Monday, Tuesday

The past few days have seen a lot of progress house-wise.

Yesterday, I was shocked to see the house when I came home from work.  When we drove by the house yesterday morning, this is what we saw:

And here is the same view at 4:30:

Yup, the guys came to take down the staging yesterday.  But not before an emergency downspout installation.  On Saturday, the owner of the stucco business came in the afternoon to fix a small problem between the house and the wooden part of the roof overhang.  While he was there, he asked Joern who was coming to install the downspout in front of the house- the downspout that could not be safely installed without staging.  This realization, that we did not have the downspout installed, caused a bit of scrambling on Joern's behalf, as the guys were planning to come at 7:00 am on Monday to take down the staging.  After a few frantic calls, Joern was able to get the plumbers to the house at 7:00, and the guys removed the staging around 10:00.

I can't believe how beautiful the house looks now!  Not only were we unable to see the house exterior for 2 months, but our windows have all been covered over for the same amount of time.  I love it!

Cute Tile Guy also made tons of progress yesterday.  He tiled the entryway, the part of the foyer between my garage and the front door.  I love how light everything is!

It was also the first day that I walked on the tiles, so of course, we had to record the event:

We also found our first mess.  When we were in the house over the weekend, Joern told me that there was a bird in the cellar, but as he walked into the cellar, the bird made its way over to the garage.  But, the bird didn't go without leaving us a small gift:

It goes without saying that I cannot wait for our doors to arrive!

We went back to the house last night, once it got dark, to see the official result of Joern and Marcel's lighting project. We cannot be more pleased with the results:

Today was another day full of progress.  Cute Tile Guy finished the foyer steps.  I know that home decor is all a matter of taste, but I love how our foyer turned out!

Cute Tile Guy also tiled the walls in the powder room.  Don't freak out like I did: he will be using white grout between the tiles, which will totally change the look.

Unfortunately, the cap tile did not arrive yet.  It will look even better with a cap around the top.

I also noticed that the opening above the window in the entryway was closed, and Joern told me that the stucco guys were at the house yesterday to work on the outside of the cellar.  So, we had to take some more pictures:

It was exciting day again at the future home of Joern, Allison, and Erbse.  I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

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!



Some updates

Well, since it has been almost 3 weeks with no post, I'm sure you have all figured out that Joern did not update while I was gone :(
But, at least I'm back now, and realtively over my jet lag and heat-induced pregnancy miserableness. 
There was actually quite a bit of work completed in the house while I was gone.  I guess the best way to go over everything is to break up the descriptions by trades.

Electrical:
The electricians started back last week to work on connecting the electrical panel. 

And thanks to a good organization system:

it went from looking like this last week:



to this today:

They also installed more in our "command center":

Don't ask me to explain much, but one is for the radiant heat and one is for the fireplace.

Builders:
One of the interior guys from Mr. Builder's crew was back last week to build walls.  I know, our walls were built long ago, but we still needed a few things:

A little hard to see, but they built a wall around our wall-mount toilet in the cellar.

More walls in the master bath because we have a wall-mount toilet, and a mini-wall around the toilet would look dumb.

A wall around the built in parts for the bathtub faucet.

A wall between the shower and washer/dryer in the kids' bath.

Plumbers:

Not too much right now with the plumbers.  But, the heat pump has been working to dry the flooring, and the air filtration system has been working for a few weeks too.  The air filtration sounds like a very distant airplane in our rooms.  Interesting. 

One thing the plumbers did was to finish off the mechanical room.  They labeled all of the pipes:







Plaster/ Stucco guys:

Probably the biggest deal was that first layer of stucco was applied to the outside of the house two weeks ago. 

                                Its a little hard to tell, but the house looks lovely now with one continual surface

instead of being broken up by the joints of all the bricks.

Those are the latest updates from the house.  We met with Mr. B the day I got back from the US.  He walked through and measured the moisture of the floors.  It is imperative that the floors are dry by the beginning of September, which is when "Cute Tile Guy," is set to begin tiling.  Mr. B also informed us that the tiles will be delivered this upcoming Friday- wahoo!  We discussed the status of the parquett flooring, which is turning into a major production.  Most excitingly though, he proposed a TIMELINE!!!!!!

