Ugh, I missed a week

Most often, I feel like I am a responsible blogger.  But, sometimes, you can let a few days get away from you.  The problem is that once you start letting one day pass, the thought of blogging gets harder and harder, because there is so much more to blog about and so many more photos to plow through.  Add to that a nasty head-cold/ virus thing, and well, its Monday again, and well, this is why my last post was seven days ago. 
Tuesday was a really busy day at the house.  Here is our driveway:

Yup, that is a plumber's van and an electrician's van!

The plumbers chisled out the wall in the powder room for the pedestal sink.

And the electricians chisled out the headboard wall in the master bedroom.

                                    The plumbers roughed out the master bath, and installed the tank for the toilet.
                                    The electricians roughed in the outlets in the master bath.

And our walls turned into graffitti cenral.  This is the wall in the children's bath (laundry on left/ shower on right.)

The drain system for the kitchen, powder room, and master bath (in the cellar.)

Drainage for the top of my garage.

Drain pipe for the children's bath. 

Wednesday was another busy day for the electricians and the plumbers, and we were welcomed the arrival of someone who will most definately become our friend:

Sorry its fuzzy, but that's our fireplace!

And, here is the inside of said fireplace.

The plumbers and electricians were really busy on Wednesday.  The electricians installed wire in most of the outlets and lighting connections in the second floor.  It was pretty amazing.  The plumbers did lots of drilling.

Thursday was our first big disappointment since the plumbers not arriving.  The electricians didn't show up.  No call, nothing.  No electricians.  But, the plumbers were there, and they worked like mad. No pictures though, because I was "making rather merry." (Oh my gosh, Mom, if you're reading, I do hope how you like how I was able to use your favorite Bob Crachit quote!)

Friday, more of same.  Hard working plumbers, and non-existent electricians. 

. 
Today, well, the plumbers have really earned back my love.  I finally got to run around with the camera to take lots and lots of pictures.  Here you go:

The water connection for the utility sink (pantry.)

                                      Water and drain connections in the powder room.  Warm water exchange pipes for
                                             radiant heat.

                                           Kitchen plumbing.  Prep sink water supply and drain, and
                                          water exchange pipes for radiant heat.

                                    The transportation holders for the windows are now gone from the terraces.

Wiring in the master closet.

Plumbing in master bath. 

                                                   Growing network on the second floor.  Both plumbing and
                                                       electricity.
Since we don't expect to see the electricians until the week after Easter, I guess there won't be any more electricity updates.  Plumbers will be back tomorrow.

This evening, we also met with our mortgage guy.  He had more papers for us to sign.  It turns out that for every bill sent to the bank, we need to sign off at the bank on the payment. 

Well, since this was a huge post, I should be going.  Hope you all enjoyed the update, and look forward to my being a better blogger this week!

Woah, it isn't going to be so easy to blog anymore!

Today was crazy busy at Casa del Roesner!  The plumbers arrived around 9:00, and got to work on extending the wastewater pipes, drilling holes, and well, a whole bunch of stuff.

Wastewater pipe for the prep sink!

This is so cool-like a map!  The left side is for the powder room and master bath.  The right side goes to the kitchen.

                                                       Children's bath waste water in the cellar.

                                              Children's bath wastewater on the first floor.

When I got home today, I was excited to get there before the plumbers left.  I was able to take a peak into our locked mechanical room!  The plumbers are using it for storage, AND, they installed the wall hanging toilet tank in the cellar.

                                     This is a toilet tank for the wall hanging toilet in the cellar.  It is installed!

And, I got to witness the great farmhouse sink location debate!

I don't know why, but I particularly love the flowers in the picture :)

The debate was cleared up when we realized that the architect widened the terrace door, this changing the plans slightly.

And, I got to hear the sound of plumbers working in a German house.  The plumbers have lots and lots of holes to drill out of concrete.  Needless to say, it wasn't a quiet event!

Drilling the hole for the "scheiss" 1920s toilet.

                                          Preparing for the wastewater for the utility sink in the pantry.

We also had a long discussion with Plumber Guy (the master plumber under Mr. Plumber,) about the vanity in the children's bath.  We bought the extra wide vanity, against my better judgement because we got a good deal on it at the Restoration Hardware outlet.  Now, we are paying.  We now have to open the bathroom door into the hall (as opposed to into the room, like normal,) because we don't have enough room in the children's bath.  Bleh! 

