Yesterday, today, what will tomorrow hold?

It turns out that the "race to the finish," when building a house is just that.  The house hasn't really been this busy in quite a while, and there is a lot more busy to go.
Yesterday was tiles and continued work on the drywall.  By the end of the day yesterday, we had more tiles, a bench in our shower, and most surprisingly, a new storage room!

One of the plaster guys installing drywall around the air filtration pipes in Erbse's room.

The biggest deal of the day was of course the storage room in the cellar.  I don't know if I mentioned our decision before, that we would put a wall in at the end of the media room, making the media room a little smaller, but allowing us to have a sizeable storage space in the cellar.  This was a big deal to me because the cellar is so big, but so open that we had little space available for pure storage.  Sure, we could use cabinets here and there, but for a good old-fashioned storage room, we had nothing available.  Adding this wall, and creating a room that linked Joern's garage to the cellar also solved another problem: the wastewater pipe running down the middle of the wall in the media room.  We have now a very large storage space, that does not disturb the media room.

Of course, knowing this was coming could not prepare me for the feeling of bounding down the cellar stairs, and getting "lost" when I was headed towards Joern's garage.  Honestly, it took me a minute to realize where I was.  Yes, this was my house, but when a room exists that wasn't there 24 hours beforehand is a little shock to the system.

I love the storage space!

Here's a view from Joern's garage heading into the house.

And this is our slightly smaller, but still super-cool media room!

We also met with Mr Plaster-Guy last night.  He met us at one of his construction sites to show us our options for finishing the ceilings.  There are two options here for our concrete ceilings: 

1) Spackle- the ceiling would be sanded down, spackled, sanded again, spackled again, and then painted

OR

2) Vliestapete- a type of wallpaper made from cellulose and textile fibers.  

Mr Plaster-Guy showed us both types of celings, as one of his current construction sites has the Vliestapete in the top three floors and spackled ceilings in the cellar.  According to Mr. Plaster-Guy, a positive of the Vliestapete is that it will cover any small cracks that may appear in the ceiling.  We also saw that the light reflects differently on the spackled ceiling versus the wallpapered ceiling.  In the end, we decided for the wallpapered ceilings.  

On Thursday, the plaster guys also got to work on our ceilings.  They taped over all the joints in the ceiling:

And Cute Tile Guy was also rather busy.  He properly installed a backsplash (after a fit of passive agression,) in the pantry behind the utility sink:

And he got started installing tile on the shower walls, as well as mosaic on the shower bench:

Well, there you have it.  Tile Guy didn't come on Friday, but the plaster guys continued to work on the ceiling.  But, it isn't really photo worthy.
I will have to update though with some pictures from the front of our house: the electric company came today to dig out a hole for our electrity connection, we should have electricity next week!  We're coming up on a three day weekend, so we have to wait for Tuesday for people to come back to the house.

Almost a week since my last post

I'm over stressing about time.  Our builders were busy during the past week working on a project for Ritter Sport.  And yes, I think its pretty cool that Ritter Sport, the makers of those fantastically yummy chocolate squares, are customers of our builder :)  But, S and a new guy came by the house at 2:00 to start working on our walls again.  I honestly don't have a problem with this, because not only does our builder have bigger customers than us, but it is damn cold again.  Poor guys. 
But, "S" and New Guy are both really nice and easy-going, and definately hardy too.  They focused on the master suite today, which turned out to be a big drama for quite a few hours. 
When I left work at 3:30, I gave Joern a call to let him know that I was on my way home.  He told me that the builders were there and needed my measurments for the master bath vanity.  The measurments were important in order to determine the placement of the cut-outs for our two recessed medicine cabinets.  Joern couldn't find what I had left for him, so I raced home as fast as I could.  Fortunately, I had another paper with my own measurments to give to Joern and "New Guy."  Adding to the fun, of course,was the fact that all of the paperwork from the Restoration Hardware, had measurments in inches.  Ugh, I hate when everything needs to be recalculated!  Somehow, I didn't totally trust my own measurments, so as soon as I got home, I ran off to print out a new set of detailed plans for the vanity. 
After a ton of measuring and calculation, and quite a bit of stress, Joern, "New Guy", and "S" all came to a consensus on where to squeeze in the medicine cabinets:

No worries, the medicine cabinets are actually espresso in the master bath.  This is just the one we chose

to use as the sample. 

Meanwhile, while Joern and "New Guy," continued to work on the medicine cabinet dilema, S worked diligently on the wall between the master bedroom and the closet. 

And, here is what we had by 5 pm today:



We're not sure if the builders will be back this week, or next.  Of course, it makes us a little sad to think that they may finish when we are in the US, but we can't change things. 

In other news, we received a letter from the town declaring that we, and the bank, are officially listed as owners of our property in the property register.  Yay?  Bleh that the bank is there too, but it  means that the bank is officially now our mortgage lender!

We are also expecting that our first checks will be cut to the workers tomorrow from our bank! It seems like this process has taken forever, but there were so many little details that had to fall into place before the bank could officially lend us the money. I  am so looking forward to actually being able to pay the bills that are sent to us from all of the people working on the house!

Today's photos

More progress today!  I guess the simplest way to do the post today is through pictures.
                                               Completed pantry / kitchen wall

                                                
                                 Amazingly, this wall will now soon look like this:

                                             Standing by the back door looking into the pantry

                                            
                                        Looking into the living room from the front terrace. 

Looking at the wall with the TV and fireplace from the "couch."

                                       When I came home at 3:30 this is what was going on with the master:

(That wall is for our walk-in closet.)

And, the wall for the back bedroom was started.

                                          
                                           And, the builders had marked out the walls for the children's bath.

