Monday, Monday

Well, thanks to our brief interlude to spring, our roof is now complete, and the plumbers came to install the air filtration stuff last week.  But, winter has, sadly, returned, and we were certain that the freezing temperatures would mean that no one would be working on the house today. 
Joern decided to drive me to work today, because my car just went through "open heart surgery," and he wanted to make sure it was okay.  As we rounded the bend on our street and looked up at our house, we were so surprised to find a truck from Mr. Builder at the house!
It turns out that Nice-Builder Guy and Interior-Builder Guy were at the house all day working on our interior walls!  Sadly, we didn't get back to the house until 6:30 tonight, so it was already dark by the time we got to check out the day's progress.  Fortunately though, since the house is still a shell, my car lights were able to illuminate a large part of the cellar and first floor from the driveway. 
The builders pretty much completed all of the cellar walls now.  It is crazy, and beautiful downstairs.  I cannot wait to see our finished entryway!
But for now, this is how it looks:

The entryway from the front door.  According to the electrician, this is "very American."

                       Entryway and media room as viewed from my garage.  It is quite spacey down here.

Some of today's work.  The half-wall on the left will be home to the electrical panel.

The builders completed the doorway into the hallway.

This is the wall that forms the shower/rinse area in the bathroom in the basement. 

The toilet and vanity will be on the other side of this wall, and the cut-out

is for the recessed mirrored cabinet.

And to our total surprise, the builders also worked on first floor walls too!

Looking into our pantry through the pantry door.

                                   Looking at the wall between the kitchen and pantry from the kitchen.
                                That hole in the wall will be the location of the controls for the floor heating.


The builders also worked on the wall between the living room and the unassigned room.  

Okay, I have to admit that the living room looks markedly smaller now that the wall is in place, but, I'm pretty sure it will still be a nice living room. 

Its supposed to be pretty cold outside tomorrow, so I am kind of hoping no one comes tomorrow.  But, if anyone comes to work, then hopefully, Joern will provide plenty of tea like he did today!



                                            

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 :)

Familie and Heim Messe 2010

Yesterday, Joern and I received a letter in the mail from a pool company.  Included in the letter were two free passes for this year's Familie and Heim Messe (Family and Home Fair.)  Last year, we attended the fair, and walked away with a contract for a kitchen.  I was very interested to see what today would bring. 
Before heading out to the fair, we stopped by the house this morning.   It wasn't raining, and well, it was nice to have the time just to walk around the house. 

We spent about an hour at the house.  Now that the house is standing, we have a few thoughts on how to improve on our plan.  Whoever it was that said everything changes once you see the house standing was totally right.  Fortunately, there is a lot that still isn't standing, so we still have time to make changes.

The fair was okay.  It felt so strange and exciting to think back on last November.  As of November last year, the house was  in the early planning stages.  We were collecting offers from builders and pre-fab companies.  A year later, our builders are working on our first floor.  Wow!
A few highlights from this years' fair included speaking with a company that builds fireplaces and another company that installs balcony and terrace railing systems.  We also spoke with a representative from Stiebel Eltron, the company that  makes the air heat pump we will install.  Joern was also excited to speak with a representative from the pool company that invited us to the fair.  He is trying to justify putting a pool in our back yard.  As I said a few months ago, if Joern could marry a pool, he'd leave me.  We also stopped by our kitchen showroom.   We spoke with the owner, who really impressed us by welcoming us by our name to their stand.  He also told us that our kitchen designer will be retiring in January, and advised us to set up an appointment with our current designer and the person who will take over our project, within the coming weeks.
Overall, it was a good day.  I am glad we didn't pay for tickets, as we didn't actually get anything very useful out of the fair.  But I am happy that we went!

Our cellar is finished!

Obviously, the cellar is not completely finished, but the Rohbau (the skeleton) of the cellar is now complete!
Over the past few days, the builders were working hard on covering the pre-fab concrete panels for the ceiling of the cellar with steel mesh.

On Monday, the house looked like this:

 On Monday, Joern and his father also spoke with the driver of the excavator, who had returned to our building site last week in order to completely fill in the trench around the cellar.  They asked the excavator driver to remove some of the hill next to Joern's parents' house.  It was a good idea to take advantage of the presence of the excavator, and by removing some of the hill, it allows us to actually have a back yard. 

