A general idea

After lots of work, here's a general idea of our great room (kitchen, dining room, and living room.)


The color swatch is Benjamin Revere Pewter, and I'm strongly leaning towards this color for the living room and dining room.

I have some laundry and bathroom cleaning to do, but at some point, I will get back to posting about going private too!

The living room is obviously bottom left. Couch and tables are from Bassett. The blue accent chair is Crate & Barrel Azure. Rug, which I'm not too sure about, is Pottery Barn Quinn Shag in clay.

Dining room, bottom right contains the Restoration Hardware Portman table, Pottery Barn Napoleon chairs, and Pottery Barn Malika Rug.

The kitchen cabinets will be white, Joern wants high gloss, while I prefer matte. The granite is Imperial White.

Sob, sob

I have been planning our children's bathroom with this lovely Classic Single Sink Console in either regular or wide.

image from www.potterybarn.com
Since the children's bath is going to have a cotttagey/ beachy feel, I thought this would be perfect. So, I went onliine yesterday to look at it, and make a "mock" shopping cart with all my PB purchases just to give Joern a rough idea of how much a large portion of our furniture will be costing. Guess what? It won't be available to ship until AFTER June 24th! We need to have the container packed by the end of May!!! The unfairness of it all!!! I am going to give PB a call on Monday and see if there is any hope, but I don't have a very good feeling :( Boo Hoo!
I have been looking at this sink cosnsole from Restoration Hardware as an alternative:

image from www.restorationhardware.com

I'm pretty sure I could achieve a similar look by changing out the hardware, but it is more expensive to begin with, and then I'd have to buy new hardware.

With tears running down my cheeks, I need to find a place to ship items to in the upcoming weeks. My brain feels like it is going to collapse trying to figure out the logistics involved in getting all this furniture delivered and packed.

Huh

So, we were in Stuttgart tonight, picking up some building books, and a stop at Starbucks. Afterwards, we realized that we had a few minutes left before 8:00 pm, so we decided to run up to Allmilmö, the designer kitchen store smack in the middle of the city. It was there a few weeks ago that we met, and fell in love with the Bertazzoni. Would you believe what they had right in the front of the store? That's right, oven love itself, the Bertazzoni. We spoke with the salesman, who explained to us that it is their one Bertazzoni in the store. Evidently, the old store manager tried to sell the ovens, but the new manager has decided that it does not really fit their style. The oven is a gas range, and he explained that most of their customers are looking for sleeker induction cooktops. Hello crazy Germans, gas is still pretty cool! For us especially, it would be really easy if we are getting propane, and the range does run on either natural gas or propane. Wahoo! So, it is a floor model, and about 1,000 Euro cheaper than the regular price. Now, for some fun specs:
-stainless steel professional range (comparable to Viking or Wolf)
-made in Emilia Romagna, the home of Parma and our friends, Bruno and Simona
-5 sealed gas burners
-the middle burner is a wok-burner
-36" (91.5 cm)
- convection oven, with 8 other settings, including infrared grilling
- storage drawer underneath
- grill plate and griddle plate are accessories

There are very few options here for 36" ovens. The large ones (like the Bosch we purchased,) are usually not high enough for cooking a turkey. The ovens that are more typically American, are very hard to come by. To find such a high quality oven here, for the price we were offered, is an amazing thing! We have a few days to think about it, because tomorrow and Monday are both holidays here. We will probably go to the Metro on Tuesday, they carry the other two ovens we are looking into. Fingers crossed, please?!! I'm in love!