And, Joern was doing this: 

                                                           Joern's masterpiece in progress:

Then, Alex came to check out the walls.  He told us that the balconies and crane will

probably go next week.  And then, he and Joern had a big discussion

about central vacuums.

And by the time we left the house, at 4:30, the builders were still hard at work, and we had definite rooms!
         
                                                                   The front bedroom

The children's bath

                                                                     Master bath

It has been so exciting to watch the walls go up.  Now that we have rooms, we've noticed that some things are just as we had imagined, and other things were way different.  For example, the unnamed room in the first floor actually looks like a cozy guest bedroom.  The living room is a little smaller than I had imagined, but is completely appropriately sized for a living room.  Our foyer and stair case to the second floor are really huge and give you such an open feeling.  The first bedroom upstairs is acceptable for a bedroom (I thought it would be too small.)  But, the master suite is just as I had imagined.

All in all, it looks like things are winding down with the builder, and we'll enter a small hibernation period as we wait for the windows.  Perfect timing, as we'll be heading to the States in a little over a week, and when we return, its time to work on the Richtfest!

Tuesday's progress and why working adds to the stress

It is 9:30 in the morning, and I am sitting in work.  No worries, I have a break for about 5 more minutes, and I just got off the phone with Joern.  There is one aspect of this process I have not yet discussed.  Work and decision making.  As the house is a custom build, there are often decisions to make on the spot.  Like, what size the window grills should be, or where something should be placed.  Today's decison was about the pedestal sink in the powder room.  I called Joern right when my break started, just to say "hi."  Joern responded with two questions:  what size do I want the pedestal sink to be, and how far do I want it from the wall?  And I wish I could say this was my first experience of this sort, but sadly, I've had many similar phone calls.  I told Joern to go with the 65 cm wide pedestal sink, and left the placement decision up to him.

When I got home, I really wanted to measure the 65 cm width of the future pedestal sink, and was once again, shocked to find how much progress was  made today.  I know, I know, we really need to remember that this won't happen every day from now until the house is complete, but these are the days that builders really look forward to.

Here is our powder room, all of a sudden, a room.  The hole in the wall is for the

recessed medicine cabinet.  The pedestal sink will go underneath.

The toilet will be placed near the corner.  It will be so pretty here!

                                 Joern is standing in the living room, and I am standing in the yet to be assigned room,
                                     that is looking more and more like the guest room/ my crafting/ desk room.

The builders also worked hard on the pantry wall today, or the kitchen wall, depending on how you look at it.



We got to spend a few minutes watching the builders do their stuff. 

And, then, we got to check out the pantry:

                                                         I can't believe how crazy much we can store in here!

I also decided to take a few photos of the cellar during the day, you know,with  more light and all:

                                           

                                            And here, you can see our cellar 3/4ish bath.

Here you can see just how light-filled the entry way is during the day.

PS.  The cute guy comes with the house :)

After all the photos, we met with Herr W from the bank.  First, we took another tour of the house, and then we headed back to the In-laws' house to discuss  a few items.  He had to clarifly a few points on our small loan, and then we had to sign a few papers.  Then, we all had to work together to actually prove our capital was in fact, our capital.  In the end, it worked out, and we really do have the amount invested in the house that we said we did.  Amazingly, and once again, Herr W was at the house until past 6:00 tonight. 

Since that's about all for the day, and the fact that I am really tired, its time to go for this evening.  I'll leave you all with this morning's first house photo:  the roof's first snow!

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!



                                            

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!

A new phase- the interior (Innenausbau)

Carrying over the surprise factor from yesterday, today was really no different.  It was another day full of house surprises, and it was yet another huge day, as we began another phase in our house building story.  Today, the builders started the interior.
Before today, there are a few "house building facts" that I learned:
1. After the ceiling is poured, the house needs to sit for a few days, and nothing happens.
2. The interior walls are installed after the roof is installed.

I learned the first "fact," through our own personal experience, and the thought never occured to me that the house was sitting because the ceiling of one floor became the floor of the next.    The second "fact," came through watching the duplex next door to us being built.  The interior walls of the duplex were installed a few weeks after the roof was completed. 
Obviously today, my "facts" were proven completely wrong.  The builders were back today, and they started on the interior walls!

Joern emailed me today at work, and told me that they were working on the cellar stairs today.  Don't ask me why, but I thought that meant the stairs from the cellar up to the first floor.  I had no idea what I was in for when I came home:

These are the stairs from our foyer into the cellar.  Just three weeks ago, there was a wooden plank!

The builders also chalked out the interior walls in the cellar and first floors:

The walls of the mechanical room.  The future home of our heat pump, water tank, and air filtration. 
This is also the home of our rinse shower for our muddy shoes, muddy dogs, and muddy kids.

The block closest to the front of the picture is a wall in which Joern is planning a built-in cabinet!

Our PANTRY!

                                        Joern in our kitchen.  There is a little line perpendicular to the chalk line,
                                                          which marks the one wall in our kitchen. 

                                          The wall for the living room/ bedroom is marked out.

                                                                      Powder room

Joern clarified the cellar wall with a plumber today, to ensure that it the technical room was indeed large enough for the behemoth that will be residing in our technical room.  We also clarified my error in understanding.  The roof will not be started in two weeks.  Nope, the plan is that the roof will be COMPLETED in two weeks!  I really hope that the weather will be a little warmer than expected, but as long as the weather holds out, we're set to start our roof next week.
Oh yeah, next week is only in two more work days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This weekend's plan is to work on the Richtfest, which we have decided should take place after the windows have been installed.  According to Mr. B, the windows take 6-8 weeks once they are odered.  I am not exactly certain when or if the windows have been ordered, but hopefully, we're looking at our Richtfest in 8 weeks or so!  Thank goodness, because there is a lot of planning to do in preparation for such a gigantic event!