Another home filled weekend!

We had two meetings this weekend with two different house building companies. Both were quite interesting.
First, we met with a project manager from Town and Country Haus, a company that does not build pre-fab homes, they build traditional German block homes. A few weeks back, I was telling one of my colleagues about our plans, and she got us in touch with the father of a student who is working for this company. He contacted us quickly, and he and Jörn seemed to get along well on the phone. We met with him yesterday. It turns out he is an incredibly nice man, and our meeting was very relaxed and informative. We had some serious discussions about Jörn's cellar plans, especially when my father in-law came in the room and stated that our cellar (which will also house our garage that we will share with my in-laws) needs to be 9 feet high! For my father-in-laws possible one day motor home- oy! The project manager turned completely white, and said, "wow, you are in for a huge and expensive job!" He showed us a few options that the company offers that would be close to our desires, but to get exactly what we want, we would have to go with a free planned house, which may be more expensive.
Here's what was suggested though:
the Domizil 192.
The house is big, about 2,000 square feet, but not exactly what we are looking for. Joern especially does not like the roof shape. I am not too excited about the sloping ceilings on the second floor. But, if the price is right, we may be talked into the house. We also discussed the placement of the house on the plot of land, and the fact that air filtration systems are indeeed useful for people like me who have no clue how to air out a room.
We are awaiting an official floorplan based on our desires, it should be sent to us soon
After the meeting, Jörn kind-of reigned his plans in a bit for the cellar. He still wants a large cellar, and in fact, since our cellar will house our shared garage, we will need something large. Just not as large as Jörn's original 4,000 sq. ft. with 9 ft. ceilings. Jörn spent most of the night hard at work drawing up his ideal cellar. He's at about 1200 sq. ft. now, most of which will be taken up by our garage. But the rest will be ours for our heating and air-filtration system, storage, and our home movie theater. Can't wait to see what our end product cellar looks like. Our cellar will be quite expensive though, and will cost about 1/3 of our projected budget. Yikes!

Today, we went to Nagold, a town on the northern border of the Black Forest. Another pre-fab company, DanWood, had an open house there. The invitation stated the house was a recent build, but it didn't state that the house was actually still being built! Once we got over the jarring realization that the house was nowhere near completion, we realized that we were very happy to see a house in this stage. It was useful to see a pre-fab house constructed without paint on the walls, to see the quality of this company's building.
We will set up an appointment to meet with a project manager from this company in the upcoming weeks. Here's a few of the homes we were discussing today:


images from danwood.de
Here's what a German pre-fab (made of wood) home looks like during construction:



Okay, I'm a little jealous of their view. Once the scaffolding is gone, this family will get to look out onto the Black Forest every morning!


Obviously, we learned this weekend that we haven't settled on one company at all. We loved all FingerHaus has done for us, but we need to leave our options open for now. At least we have time to keep our options open.

Model Home Visits

On Saturday afternoon, on the way to Wetzlar, we stopped off in Marburg to check out another FingerHaus model home.
It was nothing interesting at all to us, but we were glad we stopped there anyway, since we were in the area.
After a magical Valentine's dinner and a super morning in Wetzlar, we were off on Sunday morning to visit two more model homes, one in Gießen and the other in Bad Vilbel.
Although the house in Gießen wasn't what we were looking for, it was beautiful, and the representative working there was highly informative. We did like the lofts in each child's bedroom, and could easily imagine that to a kid, having a loft in your bedroom would be the coolest thing ever!

Of course, our talk with the representative was so informative. She was a wonderful lady, and so helpful! We ended up talking with her for over an hour! We discussed most of our plans with her, including our budget. She suggested yet another one of their houses, which can be made as a villa, that would fit well into our budget. She showed us plans that she drew up for one of her customers. The house was beautiful! What we loved especially were the two-floor corner windows, that would be especially wonderful for us!

Example of windows on Bravur series home.
Image from www.fingerhaus.de
There are a few differences between this house series, which is a more basic series, and the series of house that we love, the Bravur. We could see ourselves happily living in this home as well.
After our wonderful visit, we headed out to Bad Vilbel, which is very close to Frankfurt. There is a model home park in Bad Vilbel, much like the one in Stuttgart, just with diffent homes. FingerHaus has their model which is closest to our dream home in Bad Vilbel. It was very interesting.
Of course, we don't need the butterfly form roof, but it is quite eye catching in person.

The house was laid out well, which we really liked. This model had all four corners as windows. It was so beautiful, but not quite what we need.


Of course, I also loved the walk-in closet in the master bedroom!

We also really loved the high ceilings on the upper floor and the openness of the home.

Surprisingly, we were not completely impressed with the house though. It does seem that to create our dream home with a realistic budget, we will have to spend some time with the company's architect.
Overall, it was an amazing weekend. I keep having to pinch myself that we are actually looking at homes, and are serious about it!

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.

We're home!

Well, Jörn and I had an incredible weekend at the FingerHaus Home Building Info Day! We decided while we were in the Frankfurt area, we would also visit some more FingerHaus model homes in the area today. It was amazing and we talked to some people who gave us some wonderful ideas.
I am so excited to share everything we saw and learned, but I am tired now, so I will definately post all about it very soon.
It was such a great way to spend our Valentine's Day! FingerHaus even gave out orange roses (orange is a major part of the company's logo).

Countdown to this weekend!

We're both pretty excited! This weekend, Joern and I are headed to Frankenberg ob der Tauber to the FingerHaus factory. They have an open house day, inclusive of the opening of a new model home (one that we are considering,) and seminars on home building. We're leaving on Friday, so in 4 days, we'll be off! What a cool way to spend our Valentine's Day!
We're still overwhelemed with housing plans, and looking at house magazines for inspiration. It's all so exciting, as I keep saying, I can't wait to see where we'll be one year from now!

Color inspiration

Well, it looks like I've found our colors for our master bedroom/bathroom.
I got these towels from Restoration Hardware at Christmas. I love how plush they are and can't wait to use them!

So, it looks like our fabrics will be the same as everyone robin's egg and chocolate combination. I secretly love this combination, and think it will look wonderful in a beige bathroom. Now, I need to start figuring out bedroom wall color.
Thank goodness there is some time!

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!