FINALLY, an update!

Life has just been a ball of crazy lately, and although I am really disappointed in myself for not updating sooner, I am also pulling a billion cards, including: pregnancy, going on maternity leave, living between the house and the apartment, and the craziness of life in general.
Since my last post, there have been quite a few updates.  Most importantly, Joern and I spent our first night in the house last Friday.  We intended on it being a "sleepover," and well, it is so darn warm and cuddly in here, we have stayed every night since last Friday.  No, we haven't officially moved in, there is still a ton of stuff in our apartment, and its kind of weird, because I feel like we're cheating on the apartment, but it is so nice here!  Of course, the pregnancy hormones aren't helping, and every time we run back to the apartment to pick up something, I leave in tears, because I am sure going to miss that little place.  But, I'll leave all that for a tribute post.  For now, I'll focus on the good stuff:  the house!
I think that its easier just to go room by room, instead of doing anything chronological, so I'll start :)
Kitchen:

Dining Area:

Living Room:

The tables are actually our end tables, and serving as our temporary coffee table.  The chair is only in the corner because it was in the way.  But, I kind of like the chair in the corner when its just us.

Master Bedroom:

For the record, I normally always iron our bedding, but it just wasn't in the cards last weekend.  This week's bedding will be ironed, and I'll post a new picture.

The second picture is of the exterior blinds- love!

Master bath:

Joern painted the ceiling in the shower and installed the lights.  Then, the plumbers came and installed the rain showerheads.  We just need the shower door, but I have to say, I adore our over-the-top shower!

And yes, we need to buy something for storing our toiletries!

Erbse's room:

Tee Hee, two showers threw up in Erbse's room.  We are desperate for the furniture to arrive.  Its currently in the UK awaiting customs clearence.  Fingers crossed its here in the next week or so!

Staircase:

The lights for the stairs have been installed.

And much to my horrified surprise, and Joern's delight:

Oh my dear lord, they change colors!  I don't have any clue of who okayed these, and when, but this was NOT my decision!

Cellar, well, actually the whole house:

It seems like a slightly dumb picture, and its hard to know what you're looking for here, but the central vac is installed and useable!

The house is about 90% liveable.  It is really difficult living without countertops, working water in the kitchen, or a working stove, which made for a rather sad Thanksgiving this year.  But really, we're getting there.  We can sleep comfortably, the heat is working better than we ever expected, and we have one semi-private bathroom.  I'm looking forward to the first week of December, when we are expecting our interior doors, and next week when the rest of our exterior blinds are installed, and I can use the toilet in the powder room (hooray! no more running up to the master bath 20 times a day when I have to go to the bathroom!)

Paint's finished, tile is almost there, and the floors have started!

The plaster guys, who happen to be the painters too, came back Saturday and finished painting.  On Monday, they came to clean up.  All of a sudden, the house was completely transformed.  Since the plaster guys were back in the house, it turned into a total pigsty, and it was really hard to imagine how the house would look without dust and junk everywhere.  The floors reappeared and the windows were revealed again. Its kind of amazing.

Tile Guy also came back on Tuesday night to work on the powder room.  Thank goodness he agreed to at least redo the tiles that poor Joern had to remove.  Even when it wasn't finished on Tuesday, it looked so much better!  From this:

To this:

And then, he came back on Wednesday night to finish up the tile, and to install the cap tile, in the powder room. 

Tile Guy still has some work to do.  Most importantly, the grout must be completed in the powder room, so that the plumbers can come in next week to install the plumbing fixtures.  He also has some work to do in the foyer, as he couldn't finish the tiles until the front door was installed.  But that isn't such a huge deal, it won't have an effect on our moving in anyway. 

The most exciting change in the house was definitely yesterday.  If I wasn't sick, I would have braved the pouring rain and freezing cold to go see for myself.  But the good news is that it will all be there tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.  The guys from the parquet company started installing the wood floors!  They started with the top floor, and finished the master bedroom, hallway, and the office. 

The good news is that as of today, we won't be covered in dust anymore, like Joern is in the above picture.  I'm ready to say "goodbye" to the dust and so ready to see our house that much closer to becoming ours.

Okay, so I love the floors!  I can't believe how they warm up the house.  And yes, it looks ridiculously American, but since there are 1 1/2 Americans living in our house, that's fine by me :)  As soon as I walked up the stairs, I felt immediately at home.  I can't wait to see what the first floor looks like when the floors are in!

We also got news today from the garage door company:  the garage doors should be in next week!  For the first time since forever, the house will be closed off.  No more worry that someone could walk into the house and walk off with whatever. And even better, no more freezing my butt off in the house! 

I hope beyond all hopes that either the plumbers or the electricians will be available next week to start the finishing touches.  Maybe its because I'm the daughter of a plumber, but I cannot wait to go to the bathroom in our house- and wash my hands there too!  I knew that this was all very exciting, but didn't realize just how exciting it was going to be to get to this stage!

Painting Day with a surprise!

Yesterday at our house was a day of gigantic changes!  By the time I got home from work, almost every room had been at least painted once.  The pantry was even complete! 
Here are some views of our house as of yesterday afternoon:

Living room

A test patch of gray in the powder room.

