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!)

Floors and furniture

The floors were finished by Friday, the 21st.  Unfortunately, I wasn't quite quick enough to snap a bunch of pictures before Joern started covering the floor for protection, but I was able to get a picture of the kitchen:

And, as soon as the floor guys left, Joern started measuring out the baseboard for the living room :

On the following Monday, the 24th, the floor guys were back to oil the floor.  We weren't allowed to walk on the floors for two full days following the oiling. So, the earliest we were able to get back into the house was Thursday.  It looks wonderful!

Here are two views of the master bedroom:

Joern also was working hard on his baseboard project.  He set up a little workshop in his garage, and has been busy with his mitre saw for days now:

And while we were wating for the floors to dry, our garage doors were installed!

Joern also decided to take advantage of Marcel's visit this past weekend.  Joern, Marcel, our neighbor Torsten, and Joern's dad started moving in some of the heavy furniture and the vanities.  Seeing our furniture in the house really made the whole thing feel real!  Only a few more weeks, and we'll be in the house!

That's our refrigerator under the black wrapping.

We now have one comfy chair in the house!

 The rugs are all waiting in the guest room.

Erbse's vanity!

The super, ridiculously heavy dresser in our bedroom.

We lit a fire on Saturday afternoon. So cozy!

The vanity and storage cabinet in the master bath.

                                                         The boys after a long day of moving!

Joern has been working hard on the baseboard and last night, we installed medicine cabinets.  We hit a snag in Erbse's bathroom, the hole for the medicine cabinet is too large, and we need to get the plaster guys to come back to help us fix the problem.  Unfortunately, we can't install the beadboard until the medicine cabinet is installed, and we can't have the plumbers install the fixtures in Erbse's bathroom until the beadboard is in and painted.  Good thing this isn't the only bathroom in the house!

I can't wait to see where we are by this Friday, as this is supposed to be a big week.  Of course, it is a very short week, because Tuesday was a holiday, and no one came to the house on Monday.  But, this week should include the completion of the wood floors, installation of the kitchen, installation of interior doors, installation of the exterior blinds, and plumbing fixture installation.  Of course, we'll see if this all really happens in the next three days.  And, we have no idea when the electricians plan on returning to finish up the electrical. Oh well, the good news is that we'll be in by the end of the month, at the latest!   This is fantastic!  Now, its time to get to work with the bittersweet job of packing up our apartment!

The container is now history

With only a few casualties, like Georg's elbow and my camera, the container is now history!
With everything tentatively worked out in Hamburg with customs, the container arrived at Joern's parents storage warehouse yesterday at 12:30 pm. I wish I could find my camera, so you could see the picture of how the truck was loaded. Two 20 ft. containers were loaded on the trailer, with someone elses container behind ours. Our first question: How on earth were we going to access our container? Once the driver maneuvered the truck around to the loading bay (yes, there is a loading bay, not like the experience poor Joern had loading the container,) we realized that our container had been loaded on backwards, so the driver just angled the trailer, and we could open the container from the front.
After a little pomp and circumstance, Joern's father popped open the seal, and we got to work offloading. Joern's two friends Georg and Marc came to help. I can't even begin to describe how different the offloading experience was from loading in Connecticut.
In all, it took about 3 hours to offload the container, and then another 2 hours to get everything into the two rooms for storage. The loading bay is in the back of the warehouse, and Joern's parents' storage is in the front on the other end. It was a lot of work, and a lot of planning, but it worked quite well.
We also started unpacking all of our furniture in preparation for customs to visit this morning. Let me start out by saying that I am in love with our furniture! The china hutch is like something out of my dreams! It is HUGE, and matches the table exactly! It is so very beautiful! The chair from Crate and Barrel is so grandma-y, and beautiful. It did suffer a little mishap, and some of the material popped out from under the piping at the bottom right corner, but I'm sure that can be remedied. The living room couch is a beautiful medium brown, buttery leather. It is so soft and comfortable. Not too soft, but not Germanly hard either. Our barstools are beautiful too. We unpacked the two bathroom vanities, they're both perfect. The medicine cabinets all made it with no scratches. Our bedroom dresser did get one nick in the front, but it also has some big damage on the side, but that happened when we bought it. Good news, is that this damage showed to customs today that it was used and not newly bought :) We had everyone sniff our cedar lined dresser drawers, and Georg even said that he could fix the damage!
The only item that broke was the lid of our beverage dispenser. But all in all, everything weathered the voyage just fine.
This morning, it was back to the warehouse at 9 am, to meet with someone from customs. She wanted to inspect the items to ensure that they were indeed inherited. It was pretty nervewracking, especially when she asked to look in a bunch of boxes. Not that there was anything bad, I just didn't enjoy having someone thumb through all of my things to determine if they should or shouldn't be taxed.
In the end, it worked out fine. She was with us for about 30 minutes, and everything was fine.
We are just waiting for a bill from the shipping company, for the time the container was detained in Hamburg, but it is mostly history.
After the customs agent left, Joern, Joern's father, and myself drove two SUVs and one station wagon, all completely full with packing materials to the waste center. We filled up two bags that were about 5 ft. long and 4 ft. high with styrofoam. They had us put the packing foil into a special bin, because they like to store it for people who come and ask for packing matierials. We had at least 50 boxes. It was insane. But again, now its all done.
No more worrying about the container. Now, we can focus on the house!

