Woah, it isn't going to be so easy to blog anymore!

Today was crazy busy at Casa del Roesner!  The plumbers arrived around 9:00, and got to work on extending the wastewater pipes, drilling holes, and well, a whole bunch of stuff.

Wastewater pipe for the prep sink!

This is so cool-like a map!  The left side is for the powder room and master bath.  The right side goes to the kitchen.

                                                       Children's bath waste water in the cellar.

                                              Children's bath wastewater on the first floor.

When I got home today, I was excited to get there before the plumbers left.  I was able to take a peak into our locked mechanical room!  The plumbers are using it for storage, AND, they installed the wall hanging toilet tank in the cellar.

                                     This is a toilet tank for the wall hanging toilet in the cellar.  It is installed!

And, I got to witness the great farmhouse sink location debate!

I don't know why, but I particularly love the flowers in the picture :)

The debate was cleared up when we realized that the architect widened the terrace door, this changing the plans slightly.

And, I got to hear the sound of plumbers working in a German house.  The plumbers have lots and lots of holes to drill out of concrete.  Needless to say, it wasn't a quiet event!

Drilling the hole for the "scheiss" 1920s toilet.

                                          Preparing for the wastewater for the utility sink in the pantry.

We also had a long discussion with Plumber Guy (the master plumber under Mr. Plumber,) about the vanity in the children's bath.  We bought the extra wide vanity, against my better judgement because we got a good deal on it at the Restoration Hardware outlet.  Now, we are paying.  We now have to open the bathroom door into the hall (as opposed to into the room, like normal,) because we don't have enough room in the children's bath.  Bleh! 

As if my head wasn't spinning, or ringing, enough, at 4:00, we met with Mr. Electrician, and Smokey Old Mr. Electrician.  Today, we were marking out all of our light switches, outlets, satellite outlets, homeway boxes, hanging lights.  OH MY GOD that was a draining two hours!  I am so glad we put in the time yesterday to prepare, but of course, we missed a ton of stuff.  Smokey Old Mr. Electrician came along to mark out all the locations, and he seems to be the master electrician, who will kind of be in charge of the electricians on our project.  They had, of course, tons of helpful hints as to location.  We have a million and one outlets, but this is a good thing.  Mr. Electrician also had a fantastic suggestion for the master shower, which is pretty much a black hole- we will place lights in the ceiling, and cover with a milk-glass plexiglass.  This needs to be completed by a carpenter, but he said that we will have a really warm light in our shower.  After solving the shower problem, he and Joern went on to spend 10 minutes discussing the location of the television in the - MASTER BATHROOM!  Like it isn't embarassing enough that we have TVs everywhere in the house, including the focal point of the entire first floor, Joern wants a TV in the bathroom.  Oy!

We also learned that we must have a real wall, not only a glass wall, in between the shower and washer/ dryer.  This will probably save us a little money anyway.  No problemo!

We headed downstairs towards the kitchen.  Somehow, I had no idea that this would take so long.  And it is in the kitchen that I need to remind myself that our house borders on ridiculous not only because of Joern.  We discussed the placement of our 110V outlets in the kitchen.  Seriously, I cannot believe that we're getting a dual voltage kitchen.  Is this really necessary?  We planned out exterior lights as well, which again, was a big deal.

We planned a lot of wall sconces in the foyer and up the stairs to the first floor.  Honestly, I thought a lot about the foyer, but I didn't think that I needed to know this today.  Ugh!

All in all, I am glad its over now.  Smokey Old Mr. Electrician will begin tomorrow!  I've heard that electricians are really messy, so I'm looking forward to the mess awaiting us this weekend.  Joern even has to order  a dumpster and a garbage chute for the electricians!  The electricians will work all this week, and then not for two more weeks, and then in three weeks, come back to work.  According to Mr. Electrician, the majority of the work should be completed by the middle of May. 

We are also in a little fight with the plumbing supply store.  Not only are they overpriced, but now they want to charge us 250 per hour for advising us.  Mr. Plumber got in a big argument with them, all over us.  Boo.  Hopefully though, we find something, I would like the plumbers to be able to install something!

Well, that's all from the site today!  Looking forward to seeing what tomorrow brings!

Our Sunday project and a huge complement!

We've had an exciting weekend home-wise.  After the joy of having the plumbers finally get started, Saturday, we had friends over for a cook-out.  My friend Amanda, from middle and high school, was back visiting her boyfriend who recently got a job here in Stuttgart, so we decided to have dinner at our house.  It was a lot of fun sharing laughs and yummy grilled food.  Amanda and Ed also brought us some adorable pink Gerbera daisies.  They are now decorating our beer table that has taken up residence in our kitchen.

Today, it was back to the house again for a big project!  As you can see from the above picture, we had our plans all laid out on the bench.  Since the electrician is coming tomorrow to do a walk-through to mark out outlets and light switches, we needed to plan where we want them. 



We spent a good hour walking around the house, marking off the location of all outlets and light swiches.

