Kitchen and tiles

Thursday afternoon, we had an appointment with the kitchen studio.  It was to finalize our decisions- we didn't really finalize anything, and after 3 1/2 hours, decided that 8:00 pm was time to call it quits for the night.  We have to finalize next week.
We were assigned to a new designer, as our original designer retired in August.  I really liked our old designer, but after a few hours with our new guy, I realized that the original guy was ready to retire.  This new guy had so many fantastic ideas. 
He started out by informing us that the kitchen company we are going with changed the drawer size. This means reconfiguring the set ups of the drawers.  Joern and I have quite a bit of homework here, trying to decide how to best utilize the space for our needs.  He showed us a lot of options for things we can put inside the drawers to better organize everything.  Wow!
We also discussed the countertop.  Our new kitchen guy showed us a honed granite countertop, which we really loved.  It works nicely for both of us, because Joern was never a fan of the high polish, and I was never a fan of high polished black, because I heard that they are a total pain to keep streak-free. 
It is still black, but with a slightly uneven surface.  I really love it!  Of course, it is more expensive than our orignal choice, but it is about 100 Euro per sq. meter more expesnive, and in reality, we don't have that many square meters of countertop space. 
We also discussed our range hood. We have a unique, but growingly more common, problem with our range hood: because we have an air filtration system and our high efficiency air-heat pump, our range-hood cannot vent outside.  Our air has to be filtered, and recycled into the house.  We're fairly certain that the air-filtration system will deal with the damp, but Joern was so worried about the smells.   Joern brought up his concern with the new kitchen guy, who promptly had a solution- an active charcoal filter that can be installed in any range hood.  The filter is HUGE and heavy. It is refillable, and the kitchen guy suggested that since we like to cook, we refill the charcoal once a year.  The packets are about 40 Euro, which seems like a good investment if we're considering keeping smells out of our living area!  The kitchen guy also made a few modifications in the range hood, so that the air can be properly exhausted. 
From range hood, we went over all the rest of the appliances.  We flip-flopped the dish sink and dishwasher, because even though the designers agree that the dishwasher should be on the left of the sink if you are right-handed, ours is currently on the right side of the sink, and I love it there!  The designer also has to play a bit with the location of the dish sink along the wall, as well as the cabinets.  I guess there was a little poor planning involved, one of our dining room outlets will endup being covered by the kitchen cabinets.  Hmmm....
Then, it was on to the microwave.  Joern brought up that the interior space of the microwave was really bothering him.  We microwave a lot, and usually use our lovely, gigantic Pfaltgraff plates.  Joern was really concerned that for us, going from our countertop microwave with tons of space to a built-in tiny microwave was going to be miserable.  New kitchen guy had a solution- which excites me :)  He suggested a combination oven / microwave.  Since its an oven, it has much larger capacity than a traditional built-in microwave.  Plus, I was already worried about Thanksgiving, when we usually use our oven, my mother-in-law's oven, plus a tiny countertop oven.  This way, I am getting THREE ovens for our Thanksgiving party! 
From there, it was on to the prep sink.  We need to look at a bunch of prep sinks and decide which we like the best.
New kitchen guy also asked us about solutions for the garbage.  Joern really wanted a hole in the island, this way he could just sweep the scraps from the veggies away.  So, New kitchen guy showed us a system, basically a hole in the countertop, you just pull up the cover, and the scraps go into a little bin underneath the countertop, which you then empty out.  He also suggested an alternative, an electrically supported drawer underneath the prep sink.  You just bump on the drawer and it opens!  So, you can have your hands full of veggie scraps, and bump the drawer with your knee, and the door opens like magic! We decided for the drawer, as it was cheaper, and for me, who empties the garbage, the better choice.
The final discussion focused on the cabinet doors.  The doors we origianlly chose is no longer in production, so we had to chose new doors.  Our original plan was a white, high-gloss, mission style door, but the new version had slightly more undefined lines.  New kitchen guy showed us few other white door options.  I pointed to a matte finish beaded cabinet, saying that those are the doors I usually like best.  But, when we took out the two door samples and held them together, we both decided we liked the high-gloss one much better.  The color was just a lot nicer.  Well, thank you very much, New kitchen guy, because he suggested we take the door samples home over the weekend to decide.  There is a HUGE difference between seeing something in a showroom and seeing it in your home.  We placed them in the kitchen, so that the light would hit them the way it will when the kitchen is installed.

It isn't so easy to tell how much better the one on the left looks in real life, but believe me, it looks significantly better!  Its something about the color of white.  The door on the right looks so much more yellowish in our house, and the one on the left, which looked almost gray in the showroom, looked to be a lot more of a true white in the house.I want to return to the house with some paint samples, and I really wish we could have had a sample of the granite, but there is almost no argument. Plus, even Joern agreed that the beaded doors fit in with the decor of the house much better than the mission style cabinet. 
New kitchen guy had to pretty much redraw the kitchen, because it didn't transfer properly into his software program when he inherited our kitchen.  So, the plan is that he'll finish the drawings in the upcoming few days, and we'll go back to finalize the decision, so that the kitchen can be ordered.

