Updates

I wish I had a good reason to explain the lack of updates lately.  We've had a lot and not a lot happen housewise, which may have something to do with the lack of posting.  Or, I will pull the "mommy card," something I am looking to pulling for a while, by saying that most of my free time lately has been spent researching car seats, strollers, and hanging out on The Bump.  Whatever, I haven't been on top of posting AT ALL!
The electricians were back to make sure that all the lights work.  In order to do this, they had to install light bulbs.  Basically, I can now say, "and then there was light."  So now, whenever we want, we can go from this:

                                                      To this:

Now, if we were only doing this on our own electricity, it would be even more exciting.  Sadly, we've been waiting at least 5 weeks now for our electricity.  But, to be fair, the electric company said that it would take 6-8 weeks for our connection, so we're still in time. 

We've made quite a bit of progress with our exterior stucco.  The guys put on a layer of material and then installed a mesh over the entire house.

The mesh will help prevent any cracks from forming in the stucco. 

Once the mesh was worked into the second layer of stucco, another layer was then placed over the mesh.

Oh, and to make matters even better, it was so very hot here two weeks ago!  The stucco guys normally walk around the site fully clothed, but it was horribly hot.  Poor guys!

In the following picture, you can see how much cleaner the finished side looks, compared to the front that is only covered in one layer of stucco.

The stucco guys also installed insulation around the front door area too.  It is important to insulate around the front door as this wall is poured concrete, which is a very poor insulator.  No poured concrete in our home has contact with outside air or with the ground. 



The wall between Joern's garage and the house was also covered in insulation, and has now been covered over in plaster.  Joern is very proud

We also met with the owner of the stucco/ plaster company a few weeks ago.  He invited us over to his house to see the interior wall treatment that he has at his house.  We were very surprised that he invited us to enjoy coffee and chat with both he and his wife.  It was a lovely evening, and our stucco guy is really such a nice guy!  Joern and I also agreed that we really liked the plaster treatment on his walls.  There was a little texture, but very little, and if you didn't touch the walls, you would say that they look rather American. 

We were expecting the stucco guys to come last week to work on the house, but I guess they were busy.  It isn't the end of the world that they weren't there to work on the outside, because outside work has little to do with us moving in. 

We also met with a salesperson about garage doors.  One of our "surprise grillers," at our Richtfest installs garage doors for a living, so Joern asked him to install ours.  He got us in touch with a salesman from the company he works for, who came out to the house last week.  Honestly, I'm not such a fan of the door that we went with, but when I looked at the alternatives, well, it wasn't so bad.

I guess I made a big enough stink about the doors because Joern was willing to drive two hours, in one direction, this past Saturday to check out their garage door showroom.

Here are our doors (without the square windows up the side):

I know, I know, its plain, and I usually love plain.  One of my agruments against the door is that its super trendy.  Everyone is currently installing this door in this color in their houses.  I'm so afraid that in 10 years, everyone will say, "hey, that door is soooo 2010."  Second, I am just afraid that it is a giant wall of black.  Its just a little too sleek, with no visual interest. 

My agruments aside, there aren't many other garage door choices. 
Here is a sample of another style of door we could have chosen, along with a number of window choices:



You can see in the above picture, the bottom row represents what the majority of the door would look like, with a bunch of window options that would go along the top row of the door.  Although I would have prefered this, but with wider pannels, in the end, I broke down. Some fights just aren't worth fighting, and I really have gotten my way in the majority of house decisions.  Joern can have this one, and this way, I won't freak out the first time Joern drives something into the door. 

We also finally signed the wood floor contract!  Yesterday, it was back to the showroom again just to go over some of the details of the contract.  Of course, we have a special case, as we did the contract through our friend, who happens to own the company, instead of ordering from the showroom, but the installation is running through the showroom, which is responsible for the district in which our house is located.  But, I am really glad we went there yesterday!  The representative we've been working with asked for a final okay on the floor we chose, but when he showed us the floor, it wasn't our choice!  We changed a few weeks ago from oiled to varnished, and obviously the guy who marked our change wrote down the wrong style of floor too (our regular guy was on vacation at the time.)  So, when we were at the showroom yesterday, he asked, are you sure you want this one?  Sure enough, the other guy noted that we wanted a parquet that is made of thin strips pressed together, to give a very lively, modern look to the floor.  Those readers who know me know where I was hit, at modern.  Nope, no modern in our house!  We quickly clarified that we wanted the much more traditional look.  We also discussed oiled versus laquered.  Yes, we were warned that the oiled floor would required re-oiling twice a year, but in the end, we went the floor we liked more, which was the oiled. 

The following picture highlights everything I was just describing: 

The floor we chose is the bottom.  It is much redder and more classic than the top ones.

The one on the top right is the laquered version, it is browner, and not as warm. 
The example on the top left is the "strippy" floor.  Cool, but not my thing. 

We agreed though that applying the oil by hand twice a year was not our thing, so we will be hiring someone from the floor company to come out to the house twice a year to oil the floors.  Some may see this as a waste of money, but we will have to look to save somewhere else, and just accept this is an unavoidable cost.  No matter what the oiled floor looks so much better!

Last, we finally got the tiles for the cellar.  Although I posted before that we had chosen a tile for the cellar, we never purchased them.  In the end, we cheaped out and went to a Home Depotish store, and but the tiles.  They're beige and shiny, and I'm pretty sure they'll still look awesome. 