A day of research

Since Good Friday is a holiday here, Joern and I both had yesterday off. We decided to spend a good portion of the day working on the house. I organized a lot of my pictures and information into my binders. (I have a binder system, as suggested in Designing your Dream Home by Susan Lang.) My Inspiration Binder is growing and growing, as I collect pictures from the internet and magazines. I also have included in my inspiration binder those items that I would like to purchase, but have not done so yet.
I also sorted a lot of paperwork from our purchases into the proper binder- the Final Binder. This binder contains everything that is final for the house, like the contract for the kitchen, the paperwork for the appliances we have, receipts from furniture that we've purchased.
Joern delved into the many, many magazines we've collected over the years. His main project was to research our choice for heating. Although Joern has spent some time researching heating options, he hasn't really set aside time to really research. Yesterday was a great day to research. We started the process with the thought that we really wanted geothermal heat. We learned that geothermal would not be cost-effective, because you would need to drill at least 4 holes because our house is large. The drilling is quite pricey. Another problem we had with geothermal is that you are still dependent on electricity to run the pump, and solar panels to produce electricity are stil a bit too pricey as well.
Pretty much as soon as we gave up on geothermal, Joern decided for propane. Germans are a little concerned with propane, mostly because they're concerned about explosions. Both of our cars also run on propane now, and we're very happy with them. My father also has a propane dryer, and now a propane hot water heater installed. He is quite happy with propane. Joern has also become a convert. Propane is affordable, and while it is stil based on fossil fuels, it is clean burning, and more efficient than oil.
We are installing radiant floor heating, which will work well, since we can change out our heat source with little change to the floor heating.
Joern found his holy grail of home heaters yesterday- a propane powered air pump heater. Evdiently, they are huge in Japan, and have been around for over 15 years, but haven't quite made it to Germany yet. The good news with our decision is that we're installing the gas tank anyway, which we would need for the air pump as well.
As Joern crawled into bed last night after hours and hours of reading, he proudly annouced, "I feel propane is the best decision for us.!" Good boy!

More kitchen appliance love!

No, we haven't made any more purchases for the house, but just wanted to post pics of the oven I love, and the refrigerator that we're probably going to go with.
I'll start with the fridge-

This fabulous refrigerator is made by Haier, and is one of very few french door refrigerators in Germany. The other ones I've looked at here are made by Liebherr, which is a high end appliance company. Their french door refrigerators are 7,000 Euro. And while I am all over high end appliances, we can buy a few Haier refrigerators for the same price. We were going to go with a traditional "American" side-by-side, but I've heard a lot of people say that they are not the best size-wise.
The Haier is sold in the US, and has gotten pretty good reviews. One pro / con is that the ice maker is not in the door, thus saving space in the door, it is in the top freezer drawer. We don't really need the water dispenser, as Germans don't drink tap-water, but I think that I will like the convenience of having the water dispenser.

I also found an oven that I absolutely love. It is a high-end oven, but it makes me swoon!

The brand is Bertazzoni, an Italian company, based in Emilia Romagna. We've seen one Bertazzoni in a kitchen store smack in the middle of Stuttgart. It was love at first sight. The ovens are American sized, and very sturdy. Plus, with the huge range on top, you can add accessories to the center two burners, like a griddle or a grill pan. It seems really versatile, and is just a beautiful oven!
The oven is more of a dream, but the refrigerator is most probably what we'll be going with. We've done really well already with appliances, and saved about 1,000 Euro on just the oven and dishwasher. Maybe we can cut a few more costs, so I can get my dream oven!