The container story

We booked our container about a month prior to our trip home. We went with a company out of New York. We chose to self-load the container, and signed a contract sometime in June. Before leaving for America, I needed to provide my passport information as well as a copy of my residency permit. The container was set to arrive at my father's house at 8 am on Thursday the 15th for us, and we had two hours during which to book the container.
Once we arrived in the States, we got to work looking for last minute items for the house, as well as prepare to receive some deliveries and to pick up some furniture in Long Island. Here are some of our final purchases for the container:

Napoleon barstool from Pottery Barn

Malika rug from Pottery Barn for the dining room

Clara rug from Pottery Barn for the guest bedroom

We bought five of these medicine cabinets, not all white, from the Restoration Hardware outlet.

This is the vanity for the children's bathroom from the Restoration Hardware outlet too.
We also bought a wonderful set of pots and pans at the Williams Sonoma outlet. We've been going for 9 years with Ikea pots, I can't wait to have a real set of pots and pans to cook with.
What shook us was the message when we came home from Long Island, it was from someone from the shipping company. It turns out that they intentionally always overbook ships, okay not their fault, as we were working with a forwarding agent and not the actual shipping company. But, as the ship was overbooked, our forwarding agent would either need to store our container at their port, at their expense, or push forward the day we would load our container. Joern was pretty angry about this, but it turned out to be the final shove we needed to extend our stay at home for a week. It also gave Joern an excellent bargaining position, and allowed us to get the third hour to load the container at no extra expense. This extra hour was a huge help, as the original contract stated we had two hours to load the container, and each extra hour would come at a cost of $120 per hour. Ugh! So, we agreed to move the date of the container to the following Monday, 19 July.
We used the extra time to purchase a king sized down comforter and some other odds and ends. During the rest of the week, we welcomed into my father's garage the order from Pottery Barn, and the following beauties from Crate and Barrel:


On Wednesday morning, we received yet another call from the forwarding agent. Since we did the entire shipment under my name, as a foreigner, I am allowed one shipment of personal goods without customs tax, I needed one more important document. It turns out that the US changed their export laws in January of 2010, requiring ALL US citizens who export goods outside of the US, even personal goods for personal use, to file for an Employer Identification Number. This simple process, I was told, could be completed via the internet, and I would immediately receive a EIN number. The forwarding agent told me that this number was needed before we received the container. This left me with 3 business days, and spotty internet avaiability.
On Thursday morning, I rushed to my stepmother's house to fill out my EIN application. Turns out, basically, I was required to file with the IRS that I was opening a business! Hello! Business! You have got to be kidding me! I ended up calling the IRS, because I was so confused. I called the phone number for help filing for an EIN, and the lady on the phone still had no clue. Finally, after speaking with her manager, she confirmed indeed, I needed a number. And so, with her help, I started a business.

We also received the shipment from Bassett. I failed to mention how the New England Furniture Warehouse was giving me angina, and well, same for my dad. I had been back and forth with the furniture warehouse responsible for shipping out Bassett's Connecticut orders since April. Evidently, they received our first Bassett sectional in mid-January, although I was told it would not arrive from to warehouse until March. They had held onto my furniture for almost 6 months. In May, they called my father and said that if we didn't get this worked out, they were going to get rid of my, already paid for, furniture. I had a big runaround with the warehouse and Bassett furniture. In the end, the store manager promised he would work everything out, and that because I had been such a good Bassett customer (ordering 2 sectionals, 8 dining chairs, living room tables, and a china hutch) over a 6 month time period, they would put pressure on the warehouse to wait for me. I called the warehouse as soon as I arrived in CT in order to set up a delivery date. The woman was relieved to set up a time. Fortunately, the container was pushed back, because the first available date she had would have been the day after the container was scheduled to be packed and leave. What a nightmare that would have been.

