Signs of life from the house

Sorry for the temporary lapse in posting.  But, we had a good excuse- we were in the States last week.  It was a whirlwind trip, but it was so good to get home.
House-wise, not much happened here.  Right before we left, the builders came to remove the staging, and put up a few boards as a small safety measure.

The back of the house

                                        The east side of the house (from the in-laws' driveway)
The builders also came last week Tuesday and took the crane away.  I don't have any pictures yet, but I have to say, now that the crane is out of our driveway, we've realized that we have a very large driveway!
My father in-law also called on Thursday to tell us that the chimney had been delivered.  They didn't do any work on the chimney last week, but at least it had arrived.

During our time at home, most importantly, we visited with my dad, sister, aunt, cousins, etc.  But we did manage to get a few important items for the house as well.
We asked my dad, who just happens to be a plumber, recommended that we go to Whites Plumbing Supply in West Haven to look for the kitchen faucets that we needed.  He said that he uses them a lot and recommends them to a lot of customers.  Well, he was totally right.  They were awesome!  A mix between a plumbing showroom and a supply house, all the salespeople were down to earth, kind, and they offered fantastic prices on their items! 
We quickly found ourselves looking into, ironically, Grohe faucets.  This is ironic because Grohe is a German company, and the faucets are made in Germany, but some are created specifically for the American market.  My dad said that Grohe has a great reputation in the States and the same can be said here in Germany. 
The decision went much quicker than I had imagined, as we settled on the Grohe Bridgeford faucet almost from the first moment we saw it.

And, even better, they offered a matching prep faucet for the island:

We also were able to purchase a good quality, yet relatively inexpenisve faucet for the vanity in our cellar bathroom:

And just when we thought we were on our way out the door, Joern found the pot fillers.  Honestly, we do not need a pot filler, and I never would have thought Joern would feel any differently.  That was until we stood there in the showroom looking at a bunch of pot fillers.  Joern found one he could absolutely not live without:

I can't wait to hear what our plumber has to say about this surprise, and very un-German, addition!

Surprisingly, we walked out with four faucets for about the same price (including conversion,) that a single faucet would have cost us here in Germany.  And, they are so my style!  Thank you guys at White's, and of course, thank you Dad for helping us out.  Getting our kitchen faucets out of the way was a relief!

Right before we left, I also managed to order my vanity lights from Pottery Barn for our master bath.  I had this crazy thing that we needed Oil Rubbed Bronze (ORB) light fixtures to tie in the ORB accessories I had purchased from Pottery Barn over the summer.  I went with the Sussex lights, which happen to be from the same line as the accessories.  The lights arrived on Thursday morning, and I have to say, I really love them!

image from http://www.potterybarn.com/

Of course, we also got to bring back a ton of things I had purchased since last summer.  Mostly textiles, but a lot of cooking items too, made their way over the Atlantic with us on Saturday evening.

Another big event that happened while we were home was that our architect confirmed the dates for our windows, and the date for the Richtfest!  Yup, that's right.  Our Richtfest is rapidly approaching, and will be held on April 9th!

It was surprising to see the house on Sunday without the crane.  I was also shocked when I realized just how gigantic our windows are now that the staging has been removed.

The next surprise was in store for us this afternoon.  Joern and I are suffering pretty hard from jet-lag, and I had to drag myself home after work.  I was completely shocked, and jarred awake to find Mr. Builder's son and another builder from the company working on- OUR CHIMNEY! 

The chimney is currently in pieces and must be put together using mortar.  But, Mr. Builder's son started by cutting a hole in the front of the house, where we will place a little trap door.  The cool thing is that the chimney sweep will be able to complete his mandatory annual cleaning through this door, thus eliminating the need from having him clean from the inside. This will save us tons of dust and mess!

                                           Mr. Builder's son cutting our a piece of our house.

And here is what the interior of the walls look like:

Oh, and the gratuitious photo of the saw used to cut out the blocks.  Mr. Builder's son did have to ask why an American company would make such a tool when they don't need this in the US?

We left the house around 5:00 and Mr. Builder's son and the other guy were finishing up for the day.

Yup, those are all pieces of chimeny around Mr. Builder's son.

Well, there you have it.  Relatively short and sweet, an update of the past week or so.  Besides the chimney, I don't expect too much to happen over the next few weeks.  But, I do expect to be busy enough preparing for our big partay!