Today's photos

More progress today!  I guess the simplest way to do the post today is through pictures.
                                               Completed pantry / kitchen wall

                                                
                                 Amazingly, this wall will now soon look like this:

                                             Standing by the back door looking into the pantry

                                            
                                        Looking into the living room from the front terrace. 

Looking at the wall with the TV and fireplace from the "couch."

                                       When I came home at 3:30 this is what was going on with the master:

(That wall is for our walk-in closet.)

And, the wall for the back bedroom was started.

                                          
                                           And, the builders had marked out the walls for the children's bath.

And, Joern was doing this: 

                                                           Joern's masterpiece in progress:

Then, Alex came to check out the walls.  He told us that the balconies and crane will

probably go next week.  And then, he and Joern had a big discussion

about central vacuums.

And by the time we left the house, at 4:30, the builders were still hard at work, and we had definite rooms!
         
                                                                   The front bedroom

The children's bath

                                                                     Master bath

It has been so exciting to watch the walls go up.  Now that we have rooms, we've noticed that some things are just as we had imagined, and other things were way different.  For example, the unnamed room in the first floor actually looks like a cozy guest bedroom.  The living room is a little smaller than I had imagined, but is completely appropriately sized for a living room.  Our foyer and stair case to the second floor are really huge and give you such an open feeling.  The first bedroom upstairs is acceptable for a bedroom (I thought it would be too small.)  But, the master suite is just as I had imagined.

All in all, it looks like things are winding down with the builder, and we'll enter a small hibernation period as we wait for the windows.  Perfect timing, as we'll be heading to the States in a little over a week, and when we return, its time to work on the Richtfest!

The Info Day

We had such an incredible, and informative two days this past weekend. I think for ease of understanding and to make things easier to deal with, I will post only here about the FingerHaus Info Day. Then, in another post, I will talk about the model homes that we visited on Saturday and Sunday.

As I posted yesterday, we were pleasantly surprised when we found out that FingerHaus was willing to pay for our hotel on Friday night, to make our visit much simpler. After a filling breakfast on Saturday morning, we set out to the FingerHaus factory and company headquarters. It started at 10 am, and there was already quite a crowd forming when we got there 15 minutes after 10:00.
We began our day by attending a discussion on air compressor pumps and air filtration systems.
Here are some interesting things we learned:
1. German pre-fab homes are made from wood, and the new ones are almost completely air-tight.
2. Because of this air-tightness factor, mold can become a problem. People need to air-out their homes frequently throughout the day to combat this mold.
3. The other option to airing out the home is to include an air-filtration system. I never thought about one, but now, we have to learn a lot more before we build our home.
4. A green home heating technology available here is an air-compressor run from solar cells. The compressor acts like a refrigerator, and the heat produced from the cooling unit is then used to heat the home.

For us, the information on the air-filtration system was really informative. Jörn is not interested in an air compressor for heat, instead, he would like to use a geothermal heating pump. But, I am really thankful for the air filtration info, I never would have thought about this.

Afterwards, we met up with our project manager from Stuttgart, Herr Meisner. He showed us around the home building showroom. Because most of FingerHaus' homes are built turn-key ready, home builders most often choose everything for their new home, from exterior and interior paint, to flooring, to door handles at the company's showroom.
Here are some of the different choices Jörn and I will have to make:

What will the showers (at least 2) look like? Tiles, floors, doors, shower heads?

Will we be able to fit in a corner bathtub?

Should we have a lighted faucet in our bathroom?

What style of stairs will we choose? What color wood? What banisters?

Which flooring should we use for our deck and terrace? How about the railings on the deck(s)?
After our heads were overloaded with choices, we made our way over to the factory tour. Wow, that was so interesting! Somehow, I never really got how much of a house can be made at a factory!


The walls are built and insulated in the factory. Windows and window coverings are also installed.

I was really impressed to see that the plumbing was also pre-installed!

A house being packed up. There is a whole house on those four trucks!

After our very cool and interesting factory tour, we then went to visit the two model homes on the property of the factory.


The yellow house wasn't really anything we are interested in. But, I always enjoy the company's use of giant windows and open floor plans to enlarge a space!


The second house, the grey and red, on the other hand, was incredibly gorgeous! Of course, it is brand new, and opened to the public on Saturday. Everything was amazing. The floorplan downstairs was amazing! I always felt that we would need one continuous dining and living space, since this provides the most airy feeling. This house was set up slightly differently, and honestly, it was beautiful! The only thing that we would need changed would have been the kitchen. But, there was plenty of room behind the kitchen, which they used for storage space, that we could open up and use as kitchen space.

My biggest problem with the house though was the sloped ceiling upstairs. Similar to a Cape style home, many homes in Germany have one and a half floors, as the full space of the top floor cannot be used. This style of home has a particularly steep sloped roof, and you really lose a lot of space. I don't know if my American bed would ever have a chance of fitting in the bedroom. The house does have a MBR suite, which I really want, and a second bathroom upstairs.

A picture of the master bathroom. It was beautiful, but Jörn couldn't stand in half of the bathroom. Hmmm.

After visiting the two houses, we returned to the building showroom to check out a few more items.
I checked out some fireplace options because I want one of them too. Then, Jörn found the keyless entry system that he's head-over-heels in love with!


We were exhausted after the wonderful day, but instead of heading to Wetzlar, where we planned on spending the night, we stopped off in Marburg, at another model home.