So, we're looking at about 2 weeks for the tiles, which will bring us to late September.  Then, the plaster guys will come in to do the second layer of plaster, and paint.  This brings us to early October.  The parquett will be installed in early October.  Then, the plumbers will come in to install the fixtures, and the electricians will come in to install switches and lights.  We should let the kitchen company know that we're looking at mid to late October for the kitchen installation.  And then, he told us the most exciting news- the kitchen is pretty much the final thing before moving in.  This means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  That light will appear in NOVEMBER!  We really should be in before Christmas and the baby!  Hooray!



Movement

I'm finally starting to feel like we're getting there, or better, we will get there. 
Now that the Estrich is in, the plumbers have been working hard this week to connect our heat pump and air filtration.  Connecting the heat pump is very important because it is necessary to run it to dry the Estrich.  The plumbers plan on a test run of the heat pump on Monday. 
Today when we came into the house, we even had a working air filtration system.  It was on "full," so it was a little louder than I had expected, but it was so cool to hear our house working!  For the first time, it really felt like this house, that has almost been a year in the making, will one day, be a functional home.
We also met with the main plumber, "Cute Tile Guy," and Mr. B.  It was good to be talking about tiles, which put us towards the final stages of the house.  We even have an estimate of the last week in August/ first week September to start tiling.  "Cute Tile Guy" needs about 2 weeks to do the tiling. 
Tonight's meeting took a lot more time than I expected, and we had a lot to get through.  I had a lot of questions to answer.  "Are you sure that you won't have any tiles on the walls in the master bath?"  I hope I'm doing the right thing here by not tiling the walls in the master bath, well, I did agree that we need a backslpash of sorts around the bathtub, but I hope it looks okay.   My favorite comment today came from Mr. B, who said that the tile place commented that they never had such varied tiles in one house before.  Wonderful!  I think, *hope* that it will all look okay.  But, the master bath is supposed to have a very sophisticated, "master" feel, and the children's bath should be much more whimsical, and the powder room is a powder room, a room where you can really be daring and different.  Do all the bathrooms need to go together?  I HOPE NOT!

I explained that we do not need tile on the walls in the master bath, nor in the children's bath, but will have them half-way up the walls in the powder room.  We had to decide on the pattern for laying the tile on the floor in the master bath and the powder room, which will both be tiled with rectangular tile, we chose to have the tiles laid out in a "wild" pattern, meaning that the grout lines don't hit each other.  In the children's bath, we currently have chosen a "wood look," tile, so this tile is installed to look like parquet flooring.  The bathroom in the cellar is no big deal to me, because it is really more of an emergency toilet and our rinse off shower. 

We also spent quite a bit of time with the plumber, discussing the mini walls that need to be built to cover some existing plumbing.  We need to have a half-wall in the master bath behind the toilet and the vanity.  In the children's bath, we need to have a wall built between the shower and the washer and dryer.  There were more little intricacies that need to be clarified, but those were more between "Cute Tile Guy" and the plumber. 

Overall, I was very pleased with the meeting, but was left a little uneasy.  What if the bathrooms look bad?  We left it that Mr. B will call the tile showroom for an appointment when I return from home.  I think I have a lot of work to do before this appointment!

Quite a bit of progress in the past, oh, month or so

Okay, so I realize that my last post about the house was one month ago, to the day, but I think I have some fairly good excuses.  Once the Richtfest was finished, we had two weeks to prepare the apartment for our visit:  my cousin, Elizabeth, and her friend, Carla, came to us at the last stop of their whirlwind European tour.  Also, the last 2 weeks of work were really crazy, and invovled a couple of late-nighters for me.  Then, Carla and Elizabeth arrived.  We've been having lots of fun, and have done quite a bit of exploring in Germany.  Of course, I should not forget the most important reason though:

Yup, this is ours!  Joern and I are having a baby, who we have named, "Erbse" (German for pea.) A baby who I happen to think is the absolute most adorable baby in the world! 

