Decision weekend

This weekend hasn't been an easy one.  It started with the fact that I was supposed to have made a front door decision by Friday.  Friday was such a busy day though, and we had been through enough decisions, that I made a different decision on Friday:  I needed the weekend. 
Joern gave me the front door.  Do you know how difficult it is to chose a front door?  It is so important, and really speaks about the entire house.  Horrible.  Two factors in my decision were that it must have as much glass as possible, as the front door is one of the biggest sources of natural light in the cellar, and I want black.  Here are the three candidates:

Of course, you have to imagine all in black, and all with sidelights on both sides.  Argh!  The top two are wood, and cost 1,200 Euro more than the bottom door, which is made from aluminium.  The wood door would need to be painted every so often, but that is something we can live with.  I like that the first two look more "front doorish."  I even posted the doors on Facebook, and of course, I got really mixed feedback. Here are the results:

Door #1 - 5 votes

Door #2 - 4 votes

Door #3- 4 votes

And some comments:  "door #2 goes with the symmetry of the house,"  "door #3 is most striking (but I don't like it)"  (thanks Dad,) and "you should should get it in a fun color!" 

Add to that the other decision as to what type of glass we should put in the door:  clear, frosted, or textured.  My brain is still in a knot.   As of Sunday night, I am leaning towards Door #3, black, with clear glass.  This is subject to change of course.  I have until tomorrow morning. 

Major decision #2:  entryway/ cellar tiles.  Oh my.  This is a really difficult decsion because our entryway is so large.  We went to the granite guy who is the business neighbor of Joern and his parents.  He was kind enough to give us samples, that we could keep over the weekend. 

So, here is what our entryway looked like this weekend:

Not an easy decision!  We like the gray and the two that are not in the row.  Our fear with the gray though is that it is too trendy, and too dark.  The in the forefield are a natural stone, which also won't show the dirt, not slippery, and won't show breaks if we (or Joern) drop anything on them.   But, the gray definately has a much more eye-catching style.  Not an easy decision!  We need to decide soon though, because they need to be ordered, and in before "Cute Tile Guy" starts work in early September.  "Cute Tile Guy" even came to the house tonight, to give us his opinion.  He likes the gray the best, for color, but he said that the two are easiest to work with, and easiest to care for, but not his style.  Thanks "Cute Tile Guy," we were hoping for more. 

The samples need to go back tomorrow, and we have to return to the tile showroom for the children's bathroom floor, and to tell them what tiles to use in the shower in the cellar. 

But the exciting news is that at 7:45 tomorrow, we have an appointment with the electrician, plumbers, and representative from Stiebel Eltron, for our air-heat pump's test run!



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!