kitchen guy, because he suggested we take the door samples home over the weekend to decide.  There is a HUGE difference between seeing something in a showroom and seeing it in your home.  We placed them in the kitchen, so that the light would hit them the way it will when the kitchen is installed.

It isn't so easy to tell how much better the one on the left looks in real life, but believe me, it looks significantly better!  Its something about the color of white.  The door on the right looks so much more yellowish in our house, and the one on the left, which looked almost gray in the showroom, looked to be a lot more of a true white in the house.I want to return to the house with some paint samples, and I really wish we could have had a sample of the granite, but there is almost no argument. Plus, even Joern agreed that the beaded doors fit in with the decor of the house much better than the mission style cabinet. 
New kitchen guy had to pretty much redraw the kitchen, because it didn't transfer properly into his software program when he inherited our kitchen.  So, the plan is that he'll finish the drawings in the upcoming few days, and we'll go back to finalize the decision, so that the kitchen can be ordered.

In other house news, "Cute Tile Guy," was back yesterday.  Yesterday's job was to grind down the surface of the "Estrich," or that concreteish substance above the radiant heating.  He did this in the cellar.  The other job was to paint on a waterproofing layer on the floors and on the shower walls, and surrounding the bathtub. 

We did discover a tile problem though, which made us both quite mad, and was probably a poor way to start off the weekend.  Joern picked me up from coffee (okay, bubbly apple juice,) with a friend, and on the car ride home, he said to me, "did you know your mosaic tiles cost 2/3 the price of the entire tile bill?"  I said I knew they were expensive, but didn't think they would cost that much.  Then, Joern told me, well it was 17 sq. meters of mosaic, for the master shower, and for the bathtub surround.  It was at that moment, I realized that there was an error, that the mosaic was ordered for the entire shower, including the walls.  This was NOT our plan!  We wanted the travertine mosaic tiles on the shower floor and as a border on the shower walls, the rest of the shower walls were going to the the same tile as the floor in the master bath.  Turns out that Mr.B called Joern when I was in the States to finalize the order for the tiles, and Joern said something like, "I don't feel comfortable doing this without Allison being here," to which Mr. B said something about time not being on our side, and that the order needed to be placed.  So, when Mr. B asked Joern about the mosaic covered shower walls, Joern was uncertain, but agreed that this was correct.  It was NOT!  So, at 7 pm on a Friday, Joern called Mr. B.  Obviously, we are most upset with that annoying lady at the tile showroom, Ms. Gray, who had no problem insulting me and my home country, but couldn't even get our tile order correct.  But, Joern was also upset with Mr. B, who kept putting off the tiles, which left us in the unfortunate spot that the tiles needed to be ordered, and I wasn't there.  Mr. B managed to calm down Joern a little, by saying that despite the fact that it says on the order form that the mosiac tiles are not returnable, he will fix it.  But we are still so angry with the annoying lady at the tile place.  We've even decided that the final tile order we need to make, for the shower in the cellar, will be done through another tile showroom, the one "Cute Tile Guy" works with, because we do not want to run the risk of having to deal with Ms. Gray again!  I am only hoping that this doesn't mess us up too much time-wise, as cute tile guy wants to be done by the end of next week. 

Well, that's all the news for right now.  I'm sure this upcoming week will be full of updates!

Sprinting towards the finish line- on the right blog

A special thanks to my friend, Stephanie, who so kindly let me know that I totally slipped up, and posted this post on the wrong blog.  The funny thing is that I checked this blog the other day, and didn't see this post, and me being me, figured that I simply forgot to publish.  Well, I did publish, but on my "day to day," blog, which has rapidly become my Erbse blog.  Obviously, returning to work after a lovely summer break did have its effects- I think I was tired!  But, here my "beginning of the end," post.  I'm very proud that our house has come this far, and even more excited.  Enjoy!

Well friends, faithful readers, as of yesterday, we began the "end phase!"  Yes, the "end phase."  The house has come from a hole in the ground to the point where everything being done now is the interior finishing. 
"Cute Tile Guy," began yesterday.  From here, we are looking at 2-3 weeks of tiling, 2 weeks of plaster work/ painting, plumbing fixture installation, 1 week of wood floors, and the kitchen.  Kitchen is the last thing to go in before us.  We're looking at about 3 more months total.  But this is the exciting stuff!  From here on out, the house is coming together, the accumulation of all of our hard work and stressful decisions.  We're obviously freaking out excited!
Yesterday's job by cute tile guy was all prep work.  He installed water barriers underneath the tiled floor master shower and the bathtub. 

He also installed drywall along the back of the vanity and behind the bathtub.

We also now have in our possession the majority of tiles!

Our cellar tiles that Joern had to pick up and offload.  That was a lot of lifting!

And the rest of the tiles, from the tile showroom, that were definitely offloaded with a crane:

Although, I do believe that we have not yet received the tiles for the floor in the master bath.

Besides the tile flooring, our salesman from the floor company stopped by yesterday.  He needed to make measurments and to check that the floor is indeed dry enough to lay the parquet. 

The guys who laid the "Estrich," that concreteish material on top of the radiant heating tubes put little "markers" in the floor, marking easy places for the flooring companies to come and remove a section to measure the humidity level in the floor. 

They removed a small section on the first floor and a small section on the second floor, and put each section into a special instrument that measures how much humidity is in the concrete.

The good news is that the floor is pretty much dry now, so it will be fine at the beginning of October, the tentative begin date for the floors.

The salesman also spoke with us about a solution for our hearth.  Joern was vehemently against tiling the hearth in front of the fireplace, insisiting on a glass plate.  The only thing that the salesman warned against the glass plate is that we will be forever bumping into a raised surface and stubbing our toes.  For someone with arthritis in their toes, the act of stubbing my toes usually ends up with me in crying jags because the pain is just unbearable.  He suggested a solution of removing one of the bottom layers of parquet in the area surrounding the fireplace, this would take about 6 mm off the height of the parquet.  Then, we will install a 6 mm thick glass plate in the lowered section, which will give us a seamless, glass-covered hearth.  Genius, I tell you!

The floor was officially ordered today, although we still haven't made a final decsion on the stairs.  Really, stairs aren't a big deal though, and we could even move in before the stairs are covered.  And part of me would prefer to move in first, just so no one drops any of our lovely, very heavy furniture on our stairs.  The stairs are ultra-expensive, and we're now considering only putting parquet on the stairs heading up to the bedrooms, and using tile instead on the stairs heading up from the basement.  I am also undecided as to whether I would like wood only on top of each step, and painting the concrete a high-gloss white on the rise, or if it is better to completely cover the rise and steps.  I'm not going to stress about this decision, nor do we want to rush the decision.  Here, we have time.

Well, that's it.  The beginning of the end.  Of course, the house will be nowhere near complete when we move in either, but this is the beginning of the end of the uninhabited time in our house's story!