FINALLY, an update!

The reason why I have posted so little this month is because nothing has really happened this month.  I can't believe that on May 9, the plumbers were working on the vaccuum.  The electricians finished up with the rough work last week Monday, pretty much completing the roughing in portion of the construction. 
Here are a few things that also happened during the past few weeks:

The plumbers connecting the fireplace on 10 May.

                                       By 11 May, the plumbing for the fireplace was completed.

And, the wires for the recessed and pendant lights appeared!

By the 11th of May, all the plumbing was completed, and most of the electrical. 

 Of course, this was two and a half weeks ago though.  We are now waiting for the plaster guys (Gipser,) to come in on Monday to start covering up the walls. All of the walls will now be covered with plaster, leaving us with a mostly smooth surface.  Last week, we did see a guy come by from the builder. He spent two days pouring concrete into major holes in the floors, like the holes where pipes were installed.  Slowly, but surely, the house is starting to close up more and more, and slowly become home.

                                     The filled in hole in the floor between the guest room and powder room.

Our circuit breaker box is pre-wired!

All of the wires are labeled for connecting to circuit breakers.



As I said, hopefully Monday will bring with it plaster guys.  I remember in our neighbor's house, there was a huge transformation once the plaster work was complete.  With smooth, evenly colored walls, the house really became a lot more "homey." 

Today, we had an appointment with the bath showroom again.  To our chagrin, we almost missed it, but fortunately, our account representative called us and reminded us that we had an appointment three hours prior.  So, we ran over, to say "hi," and to pick our granite for the vanity countertops.  The decision was mostly easy, but required a little thought.   The choice in the children's bath was pretty easy, Imperial White granite.  This seemed to be the lightest color without any golds, pinks, browns or rust colors in it.  The children's bath is going to be very "beach cottagey," and imperial what seemed to be the most logical pick.  When it came to deciding on the master bath, we narrowed down the choices to Kashmir White granite or Mocca  Creme limestone.  I have loved Kashmir White for quite a long time, but I worred about the rust-colored spots, the problem is that since it is stone, you have no control over the actual slab you receive.  I was just worried that we would end up with a very rusty piece of granite, and did not want that in our bathroom.  The limestone was much softer looking, just a very soft beige with some darker veins running through.  We asked about the care of the limestone versus the granite.  Our sales representative explained that limestone is softer, and will need to be sealed every two to three months, but sealing is pretty much like cleaning, you need to rub in a sealant.  Because the limestone and Kashmire White turned out both to be the same price as was listed on the offer, we decided for the Mocca Creme limestone.  I think if we were going to end up with a limestone countertop anywhere in the house, the master bath would be the best choice.

Mocca Creme limestone (left,) Imperial White granite (right)

The appointment went pretty quickly.  I am pretty satisfied with our choices, there weren't really that many options that fit the requirements for both bathrooms.

Well, that is about all from the house for now.  We are busy working on planning out our Richtfest, which is rapidly approaching on 11 June.  We are currently deciding which burgers to purchase :)

Vaccuum and electrical

Since we have another week or so to go before the plaster guys come, this week is all about finishing up any rough work. 
Have I told the story of the 110 V outlet yet?  OMG.  So, when we first met with the electrician, Joern brought up that we needed place in the kitchen to store our step-up/ step-down transformer.  The electrician jumped on that and suggested instead that we put the transformer in the cellar, and run cables up to the kitchen from the transformer and install 110V outlets.  He told us only to buy outlets when we were home, which we were very careful to do.   When Smokey Old Electrician (may I please shorten this to "Ol' Smokey?")  was in the house last week he informed us that we had a problem: the boxes for German outlets are circular, and our US outlets were rectangular.  Talk about putting a squareish peg in a round hole!  This sent us into a little craze about how to fix the problem easiest and quickest.  The plan was to order the boxes from the US and pay the ridiculous amount to ship abroad, because well, we needed them.  At the end of last week, Ol' Smokey came to us with a possible solution.  In the electrical catalog, he found an outlet that was I guess, multi-voltage.  all we needed to do was to change out the plugs on all our 110V appliances.  We weren't too excited about this idea.  Then, on Saturday night, Joern and I were barbecuing at the house, and I decided to look through the electrical catalog.  My reason was to see what the electricians were paying their suppliers for light switches.  As I thumbed through the catalog, I stumbled upon a two-page spread for export appliances.  Yup.  Export.  Their supplier has outlets for British appliances, Chinese, and- American!  Joern will talk to Ol' Smokey tomorrow, and hopefully, we can fix this mini mess.

But, the electricians were at the house today, and they worked on wiring outlets and switches on the first floor.

Electrical in powder room.

Switches for the stairs to the second floor and for the kitchen.

And, the plumbers were back today!  To install the pipes for the central vaccuum!!  They installed most of the pipes for the vaccuum, and only need to connect the pipe from the cellar to Joern's garage, where we will store the vaccuum.

The blue pipe running from the guest room area to the fireplace is for the vac.