Pantry- completed

Master bath- I can't wait to uncover the tile!

Children's bath

Master bedroom

Erbse's room!

I'm really pleased with all the colors!  I especially love Erbse's room and the master suite.  The owner of the plaster company fell in love especially with Erbse's room.  He kept saying, "It looks so beautiful, but it isn't very German at all."  But he kept coming back into Erbse's room commenting how beautifully the blue came out.  I have to admit, this room will look especially rich with all of our espresso wood furniture!  And I love that the master suite really looks like someone splashed hot cocoa all over the walls, its so cuddly, just like a big mug of hot cocoa!

I was a little surprised with the paint in the kid's bathroom, but it isn't going to stay this way very long.  This room will be covered halfway up the walls with white beadboard, which will cut down on the shocking blue in the kid's bath.  I was also a little sad when I saw just how light the walls are in the great room, but then I realized it will get darker with the second coat of paint, and the wood floor and all of our dark furniture will pull the light away anyway, so maybe its good that we have only lightly beige walls in the main living spaces.  

We had one more big surprise happen yesterday:

That's our front door!  I think it looks nice, but I don't really think I'm in love with the door handle.  Of course, we realized that no one ever asked us what we wanted for a door handle, but it will stay for now. There is so much glass, that I feel a little naked when I stand in the foyer.

Its amazing when you build a house how time passes.  Some days, and weeks, time seems to go nowhere, it feels like you will never get to move in.  But some days, like yesterday, a ton of changes happen at once, and you start to realize that the structure that began as a giant hole in the ground, is slowly becoming your home.



Prep work

The house has been really busy the past few weeks, with a some waterproofing, prep work, and continued tiling.
Last week started with the arrival of the people who install waterproofing.  They worked to cover our garages  and foyer.

Tar paint covering the foyer, and the guys are rolling out a water-proofing material over the paint.

Covering the tar paint with waterproofing material on top of Joern's garage.

The waterproofing covered with a special covering in preparation for greening.

Finishing up Joern's garage.

The foyer covered in tar paint.

Installation being installed above the foyer

                                            The waterproofing material down on top of the
                                                                   insulation on the foyer.

There was also a lot of work done on the balcony.  First, the plumbers came to install a gutter system on the balcony:

 And then, the waterproofing guys installed insulation and waterproofing on the balcony:

The waterproofing was especially necessary.  We could easily have encountered problems in the dining room and kitchen with water.  We were already starting to have some leakage in the foyer, underneath where my garage meets the foyer, and Joern's garage was leaking a bit, on the wall that his garage shares with the house.  We asked quite a few times, and were assured that this was normal, as the leakage was occuring at the juncture of two strucutures (garage and house,) and that this problem would clear up with the waterproofing.  The waterproofing has since been put to the test with quite a bit of rain, and so far, we're okay!

The plaster guys also worked very hard last week and into this week prepping our ceilings and walls for paint. The plaster guys applied a flat grounding for the paint onthe walls in the first and second floors, and a slightly bumpy ground for the cellar walls.   They also spackled, sanded, spackled, and sanded the ceilings to ensure a smooth surface. Then, beginning on Monday of this past week, the plaster guys started finalizing the ceilings.  First, they applied primer, then glue, in small sections, to the ceiling:

                               
Then, they applied the paper covering, which is a mixture of cellulose and textile fibers, which mixes to make a strong and flame-resistant covering.  We chose this cover for our ceilings because they are concrete, and no matter how much you try, it is hard to sand out every imperfection in the concrete.  Since we have so many windows, and so much light pouring in, we were a little conerned that it would draw attention to any imperfections in the ceiling.  The paper covering came out quite nicely.

On Tuesday, the plaster guys painted the ceilings:

And while the guys were painting, Joern and I sat with the owner of the plaster company, and chose paint colors.  We went with an off-white in the cellar, light gray-beige in the main areas of the first floor and second floors, a steel gray in the powder room, a turquoise-infused blue in the kid's bath, a lovely blue for Erbse's room, and a hot-chocolate-like color for the master suite. 

On Thursday, the plaster guys worked to cover over all joints with an acrylic paint.  But, the coolest surprise was what we found in the house when we arrived on Thursday night.
In the living room, we found:

So then, we ran upstairs to find this in the master bedroom:

And this in the kid's bath:

And the paint that brought happiness tears to my eyes:

Yup, we got our Erbse's little boy blue paint!

We also checked out the house, to take final pre-paint pictures, including the mostly completed tiles.

The primed walls in the master bedroom:

The cutouts in the wall in the master bedroom to access the pipes and wires in the wall:

Here, you can see the texture on the cellar walls:

And here is a view of our little storage room in the cellar:

 Here is a view of the completed tile in the master bath:

 The master shower:

A closeup of the trim in the master shower:

And, one fixed wall in the powder room:

Well, there you have it.  Friday deserves its own post.  But, this is a good recap of the past two weeks. This is such a great phase, not only because we are so close to the end, but also because we get to see our decisions and choices come together!