This is a good picture of the hill to be removed.

The excavator was also used to place large amounts of drainage stone around the house.

The builders worked on the add-on, drainage stones were placed on the ground and the add-on was insulated.

On Tuesday morning, the builders continued to work on the ceiling slab.  And this morning, final preparations were made for the concrete to be poured.  Mr. Builder's son (who is also a Mr. Builder,) came to work on the house too.

Steel mesh was applied on top of the add-on and on top of the pipes for the air-filtration system.

More steel mesh arriving.

All preparations complete.  Waiting for the cement truck.

 

 

The cement truck arrived around 1:00 pm today.  The builders worked pouring the concrete for the ceiling slab for about 4 hours. 

The builders left at 4:45 this evening, by climbing down from our now completed cellar ceiling slab.  The exciting thing is that with the completion of the cellar, the sub-floor for the first living floor of the house is also completed.  Tomorrow, we enter the next phase of building!

We also met with the plumber tonight.  He received the price list from the fixtures Joern picked out at the bathroom showroom.  Although their final price was quite expensive, it also included the price of the alternatives that they offered.  Our big homework this weekend is to work through the price list, and probably visit the supplier again to figure out what fixtures are a must, and which fixtures can be replaced with less expensive alternatives.

We're really rolling along all of a sudden.  It is so exciting lately to see what each new day brings with it!

Just go away for a week, the progress is amazing!

While we were here:

Seeing this:

And drinking this:

This is what the builders did:

The pre-fab portion of the ceiling of the cellar was installed, the first pipes for the air filtration unit (in orange,) were laid, our first temporary stairs were installed, and preparation for the poured concrete floor were completed.

The trench around the house was completely filled in.

Our light wells were installed, the add-on was placed above the completed concrete box for our gas tanks.

We are absolutely shocked that so much happened last week, both in Ireland and in Neckartailfingen.  It is huge!  We're looking forward towhat this week will bring!

Filling in

Today the builders focused on finishing the waterproofing of the cellar walls, insulation, and filling in the trench surrounding the house.

Waterproof cover over Joern's garage

Insulation covered by waterproofing cover along cellar walls.

Filling in the hole around the cellar with gravel.  The gravel is for drainage.

German builder- on the phone.

Filling in the trench with gravel.

Friday

For a variety of different reasons, I decided not to go to the house yesterday.  Mostly because I decided to clean the kitchen and do some laundry, and I was just toasty and warm.  Plus, I had plans this morning, so I knew that I could always stop at the house on the way out today.
So, this morning, before I headed out to meet my friends Stacy and Mandy for brunch in Stuttgart, I stopped by the house.
Normally, the procedure of checking out the house begins with stopping at my in-laws' house to check out the overview, and then driving back down their driveway, and driving up to our house.  This morning, I figured since I was in a bit of a rush, I would just stop at our house.
The only difference I could notice was that there was even more stuff in our driveway.
And then, I noticed that the builders put bricks above the doorways in the entertainment room.  And honestly, I was a little disappointed.  I know that the builders don't really do too much on Fridays.  I wouldn't want their job for the world, its cold now, and they work the butts off.  But come on, this was the only difference I could see from Thursday to Friday:

Notice the red brick along the top of the doorway to the immediate left. (Thursday)

Now look at the top of the same doorway from yesterday.

So, this was it.  That and a beer bottle had been removed from in front of the brick cutting machine.  The beer bottle was a little weird anyway, builders aren't allowed to drink on the site.  Huh.  But okay. 

Anyway, I was moderately sad that more progress hadn't been made. Then, I looked through the light well, and saw a little white, could  it be insulation?





That little white peaking through the light well (that rectangular cutout in the wall?)  Is it insulation?

I figured I couldn't leave without checking out the back of the house.  So, up to the in-laws' house I drove, and it turns out that the complete back of the house had been insulated!





All that gray along the back is a covering over the insulation!

The back of Joern's garage is also insulated:

The builders also filled in a lot more gravel and the big orange pipes were made higher.  Those big orange pipes are part of the drainage system.



Well there you have it.  The builders worked pretty hard yesterday, even without their Thursday / Friday food.

What a cool way (or hopefully warmer way,) to wrap up the end of week 9 of building!