In other house news, "Cute Tile Guy," was back yesterday.  Yesterday's job was to grind down the surface of the "Estrich," or that concreteish substance above the radiant heating.  He did this in the cellar.  The other job was to paint on a waterproofing layer on the floors and on the shower walls, and surrounding the bathtub. 

We did discover a tile problem though, which made us both quite mad, and was probably a poor way to start off the weekend.  Joern picked me up from coffee (okay, bubbly apple juice,) with a friend, and on the car ride home, he said to me, "did you know your mosaic tiles cost 2/3 the price of the entire tile bill?"  I said I knew they were expensive, but didn't think they would cost that much.  Then, Joern told me, well it was 17 sq. meters of mosaic, for the master shower, and for the bathtub surround.  It was at that moment, I realized that there was an error, that the mosaic was ordered for the entire shower, including the walls.  This was NOT our plan!  We wanted the travertine mosaic tiles on the shower floor and as a border on the shower walls, the rest of the shower walls were going to the the same tile as the floor in the master bath.  Turns out that Mr.B called Joern when I was in the States to finalize the order for the tiles, and Joern said something like, "I don't feel comfortable doing this without Allison being here," to which Mr. B said something about time not being on our side, and that the order needed to be placed.  So, when Mr. B asked Joern about the mosaic covered shower walls, Joern was uncertain, but agreed that this was correct.  It was NOT!  So, at 7 pm on a Friday, Joern called Mr. B.  Obviously, we are most upset with that annoying lady at the tile showroom, Ms. Gray, who had no problem insulting me and my home country, but couldn't even get our tile order correct.  But, Joern was also upset with Mr. B, who kept putting off the tiles, which left us in the unfortunate spot that the tiles needed to be ordered, and I wasn't there.  Mr. B managed to calm down Joern a little, by saying that despite the fact that it says on the order form that the mosiac tiles are not returnable, he will fix it.  But we are still so angry with the annoying lady at the tile place.  We've even decided that the final tile order we need to make, for the shower in the cellar, will be done through another tile showroom, the one "Cute Tile Guy" works with, because we do not want to run the risk of having to deal with Ms. Gray again!  I am only hoping that this doesn't mess us up too much time-wise, as cute tile guy wants to be done by the end of next week. 

Well, that's all the news for right now.  I'm sure this upcoming week will be full of updates!

Sprinting towards the finish line- on the right blog

A special thanks to my friend, Stephanie, who so kindly let me know that I totally slipped up, and posted this post on the wrong blog.  The funny thing is that I checked this blog the other day, and didn't see this post, and me being me, figured that I simply forgot to publish.  Well, I did publish, but on my "day to day," blog, which has rapidly become my Erbse blog.  Obviously, returning to work after a lovely summer break did have its effects- I think I was tired!  But, here my "beginning of the end," post.  I'm very proud that our house has come this far, and even more excited.  Enjoy!

Well friends, faithful readers, as of yesterday, we began the "end phase!"  Yes, the "end phase."  The house has come from a hole in the ground to the point where everything being done now is the interior finishing. 
"Cute Tile Guy," began yesterday.  From here, we are looking at 2-3 weeks of tiling, 2 weeks of plaster work/ painting, plumbing fixture installation, 1 week of wood floors, and the kitchen.  Kitchen is the last thing to go in before us.  We're looking at about 3 more months total.  But this is the exciting stuff!  From here on out, the house is coming together, the accumulation of all of our hard work and stressful decisions.  We're obviously freaking out excited!
Yesterday's job by cute tile guy was all prep work.  He installed water barriers underneath the tiled floor master shower and the bathtub. 

He also installed drywall along the back of the vanity and behind the bathtub.

We also now have in our possession the majority of tiles!

Our cellar tiles that Joern had to pick up and offload.  That was a lot of lifting!

And the rest of the tiles, from the tile showroom, that were definitely offloaded with a crane:

Although, I do believe that we have not yet received the tiles for the floor in the master bath.

Besides the tile flooring, our salesman from the floor company stopped by yesterday.  He needed to make measurments and to check that the floor is indeed dry enough to lay the parquet. 

The guys who laid the "Estrich," that concreteish material on top of the radiant heating tubes put little "markers" in the floor, marking easy places for the flooring companies to come and remove a section to measure the humidity level in the floor. 

They removed a small section on the first floor and a small section on the second floor, and put each section into a special instrument that measures how much humidity is in the concrete.

The good news is that the floor is pretty much dry now, so it will be fine at the beginning of October, the tentative begin date for the floors.