As if my head wasn't spinning, or ringing, enough, at 4:00, we met with Mr. Electrician, and Smokey Old Mr. Electrician.  Today, we were marking out all of our light switches, outlets, satellite outlets, homeway boxes, hanging lights.  OH MY GOD that was a draining two hours!  I am so glad we put in the time yesterday to prepare, but of course, we missed a ton of stuff.  Smokey Old Mr. Electrician came along to mark out all the locations, and he seems to be the master electrician, who will kind of be in charge of the electricians on our project.  They had, of course, tons of helpful hints as to location.  We have a million and one outlets, but this is a good thing.  Mr. Electrician also had a fantastic suggestion for the master shower, which is pretty much a black hole- we will place lights in the ceiling, and cover with a milk-glass plexiglass.  This needs to be completed by a carpenter, but he said that we will have a really warm light in our shower.  After solving the shower problem, he and Joern went on to spend 10 minutes discussing the location of the television in the - MASTER BATHROOM!  Like it isn't embarassing enough that we have TVs everywhere in the house, including the focal point of the entire first floor, Joern wants a TV in the bathroom.  Oy!

We also learned that we must have a real wall, not only a glass wall, in between the shower and washer/ dryer.  This will probably save us a little money anyway.  No problemo!

We headed downstairs towards the kitchen.  Somehow, I had no idea that this would take so long.  And it is in the kitchen that I need to remind myself that our house borders on ridiculous not only because of Joern.  We discussed the placement of our 110V outlets in the kitchen.  Seriously, I cannot believe that we're getting a dual voltage kitchen.  Is this really necessary?  We planned out exterior lights as well, which again, was a big deal.

We planned a lot of wall sconces in the foyer and up the stairs to the first floor.  Honestly, I thought a lot about the foyer, but I didn't think that I needed to know this today.  Ugh!

All in all, I am glad its over now.  Smokey Old Mr. Electrician will begin tomorrow!  I've heard that electricians are really messy, so I'm looking forward to the mess awaiting us this weekend.  Joern even has to order  a dumpster and a garbage chute for the electricians!  The electricians will work all this week, and then not for two more weeks, and then in three weeks, come back to work.  According to Mr. Electrician, the majority of the work should be completed by the middle of May. 

We are also in a little fight with the plumbing supply store.  Not only are they overpriced, but now they want to charge us 250 per hour for advising us.  Mr. Plumber got in a big argument with them, all over us.  Boo.  Hopefully though, we find something, I would like the plumbers to be able to install something!

Well, that's all from the site today!  Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings!

Twiddling our thumbs AGAIN!

Well, we were supposed to have our plumbers start two days ago.  No plumbers.  Joern called the plumber with a question yesterday, and spoke with the master plumber.  He confirmed my translation of the whole last meeting with Mr. Plumber, that indeed, they had planned on beginning our house on Monday.  But, he then explained that they have become really backlogged with "emergencies," and that they hope to start on the house real soon. 
I hate to sound bitchy, but I cannot wait for the plumbers to get started!  I mean really, can't you hang out witout a working toilet for a week or so, just so that we can get going?  The nerve of some people!  (Okay, really, that is a joke- most plumbing emergencies are of the unpleasant sort, and I would not want people to have to live uncomfortably because of me.)  But, I would love to see the plumbers get started.

In electrical news, we have a walk-through date set with our electrician!  On Monday at 4:00 pm, Joern, Mr. Electrician, and myself with walk through the entire house discussing the location of our outlets and our Homeway boxes. As you can imagine, this means that Joern and I have quite an exciting weekend already planned out.

So, that's really all the news for now.  Hope to be able to update more quite soon!

Some Valentine's love for our incredible team!

Happy Valentine's Day from the construction site!
It was an incredibly busy day on the house today,Mr. Builder,Mr. B,  plumbers, builders, roofers, and Joern!  And they all deserve a little Valentine's "I really love you all," in different ways, of course!
Here's a quick run-down of this very special Valentine's Day.
The roofers spent the day making the grid that goes around the entire roof.  This grid holds the tiles.

And they also covered up the exposed beams under the overhang.  They explained to Joern too, the purpose of the slotty metal pieces.  If a roof tile breaks, the water will run down the waterproof sheeting, and run out the slotty metal pieces, which will signal to us that there is something wrong with a tile.  Cool! 

Oh, and the roofers installed our skylight today.  It is small, but adds a ton of light into what is fast becoming my favorite place in the house. 
At 4:30 this afternoon, the roofers totally surprised us by starting on the roof tiles!  It is a little more brown than we expected (joke,)  they're just covered in dust from them cutting them to fit.  WAHOO!

Mr. Builder was at the house for a little while today.  He checked on the house, and moved his sign from the duplex next door over to our house.  Although I'm not the world's biggest advertisement person, I must say, I feel like we just stuck a Mercedes symbol on the front of our house.  I am very proud to have a Mr. Builder house!