Despite all the goings-on in our lives, we have finally seen progress with the house!  The plaster guys finally started on June 4, a Saturday.   They were able to complete plastering the walls on the top two floors, but not the staircase.  After the Richtfest, the guys came in and fninshed by the end of the following week.  So officially, the plaster guys finished on the 18th.  Of course, they are not completely finished, but they are finished with the first layer of plaster, which is quite thick.  They will be back after the Estrich (the cement-like material poured over the insulation, pipes, and radiant heating,) so probably in late August/ September.  The walls look incredible, and I really need to take pictures of how lovely our very finished-looking walls are!

Last week, the electricians were at the house again.  All of our alarm contact wires are installed, and they now installed all of the outlets, without their covers, of course. 
Here are a few pictures:

                                                      Three plug outlets in the kitchen.

Not sure what the four holes with wires are for, but the squares with arrows

are for our exterior metal blinds.  It feels like "command central."

And last week, someone from Mr. Builder came in to pour the foundation for the air heat pump.  The plumbers came and put up the air filtration machine, and worked some more on the pipes in the mechaical room.

Yesterday, the plumbers came, and put up the air-heat pump.  They connected the air intake and outake portion, but of course, there is no plumbing completed yet.  It looks amazing so far though!

Today, the plumbers installed the gas pipe for our stove.  You can also see how nice the plastered over walls look in this picture:

The blue along the wall is the protection between the walls and the poured concreteish floor covering. 

We were also surprised to discover that the plumbers started to lay the insulation that goes beneath the radiant heating.  They started in the Erbse's room:



So there you have it, a very brief update!  Hopefully, now that life is a little calmer, I will be able to update with much more frequency! 
Ciao!





Putting the squeeze on some of our workers

Joern and I reached our frustration limit with the house last week.  It probably came from our realization that the plaster guys were again no-shows on Friday.  We have been putting off the plaster work for 2 weeks now.  Ugh! 
After a little drama at home, Joern decided to call Mr B, and let him know that our frustration was reaching a peak (my frustration especially.)  Mr. B explained that builders and people in the construction field now have so much work to do, they are balancing many projects at once.  In doing this, they also have a little more strength and freedom to come and go from building sites as they please.  Our electrician did just this.  Because our electrical work put us behind by 3 weeks, the plaster guys could not start when they were scheduled to begin, and had other projects to do anyway.  He also appologized and admitted that he should have at least explained this to us.  He also promised to come by on Saturday morning. 
Yesterday morning, at 8:00. the first person to show up was the owner of the plastering company.  Wow.  Then, Mr. B showed up.  We walked around showing the plaster guy the house.  He had some questions and also had a few issues that Joern needed to clear up.  One thing I haven't posted about, mostly because I do not yet have pictures, are Joern's built-in speakers on the first floor and his installed HDMI cables for all three floors.  Joern got a few new jobs, to make the holes for the speakers a bit larger, and to move some of the HDMI outlets.  The first part of the job will focus on the wet plaster, which will cover all of our currently standing walls.  We then have some more walls that will need to be created with drywall, but this part comes later. 
We then met separately with Mr. B and asked him about the Richtfest.  The symbol of the Richtfest is a tree decorated with ribbons, set atop of the house.  We will need to ask the carpenter who is coming for the Richtfest to also bring a tree with him.  I'm just trying to figure out how to get the tree decorated before the tree goes up! We're also talking with my friend, Mandy, who has so very kindly agreed to sing a song for the Richtfest.  It just isn't so easy to find a home song that isn't sad!

While all this was happening, the owner of the plaster company left and showed up again, but with backup.  He and five plaster guys worked until 2:00 yesterday!  Very impressive!  They plan to work all though the next few weeks. 

The electricians are also headed back to the house tomorrow to install contacts for the alarm system, which should have been long-completed, by the way.  But, at least it seems that we are on the right track again.
Thank you, Mr. B!