I am very excited about this feature, a toe-kick pan for under the kitchen cabinet. 

Connection for the hose upstairs.

A very long pipe running along the media room.

Hopefully, we see the electricians tomorrow. 

This week's work

As I posted on Wednesday, we have been having a few problems with the electricians showing up.  We understand that they are busy and have a lot of projects going at once, but as Joern said, "We feel like he labels customers by prority: A,B,C, and D, but we're E."  Joern and I both feel strongly that we don't want our workers to be under pressure, this leads to mistakes and not caring.  I would much rather have them take their time and do things right.  The electricians worked Monday, Tuesday, and a tiny, tiny little bit on Friday.  I'm sure they're doing a good job, but it is only frustrating when it means that the plaster guys can't come in next week to start plastering the walls.

Despite all this, I am happy to see that there is progress being made.  It is very nice to know that the rough plumbing is all done now, including our last minute addition of our central vaccuum.  And despite the very drawn out procedure, the electrical is getting there.

We didn't visit the house very much during the week, and when we did, I didn't have the camera with me, and I was too tired to really focus enough to realize that I needed to take pictures.  But, I found my energy by Friday, and I was so excited to get back on track.

It would be nice to split up plumbing and electrical, but that wouldn't really be possible without a lot of cropping.  Honestly, I'm not up for that much work right now.

Here is what our house looked like after another week's worth of work:

First floor

Kitchen.  Outlet boxes have been installed.  Straight ahead will be the outlets for the built-in oven and the refrigerator.

                                         Kitchen sink area.  Outlet boxes for both 220 and 110 Volt.

Water pipes for pot filler and possible water connection for fridge.  Electricity for oven and

range hood.

A proud homeowner and his kitchen.

Electrical running to the fireplace.

Water pipes running from the fireplace.  Electrical running the length of the living room and dining room.

Wires running through the walls in the guest bedroom.

Looking into the guest bedroom.  Orange and black tubes are for electrical and computer network cables.

There are ELEVEN switches and outlets here.  This is the control for our exterior shutters.

On the wall to the right of where all the tubes enter the wall, there is a rectangular cut-out, this is for the central vac.

Second Floor

Children's bath, hookup for washer and dryer, and water for shower.

Water pipes and electrical.

                                    Connection for sink and farther back, for the second "1920's" toilet.

                        Probably the job of the elctricians, the floor underneath the waterpipes was chisled out
                        at intersections of water and electrical.

Master shower.  Controls and water connections for massage shower heads.

Water hookup for bathtub.

The master bath plumbing and electrical, completely roughed out.

Attic

Vent for the children's bath.

                                        Vent for powder room and maybe water in kitchen.

Cellar

Looking down the stairs.  Boxes installed for LEDs along stairway.  Water pipes running out to garage.

Another view of water pipes from mechanical room to Joern's garage.

Water pipes in Joern's garage.  One tap in the far corner, behind our already present mess.

                                          Another tap installed in the front corner.  Why do I see Joern's garage becoming
                                          a man-paradise?

OMG, cables, cables, cables, waiting for the circuit box.

                                        The ever growing pile of drilled out hole debris.  

Hopefully, next week will see the completion of the electrical, so that the plaster guys can get started.  Maybe it isn't such a bad thing because we shouldn't have the pipes installed for the radiant heating before our upcoming Richtfest, on June 11th.  We'll see what next week holds in store for us and the house!
 

Finally, an update!

Now that the jet lag is past, and the weeklong headache, I'm ready to post some updates on the house.
When we returned from Hong Kong, we found that the plumbers had been working in the house while we were away.
It was fun though because we got to check out the house as soon as we returned on Monday morning, which meant that the plumbers and the electricians were there. 
Here are some updates from two weeks ago (while we were enjoying Dim Sum and strolling around Tsim Sha Tsui), time, 10:00 AM.

                                        The pipes leading to and from our hot water storage tank.

All sorts of connections in the master bath.

More pipes in the master bath.

             

                                                                      Kitchen

                                           Another view of master bath.  Pipes running to the bathtub.

Orange tube, for electrical cables running long lenghts over the bedroom.

Electrician chiseling out a pathway for wires.

We returned on Monday evening, but now I realize I only took three pictures.  They're not really interesting.  But, it was a nice welcome to return and see everyone hard at work and house progressing!

And the yellow card goes to: the electrician!

The plumbers were hard at work last week, while we were here:

And now, I am recovering from some serious jet lag, and most probably readjusting my sleep, because Hong Kong is definately best enjoyed at night (and by night, I mean 1 am-ish.)  Which means that I have some catching up to do on the blog!

But, the news is that the plumbers are mostly done with all the pipes and we could be ready for the next stage next week.  Alas, we can't get going with the next stage BECAUSE, the electricians, who planned to finish the electrical in two weeks were not there again.  And not there a few days before Easter.  And now, well, they've made the project run slow.  Joern talked to Mr. B today, told him of the situation.  Mr. B has now issued a warning to the electrician- complete the project by next week, or we have a problem.

Slowly, we are running out of patience.