Mr. B was also at the house today.  He needed to clarify the height of the floors, and deliver the message that we need to rethink our windows in the front of the house.  We had originally planned two doors on each window, but Mr. H (our window guy,) said that the doors would be too big and he could not guarantee the hinges on these huge doors.  We have a few options that we need consider now over the next few says.  Mr. B also delivered the news that we have to redesign the location of our electrical panel yet again.  Ugh.  It turns out that our original planned location, underneath the stairs, was illegal, because there must be 1 meter of space on three sides, in case there is an accident, that the electrician can fall without hitting their head of ceiling.  So, we move again.  It is remaining underneath the stairs, but will go behind a door that faces you as you walk in from the foyer.  I'm not bothered by it at all.

Our plumbers were at the house today for quite a long time too.  They drilled some holes in the cellar walls for the air filtration system.  They also elongated the tentacle-like pipes for the air filtration system.  And, they installed a box for the outcoming air and one for incoming air.  The pipes run into the boxes, and the boxes into the air filtration system.

 Our interior builder, M, who is just such a nice, hard-working guy.  He worked on the cellar today, and all of a sudden, we have a full techincal room, and a clearly defined area for our built-in storage.  He also completed the small wall on the side of our foyer.  And right before he left, he started filling in the small hole that was placed for the electrical panel.

And last, but not least, the latest addition to our building team- Joern.  Joern spent a few hours today gluing the overlapping air barrier to the sides of the exterior.  It all looks beautiful and is now airtight.  Thanks Joern!

So there you have it, a crazy busy Valentine's Day!  I am going a little buggy now separating all of the photos into the proper folders.  Ugh!  But I'm not complaining.  Obviously, I feel a lot of love for all the fantastic guys involved in the creation of our house!

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 :)

I looooove our electrician!

We met with our electrician for the first time today.  I guess I was a little surprised when I found out that this was not the guy who kind of has a monopoly on all electrical work in our town, but instead, someone recommended to us by Mr. B.  The "town electrician," turns out to be good at his job, but not very reliable.  He has forced building sites to stop for days while the builders had to wait for electrical work.  Mr. B has worked with this electrician, Mr. Kübler, on a couple of projects, and Mr. B has been really impressed by not only his work, but by his affordability. 
 I didn't realize Mr. Kübler would be at our new house before 4, so I arrived about 15 minutes after he arrived, but at least Joern was there and able to start talking with him.  When I arrived, Mr. Kübler introduced himself, and then said that he and Joern were just talking about smoke detectors and security systems.  As any proud, flag-waving American, smoke detectors were a non-negotiable to me in our new house, and I have been having major discussions with Joern for years about how I would want a security system for our house as well.  He explained that for most of his customers, these are hard-sells for him, I told him my American opinions on both, which made him very happy.
Here is a bullet-list of everything we discussed:
-we will have a 400 watt outlet in Joern's garage, as we will need it to power the pump for the cistern, as well as the need to power Joern's power tools in the future.
-the circuit-breaker box will be located in the entryway along the staircase, an electrician's dream
- we discussed making a "lichtdecke" or illunated ceiling.  This will give us maximum light in our cellar space
  without compromising the terrace.
-we spent a long time discussing the TV, and Mr. Kübler had a fantastic idea!  He worked in a house where
  the fireplace constructor built a special insulated niche for the TV.  We're definately looking into this solution!
-3 pendant lights above the island in the kitchen
-on the top floor, we discussed further recessed lighting in the walk-in closet and the bathroom.
-the suggestion of illuminating a small section of the ceiling in the Master shower with LED lights, this would not only illuminate the shower, but would allow us to put in any type of shower-head, including a rain-shower.
-running LED lights along the top of the staircase
-the alarm will have sensors on all windows that can be accessed from the ground, a motion sensor in the cellar, and a video-speaker system at the door with a recorder
but, by far, the coolest idea:

- put a double 110-volt plug in the kitchen!!   This means I have a dual-voltage kitchen!  I can run all my US appliances in my kitchen without my dumb, boxy, heavy transformer!  I could have cried, or kissed Mr. Kübler, or maybe both!

Well, that's about all with electrics.  Pretty exciting. 

Here's a currrent view of the house, they're preparing the molds for the garage walls!

It seems hard to belive

Two weeks ago today, this is what our building lot looked like:

Here's the same view from today:

Today's status:
Excavation is complete, 6 days ago.  The footers have mostly all been filled, with the exception of the trench running along the north side of the house.  The drainage pipes that will run underneath the house are laid, and covered by ballast stones.  Today, the water connection was attached, and now is that black pipe with the blue pipe sticking out of it.  The electricty was also brought up to the house, and comes out of a pipe next to those wood boards.  The waste water pipes have also been laid, and too are mostly covered by ballast stones.  The majority of the building lot is now covered with a material that acts as a barrier to help keep the ballast stones in place.  This is the white material you can see in the above picture.  Digging began  today for the underground cistern that will be under the driveway.
Over the course of this week, the building site has gone from a big hole in the ground to  a very clear and definite building site!