Today marked the next phase in the building process, but I will leave that post until tomorrow, because the beginning of a new building phase means looking forward, no more updates or reviews.  Without giving too much away, all of a sudden, we are starting to feel that we WILL move into the house, and not in the next five years.  I feel like moving in will become a reality in the near future!  Wahoo!



Slowly making the house ours, including our first dinner!

Last night was very exciting!  It involved cleaning doors, moving cars, and finally, dinner.
Joern and I headed over to the house with a variety of tasks on the bill.  We had a very small mishap last week during a rainstorm, which left one car and many windows spattered with mud.  Since the downspouts are not yet attached, our gutters are currently drained through lovely plastic "gutters," which love to blow around in the wind.  You can see what I am talking about in the following picture, the "gutter" is that piece of plastic that runs down the side house. 

Eventually this plastic will be replaced by a real downspout.  But, we didn't realize what would happen when you mix a construction site (mud) with rain and wind.  The house was splattered with mud a few days ago.  And the blue car in the foreground was also really badly hit.  So, our job before we got to dinner was to clean. 

Thanks to my friend, Iris, I already had glass cleaner, so I got to work on the back door and the windows.  You can get an idea of just how muddy everything was, just by looking at the door handle.

The back door was hit the worst, but the window in the pantry and the window in the powder room were pretty badly splattered too. It was nice though when I was finished, because I had some really clean, sparkly windows. I'm debating on cleaning all the windows, but it really wouldn't be worth it right now- there is a lot more mess to go.

While I was doing this, Joern was cleaning our car. This car is one of our "collection," our two 1980s BMW 7 series. The splattered one is actually our museum piece, so seeing splattered with mud was really painful.

 After Joern cleaned the car,  the next job was to move it. One of the cars has been living in Joern's parents's driveway and the other has been living in their garage, this has been the case for the past 4 years or so.  Obviously, Joern's dad was anxiously awaiting the day that we would either have a garage of our own, or sell the "damn things," so that he could get back his driveway and his garage.  Obviously, selling is NOT an option.  Since the builders filled in our driveway with lots of gravel on Friday, we could now easily drive our cars into the garages.  Yesterday was the day to move the blue car, the 750, into "my garage," for the next few months.  Of course, it wasn't so easy, as the car is in need of a little work.  The move had to be quick because a hose is broken, so when you turn on the car, all the water pours out in a few seconds.  And we had to position the ramps very carefully, because the height regulator that lifts the car when you turn it on is not working, so the car was pretty low, and we had very little clearence between the bottom of the car and the floor of the garage.  But after a few tries, we did it.  Now, our garages look like this:

And Joern's garage now looks like this:

So now we've realized just how large Joern's garage really is.  The car in his garage is a 735iL, "L" standing for long.  This car is huge, and we still have lots more room.  Now that we know how easily the car fits into the garage, Joern is already considering how to best use the garages for storing our collection, as well as our two everyday cars.  Plus, Joern is planning a rather extensive workbench area, so that he can fix all the specific "quirks," belonging to our cars. 

We were so proud of ourselves after our cleaning and car moving accomplishments, it was time to fire up the grill, that Joern so excitedly moved to the house earlier in the day.  The weather was fantastic, a super time to open the grill for the summer, and enjoy some steaks in our new home.  While Joern was grilling, our future neighbor, Marco, brought over a bottle of wine to thank us for delivering him some Pepsodent from the States.  Our neighbors are really kind, which is a relief!

Our first dinner in our home was fantastic, complete with steak, grilled potatoes, and pasta salad, and some sparkling wine. 

Oh yeah, and the spray I Can't Believe it's not Butter, proved to be really handy for transport. 

We enjoyed a deliecious dinner while looking out our dining room window.  It was such a special, fun, and enjoyable evening.  We're looking forward to the many, many future dinners in our home!

The garages are now covered!

The ceiling pieces arrived yesterday for the garages.  They came in pre-fabricated sections, which were lowered via crane onto the top of the garages.  Reinforcing steel mesh has been placed on top, and concrete will be poured on top. 

The builders also started on one load bearing wall!  These walls are made out of a different type of brick than the rest of the house.  These bricks are less porous, so that they can take a lot more weight and because there is less need for insulation in these interior walls.  Joern picked up one brick, and said it was super heavy!  Its a good thing that these bricks are only used for two walls, poor guys!

Last week's pictures

As many of you know, last week was a really crappy week for both Joern and myself.  Let's just say our first try at baby-making was an abysmal failure, and I have been out of the hospital for 3 days now. 
I guess the builders sensed something was wrong, or maybe it was the fact that they got paid for another job and wanted to finish it up, but we were builderless Thursday, Friday, and Monday.
But Monday and Tuesday weren't so very bad.

The outside wall of Joern's garage is all set for pouring.



The forms around the exterior walls were removed.  Joern's looking out the window of the fitness room.



The two openings in the corner are for the intake and exhaust for the air pump.  The other opening is for a light well.

Tuesday October 5

On Tuesday, they poured the front walls for both our garages.


Wednesday

 The front wall of my garage is finished!

The front wall of Joern's garage is finished too!

In case you were interested, this is our next-door neighbor's air heat pump.  If you couldn't tell, its pretty big.  Our air heat pump will be even bigger, which is why we have to make our mechanical room larger.

Some pictures, as I promised

September 22, the forms have been removed.  We have our first free-standing wall!

Preparing for the concrete slab for the house.



September 23, laying insulation underneath the slab.



September 23, end of the day.  All ready for the slab.

September 24, pouring the slab!

September 27, pouring the concrete for the garage walls

For the first time, I can stand on the floor of my house!  Slab is finished!