Proof that I really need Joern here

Joern came home from Hong Kong today.  Obviously, I am over the moon happy to have him home.  I couldn't wait to see his face as we rounded the corner and Joern saw the house with the completed second floor for the first time. Of course, it was so worth it.  Joern and I went into the house, sparkling wine in hand, and toasted our stairs and second floor.

And then, we walked down to the first floor.  Joern noticed what I didn't notice all week, the electricians had been in the house. 

And then, in such a little boy mood, Joern washed his muddy shoes off on the top of the garage.

THEY'RE DONE!

Well, there you have it!  The exterior walls are complete!  The builders started reinforcing the window openings in preparation for the ceiling, which is obviously on its way next week.  I stopped by the house this afternoon at 4:30, and since the builders had already gone home for the day, so I decided to check out the house in the daylight.
I probably spent an easy hour in the house.  Which is crazy, as I was all by myself.  But, first I checked out all the walls of the house.

The front window of bedroom #1, supported and waiting for the ceiling.

Standing on the balcony!

After checking everything out, I walked down and looked at the first floor.  As I  toured the first floor, I realized that the builders installed special brackets for attaching the interior walls.  That was a big "ah-ha" moment for me, because I realized that you can really get an idea of the rooms now.  Woah!

Please join me on my little "home tour of the second floor." 

If you look really hard, you can almost make out a little line, it is about 2 block witdths from the left.  That's where the master shower ends, and bedroom #2 begins.

You can see the brackets better in this picture, they are on the left, very close to the edge of the picture.  See, they form a line.  That's the wall between the walk-in closet and the master-bath.  The window is in the master bath.

The brackets are visible on both sides of the window here.  These are the walls of the walk-in closet.

The brackets for the walls of the master bedroom are visible at the right and left of this picture.

And here is the completed house:

And here is the current view of the next door neighbor's house, with the exteior plaster (Außenputz.)

It has been an incredibly exciting week.  If the weather holds out, it is almost certain that next week will be just as exciting!

Light on words, heavy on pictures

There's really not much to say today.  The builders were here, the exterior walls of, wait, THE ENTIRE HOUSE, are almost complete. Maybe we'll be wrapping up the exterior construction soon.  But, for the happiness of my Hong Kong readers, I have quite a few pictures!

 Rear (north facing,) wall

                                             Corner of second bedroom (maybe guest room)

                                             The unfinished wall, there isn't much left to be completed.

                                                Somehow, I get the feeling that the crane won't be there much longer.

Insulated box for the shutters

The insulated mechanism for the manual shutters.

Reduced the posts in the first floor

The kitchen windows

View from our back yard

View from my In-laws' balcony.

CELEBRATORY 200th POST

I wonder if the builders read my blog, are counting the number of posts, and decided that today would be a  big day.  Or maybe, just maybe, the building gods are reading my blog.  Whatever, today is Post Nr. 200.  In celebration of this very large number of posts, something really big happened today on the house.  But just to keep you all in suspense, I will tell you the story exactly as I experienced it.

I came home from work today at 4:00.  The whole way home I considered my plan: would I drive home and then come back to the house at 5:00, or would I stop at my in-laws' house first, waste some time there, and then check out the house at 5:00, after the workers left.  As I rounded the bend in the street, I quickly learned that the town made my decision for me.  The street in front of my in-laws' driveway is now completely closed off.  This is the result of the project to replace the pipes under the street that started in late summer.  We learned about this project at the same town council meeting that also included the vote for approval of our house.  We have been dealing with the road being semi-mostly-closed for the past few months, but it was always open to people who live on the street.  Why on earth did the street have to be closed today, when I am "manning the fort," while everyone else is in Hong Kong?  I had the option to drive onto our private road and park in our driveway.  But, there were tons of workers everywhere, and tons of cars on our private road.  So a very annoyed Allison drove home, and called Joern, and grumbled about the town and the road closure.

I finally overcame my inner "pig-dog," which is a German slang term for that internal creature responsible for laziness, and headed back over to the house at 5:30.  Of course it was dark, so I carefully pulled into our driveway.  I guess I should have thought more when I realized that all of the steel mesh that has been residing in our driveway for the past month, was gone.  But, I didn't really think about it. 
Using my iPhone for a light, I carefully made my way into the house.  The first really big thing I did notice was that the plank that was used as a way to get from the foyer up the nearly 2 ft. rise into the house was gone.  All of a sudden, there were makeshift stairs!

I never knew that it would be so incredibly exciting to move from a piece of wood to a much more stable situation!  But the surpises were long from over.  As I entered the house, I noticed it was even darker than usual.  Strange.  Then, I looked straight ahead of me, towards the stairwell. 