Tiles and more

After work yesterday, Joern took me to Nuertingen to Mesitermax, a showroom for kind of everything you need for your house. Unlike a DIY warehouse, like Home Depot, it is more like a posh building department store. It was cool, and very informative.
We looked at some flooring options, both parquet and laminate. We then found the roofing section. Joern decided to ask some questions. We quickly learned that we have a lot more to learn about our options. There are so many different types of roofing insulation. We did learn that they are rated in hours, which means the number of hours of heat from the sun that the insulation can absorb before it begins to give off heat in the house. He even explained that you need to be careful not to buy insulation with too high of an hour rating, because it holds the heat in too well. Interesting!
We also saw the coolest display of roofing insulation materials. They were displayed in tubes, and compared the amount of each material required to maintain the same level of insulation.
As expected, traditional fiberglass insulation was the least efficient, and wood fiber and cellulose were the most efficient. Hmmm...
We also looked at interior doors. Surprisingly, I liked two doors, one cost 200€ complete, and the other, 1000€. The first was by far the least expensive, and considred the entry-level model. Being an American, and having looked at interior doors extensively over Christmas, the entry-level model is pretty nice.
We then headed upstairs to the tile department. Very interesting. Joern found tiles the he loved- gigantic, very thin plates. Joern's style tends to the cooler, sleeker side than my homey, warm side. We spent a lot of time speaking with a salesman, who was really helpful. When Joern finally said that I'm American, he said, "Oh well then you probably don't like any of these tiles. I have relatives in America, and I know American home decorating is a bit different." He then took us to a model bathroom with tiles that were pretty close to what I want in the master bedroom. I have a really good feeling in working with this salesman, because he didn't shoot down my tastes immediately.
He also talked to us about considering tile as an option for the entire house. Although he sells tile, he did give me something interesting to think about- tile is the optimal material for underfloor heating, which is what we'll have in our house. It does make sense that tile would hold the heat the best, and be the most efficient for this reason. He even showed us a tile that looks like wood. He explained to us that customers are looking for unbreakable flooring that has the warm look of wood, which is why the manufacturers are producing "wood look" tile. I don't think we'll be going with this choice, but very interesting.
We spent at least an hour looking around and soaking in all the information we could. I am so very excited to see how the choices we make look in our house!

Surprise day!

Today was a surprise! After our meeting, Joern decided to head out to a company in Nuertingen that makes pre-fab garages. He has met with them before, and wanted to ask a question about the letter we received from the the county building office. It turns out that the company and their Home Depot-esque store across the street were open for Sunday.
The funny thing about stores having open Sundays is that it is not just another open day. When a store is open on a Sunday, there are always events as well as shopping.
First we stopped by the garage showroom. Yes, there is a garage showroom, afterall, they are pre-fab. It is actually a huge open area with about 20 different garages, as well as stone for terraces, driveways, retaining walls, etc. They actually had a lot of really interesting options. We'll probably have paving stones for our driveway, and we definately need retaining walls. We also need garages, two to be exact. So there was really a lot for us to take in.
A sales rep. came up to us and asked us if we needed help. Joern explained that he was waiting to speak with Mr. Garage (not really his name,) but the sales rep who he has been speaking with already. She told us that he was with customers, and handed us two tokens for food, and two for drinks, and told us that they were offering sausages, bread, and drinks for the special open Sunday. Wahoo, free food!
We ended up waiting to speak with Mr. Garage. He was quite helpful. It looks like one of our garages is just too long. It is a law in our state that a garage that is built along the border is not allowed to be londer than 9 meters- ours is 10 meters. The law all has to do with not bothering your neighbors- they shouldn't be forced to look at a 10 meter (30 ft.) long garage wall touching their property. Of course, we didn't really think this law applied to us, as 9 of the 10 meters of our garage are underground, so our neighbors would not actually see the garage. Up until this point, no one has said otherwise, so we thought it was okay. Mr. Garage said that "the law is the law," no matter. Joern won't be able to find out until tomorrow, when the man at the county building office responsible for our project, will return from vacation.
Mr. Garage was also able to help to calm my fears about building the pre-fab garage next to our stone house. I heard that it would be a problem in the future, as water could get between the house and garage, and begin to separate from the house after years of freezing and melting. Mr. Garage explained that there is a small space betwen the two for this reason, and there is a cover to help keep out moisture. I believe him, I think it will be fine.
After our nice conversation with Mr. Garage, we headed over to the Hagebaumarkt, which is owned by the pre-fab garage company. Again, they had a number of special activites, including a face-painting station for kids, and various special information sessions. Surprisingly, we bumped into my father-in-law. So, we headed over to the food tent with my father-in-law for a wurst and a beer. Yum!
Today was a really enjoyable day, and very informative. I feel like we made another step closer to the house. Hooray!