The masking tape on the wall is a marking for two light switches. 

We marked off outlets, HDMI connection, the location of our homeway boxes (these are the connections for the phone, cable/ satellite, and network cables).  We also marked off where we wanted light switches.

As we were nearing the cellar (we started at the top,) we saw a couple walking up Joern's parents' driveway.  I assumed they were friends of the in-laws, but Joern didn't recognize them.  So, Joern popped his head out of the house, and asked if he could help them with anything.  They explained that they live a few towns over, and had driven by the house multiple times, and really loved it.  They are thinking of building within the next year, and wanted to look at our house.  Oh man!  What a huge compliment!  The wife explained that due to a detour, they were forced to drive on our street to get to and from work for the past few months.  She explained that they quickly realized that the house was going to be something really special, and that they have enjoyed watching it grow.  They were extremely nice, and we welcomed them into our home for a tour.  The husband loved our cellar, and the wife complimented Joern on his design that has eliminated most of hallways in the living space.  They were really nice, and chatted with us and the in-laws for about an hour. 

After our surprising visit, we returned to our job, and completed marking out the outlets in the cellar.  Okay, maybe we need to tone down the outlets- we have over 30 outlets.  But, we'll see what the electrician says tomorrow.  We also have the 110 volt outlets to give to Mr. Electrician, as well as the lights for the master bath.  That and a billion or so questions are waiting for Mr. Electrician tomorrow afternoon.

I am also looking forward to getting home tomorrow before the plumbers lock up the door to the mechanical room. I want to know what that is behind the locked door!



Our Fingerhaus meeting

Yesterday, we met with our Fingerhaus man. He is one of the Stuttgart Fingerhaus representatives, and he has been offically designated to guide us in the creation of our home. Of course, this does not mean we are definately building with this company, but Fingerhaus is high on our list.
I guess I should start by saying that if we build, unless we win the lottery, we will be subdividing Jörn's parent's plot, which is quite large. Building a home here will require the removal of their garage, moving the driveway, and taking away a little, but not all of their frot yard.

Our meeting began promptly at 9 am and lasted about 2 hours. We've met Mr. Messner before, so it was nice seeing him again. We began with looking at the property. One day, I will get around to posting pictures of the plot. Jörn showed him where we will be moving the driveway, and where we are planning on building the house.
We then moved our meeting into Jörn's parents house, which was wonderful because it was FREEZING outside!
I really liked that Mr. Messner brought a few house plans along that he felt would be interesting to us based on previous discussions. He explained that our home choice may be influenced by a few factors, including how our home will impact the view from Jörn's parent's house, and what the town will allow in terms of roof shape.
The plan that we like the best is an Italianate style home, which in German is called a "city villa."

image from www.fingerhaus.de
We're really excited about the fact that these homes have 2 full floors. The majority of German homes have one and a half floors, with the top floor actually being the attic space. In these attic spaces, your rooms are made smaller by the pitch of the roof. We also really love the huge two-floor window. We will have a beautiful view, which includes a low mountain range and the ruins of the Neuffen castle, similar to this view from the Nuertinger-Stattzeitung.

image from www.nuertinger-stattzeitung.de
Because we will have such a wonderful view, it will be great to have such large windows to highlight the view. Plus, the windows will lend an airy feeling to the house.
I also love the floor plans for this house. It includes many of the features I'm looking for, with the option of moving the kitchen to give it more cabinets and workspace.


images from www.fingerhaus.de

We were warned though that the town may not approve of the roof style of this house, as 99% of the homes in Neckartailfingen have typical gambrel roofs. So, he also showed us another type of house offered by the company.

image from www.fingerhaus.de
He suggested this alternative if we must build a home with a gambrel roof.

Again, Jörn and I love the two-floor window. We also liked the floorplan of this home.

We discussed visiting existing homes made by the company in these two styles. The second home is being opened as a model home at the company's headquarters in Frankenberg an der Eder on Valentine's Day. We will be going there anyway on Valentine's Day, as the company is offering an open house with educational sessions, the opening of the model house, and a chance to view all of the interior options the company offers for their homes.
A family built a villa with Fingerhaus near Heilbronn, which is about an hour from us. This family has agreed to be a reference, thus, people can come visit the house. We will make an appointment to see their home.

We also spent a lot of time discussing our cellar, which is a major undertaking to suit our needs. Since we will be removing the garage, we will need to use part of the cellar as a garage. This seems odd, but since the house is being built into the side of a mountain, the garage and cellar will not be completely underground. In the end, we hope to have a garage that will house 4 cars and still leave us plenty of room for all our other needs.

We were left with some homework. We have to contact the town hall concerning the type of home we can place on the property. We also have to hire a surveyor for a current survey of the property. Then, we have to go about formally subdividing the property and putting the building plot into our names, since we cannot build until the plot is in our names.

The meeting was really informative, and I feel like we have a lot more guidance now on our dreaming. Plus, it is one more step closer to owning our first home!