The saddest was that I was there all alone, and I couldn't really have a conversation.  But, there was a lot running through my mind, like, "gosh, wasn't there just a wooden ladder there yesterday?" and "huh, I wonder what is on the other side."  So, I ran as fast as safely possible (there are still quite a bit of "things" laying around all over), and found this, most beautiful sight before me:

Which is a HUGE difference from yesterday, and the past two months:

Despite the desire to sprint up the stairs, I called Joern.  I walked up the stairs with him for the first time, Joern was on my ear, but he was there.  I can't believe what an incredible feeling it was to walk up our stairs.  My friend Stefanie commented a few months ago about the picture of me walking up to the first floor from the cellar for the first time ever, with a very simple, but poignant statement, "Imagine how many times you'll be walking up and down those stairs."  I wish Joern and I could have taken the first trip up our steps together tonight, but we were as together as we were going to get.  I think I said something like, "Oh my gosh, you have no idea how wonderful this is," and maybe "this is amazing!"  Then, we walked "together," around the kitchen wall and headed up towards the second floor. 

The second floor was not as easy of a climb as the first floor.  I actually had not been on the second floor unti this past Monday.  You may ask "why?" until you imagie that this ladder perched another floor higher, with a few boards underneath it and some metal "toothpicks," below to support the whole thing.  Well, now, I can run and up and down the stairs to the second floor with agility, speed, and most excitingly, security. 

The stairs are much wider than I expected, which is wonderful.  It is so funny because last night, I was just worried about the width of the stairs, as they are completely walled in.  I was thinking of how we might feel "trapped," on the stairs.  Hah!  They are wide and beautiful!

On the second floor, I found that the builders continued working on the exterior walls today.  The wall of the master suite, is now completed, and the insulated box for the shutters has been installed.

Window in walk-in closet



I also had the realization that our upper level is almost all window.  Here are some other views of the second floor of the house.

Master bedroom

















East wall, shared between bedroom #1 and bedroom #2

Moving down to the first floor

The "Air Filtration Monster"

Steel mesh for the ceiling waiting in our back yard.

The stairs down to the cellar.



A comparisson so you can see the thickness of the floors.        



A few views of the house

From the driveway

 
From the In-Laws' balcony.





A very quick update!

My friends Iris, Prisca, and I went downtown today after work.  Prisca had to run a few errands, and we made it to our destination, The Cupcake Boutique by 4:30.  Needless to say, I didn't get on the road towards home until way after dark.  So, I didn't really get  to take a good look at the house. 
I am still trying to figure out how to take night pictures with the DSLR.  Maybe I should take a photography class.  I was only able to get one picture, so here it is:

The west side wall, the one that runs the length of the master suite grew quite a bit today. 

Tomorrow, I'll be home much earlier, so I am really excited to get see everything in the daylight!

Moving ahead!

It was fairly warm here today, a little rain, a lot  of clouds, but no snow or ice.  The conditions were good for the builders to return to our house today!  Of course, they are not at the house at 7:00 am, when I leave for work, because it is still dark night right now at 7:00 am, and our building site may have a crane, but no lighting. 
So, coming home today was a bit of a surprise.  By the time I got to the house, it was around 5:00, which worked nicely because the builders had already left for the day.  I decided to brave the very unsafe looking staircase to the second floor that is supported by a bunch of metal beams underneath.  It turned out that the staircase felt indeed, quite stable, and it was so worth it to climb up to the top.  The builders were there today!

West side wall, master suite

The corner of the master bedroom

Front wall, master bedroom and bedroom #1, the space between the bricks is where the windows will be.

What I like to call our "house monster," the pipes for the air filtration system on the first floor that have been installed in the concrete.

East side,  the balcony, and you can see the east corner of the house.

The west side (master suite)wall as seen from the ground.

And there it is, after the miserable for building weather, we're back in business!  Now, if the weather will just hold out a little longer, we'll get there!  I'm looking  forward to tomorrow.

The SUN!!!

It really has warmed up here over the past few days.  Snow turned to rain, and the rain even dried up today.  It was so nice here today, about 50° (10°C) and sunny.  The rumor going around is that our neighbor-to-be, Markus, was talking to one of our builders, and the builders plan on returning to our house on MONDAY!  If it stays warm enough and dry enough, our second floor just may be finished quickly!  It is so frustrating because once the roof is on, the builders, plumbers, electricians, and everyone else can work in any weather.  Grr!  We are so close and yet so far to being to the point where people can work no matter the weather.  No complaints though from this girl.  I would much rather have the builders stop than push through and build when it is not good for the house or for the workers. 
So, fingers crossed, PUHLEEEEAASEEEE!  And in an open appeal to the weather gods, just hold out your fury for a few more weeks!