As you can imagine, my father is a saint. He moved one of his trucks out of the garage at the beginning of the trip, so we could start collecting all of our funiture in one place and preparing it for shipment. Here's what the garage looked like BEFORE the 2 sectionals, 8 dining chairs, coffee table, two end tables, and a china hutch arrived:

That's my dad's very large Chevy Silverado, that ended up packed into the garage for a week or so, hidden behind our headboard

And yes, that is poor Joern sweating because all this was happening during a crazy 100 degree (40 C) heat wave.
Here's the garage after all the furniture arrived.

There was barely room to close the door!
We had a busy weekend before the container came, but I used every spare minute to pack, pack, pack. I ended throwing away some things, because they really were frivilous. But, I did manage to send overseas a bunch of my old stuffed animals, collector Barbies, my grandmother's china, old prom dresses and my mom's last wedding dress, all of my momentos from high school and college, and lots of old books, including all the remaining yearbooks I had not yet brought over. I also packed my flute, which will be so nice to have here. I packed away a painting from my mom's house, as well as a few Fairfield posters.
Each item that went into a box needed to be inventoried, and each box needed to be numbered. All items that went into the container also needed to be numbered and inventoried.
We woke up at 6 am on Monday the 19th, with the plan to spend two hours finishing the inventory, as the container was scheduled to arrive at 8 am. As soon as we stood up, Joern shot out of the bedroom, saying, "the container is here!" Sure enough, the container arrived ridiculously early. And the best news of all? We had until 10 am to fill it. This would have been good news- meaning we had one extra hour (4 hours instead of 3 to pack the container,) but my cousin's boyfriend was coming at 8 am to help us out. Obviously, I could not help Joern lift a couch into the back of the container which remained at the height of the truck. What was meant to be a busy, but smooth two hours, turned into chaos. I had number every item in the garage, and finish two boxes in the house. Plus, I had to desperately call my cousin's boyfriend to see if he could come any earlier. He did arrive around 8, and unfortunately had a job interview that required him to leave at 9 at the latest. Hmmm... now we were in a bind.
As my cousin's boyfriend drove away, my heart sank. I had no idea how to help Joern with the heavy items, and even less idea of who to call to ask for help. I am pretty sure without help, we would have needed a week to pack the container. My dad arrived from breakfast about 15 minutes after my cousin's boyfriend left, and he brought the dark clouds with him. As the impending thunderstorm started rolling in, our lifesaver, my godfather, called to ask how things were going. All I heard my dad say was, "they really could use a little help." So there it was. Ten minutes later, with an ever darkening sky, my godfather drove in to save us. He and Joern worked hard for about 20 minutes before the sky let loose. We had to retreat into the garage, and I had to ask the driver if he could wait extra time (knowing we'd have to pay, we had no choice.)
After 10 minutes, the rain slowed, but it stayed rainy for the next 30 minutes or so. Joern and my godfather packed, and I numbered.
The biggest challenge was the last item: our king-sized mattress.
Here are Joern and my godfather, Rich, trying to hoist the mattress on top of everything in the container:

Joern and Rich decided to use the box as a smooth surface to slide the mattress onto. Both Joern and Rich are underneath the box at this point.

At one point, Joern got lost under the box. Would we have to ship him too?

A few failed attempts, time for a conference.

A last attempt.

SUCCESS!
As soon as the mattress was loaded, the container was shut and sealed. It will not be opened again until it reaches Hamburg on August 11th. Good luck to those customs agents who try to take on our container!

The seal that goes through the lock.

See you in a few weeks on the other side of the ocean!

My dad picking up the remains, and looking forward to full use of his garage.

After 6 months of stressing over our furniture, it was a relief to see the container roll away. Unfortunately, a few pieces didn't make it in, like an end table from my mother and our personalized door mat, but that's about it. My whole life right now is on a boat, making its way to us.
It arrives in Hamburg on August 11th, and will arrive in Neckartailfingen two to three days later. Joern is currently building his unpacking team and looking for the proper place to store our stuff!