The salesman also spoke with us about a solution for our hearth.  Joern was vehemently against tiling the hearth in front of the fireplace, insisiting on a glass plate.  The only thing that the salesman warned against the glass plate is that we will be forever bumping into a raised surface and stubbing our toes.  For someone with arthritis in their toes, the act of stubbing my toes usually ends up with me in crying jags because the pain is just unbearable.  He suggested a solution of removing one of the bottom layers of parquet in the area surrounding the fireplace, this would take about 6 mm off the height of the parquet.  Then, we will install a 6 mm thick glass plate in the lowered section, which will give us a seamless, glass-covered hearth.  Genius, I tell you!

The floor was officially ordered today, although we still haven't made a final decsion on the stairs.  Really, stairs aren't a big deal though, and we could even move in before the stairs are covered.  And part of me would prefer to move in first, just so no one drops any of our lovely, very heavy furniture on our stairs.  The stairs are ultra-expensive, and we're now considering only putting parquet on the stairs heading up to the bedrooms, and using tile instead on the stairs heading up from the basement.  I am also undecided as to whether I would like wood only on top of each step, and painting the concrete a high-gloss white on the rise, or if it is better to completely cover the rise and steps.  I'm not going to stress about this decision, nor do we want to rush the decision.  Here, we have time.

Well, that's it.  The beginning of the end.  Of course, the house will be nowhere near complete when we move in either, but this is the beginning of the end of the uninhabited time in our house's story!

Updates

I wish I had a good reason to explain the lack of updates lately.  We've had a lot and not a lot happen housewise, which may have something to do with the lack of posting.  Or, I will pull the "mommy card," something I am looking to pulling for a while, by saying that most of my free time lately has been spent researching car seats, strollers, and hanging out on The Bump.  Whatever, I haven't been on top of posting AT ALL!
The electricians were back to make sure that all the lights work.  In order to do this, they had to install light bulbs.  Basically, I can now say, "and then there was light."  So now, whenever we want, we can go from this:

                                                      To this:

Now, if we were only doing this on our own electricity, it would be even more exciting.  Sadly, we've been waiting at least 5 weeks now for our electricity.  But, to be fair, the electric company said that it would take 6-8 weeks for our connection, so we're still in time. 

We've made quite a bit of progress with our exterior stucco.  The guys put on a layer of material and then installed a mesh over the entire house.

The mesh will help prevent any cracks from forming in the stucco. 

Once the mesh was worked into the second layer of stucco, another layer was then placed over the mesh.

Oh, and to make matters even better, it was so very hot here two weeks ago!  The stucco guys normally walk around the site fully clothed, but it was horribly hot.  Poor guys!

In the following picture, you can see how much cleaner the finished side looks, compared to the front that is only covered in one layer of stucco.

The stucco guys also installed insulation around the front door area too.  It is important to insulate around the front door as this wall is poured concrete, which is a very poor insulator.  No poured concrete in our home has contact with outside air or with the ground. 



The wall between Joern's garage and the house was also covered in insulation, and has now been covered over in plaster.  Joern is very proud

We also met with the owner of the stucco/ plaster company a few weeks ago.  He invited us over to his house to see the interior wall treatment that he has at his house.  We were very surprised that he invited us to enjoy coffee and chat with both he and his wife.  It was a lovely evening, and our stucco guy is really such a nice guy!  Joern and I also agreed that we really liked the plaster treatment on his walls.  There was a little texture, but very little, and if you didn't touch the walls, you would say that they look rather American. 

We were expecting the stucco guys to come last week to work on the house, but I guess they were busy.  It isn't the end of the world that they weren't there to work on the outside, because outside work has little to do with us moving in. 

We also met with a salesperson about garage doors.  One of our "surprise grillers," at our Richtfest installs garage doors for a living, so Joern asked him to install ours.  He got us in touch with a salesman from the company he works for, who came out to the house last week.  Honestly, I'm not such a fan of the door that we went with, but when I looked at the alternatives, well, it wasn't so bad.

I guess I made a big enough stink about the doors because Joern was willing to drive two hours, in one direction, this past Saturday to check out their garage door showroom.

Here are our doors (without the square windows up the side):

I know, I know, its plain, and I usually love plain.  One of my agruments against the door is that its super trendy.  Everyone is currently installing this door in this color in their houses.  I'm so afraid that in 10 years, everyone will say, "hey, that door is soooo 2010."  Second, I am just afraid that it is a giant wall of black.  Its just a little too sleek, with no visual interest. 

My agruments aside, there aren't many other garage door choices. 
Here is a sample of another style of door we could have chosen, along with a number of window choices:



You can see in the above picture, the bottom row represents what the majority of the door would look like, with a bunch of window options that would go along the top row of the door.  Although I would have prefered this, but with wider pannels, in the end, I broke down. Some fights just aren't worth fighting, and I really have gotten my way in the majority of house decisions.  Joern can have this one, and this way, I won't freak out the first time Joern drives something into the door. 

We also finally signed the wood floor contract!  Yesterday, it was back to the showroom again just to go over some of the details of the contract.  Of course, we have a special case, as we did the contract through our friend, who happens to own the company, instead of ordering from the showroom, but the installation is running through the showroom, which is responsible for the district in which our house is located.  But, I am really glad we went there yesterday!  The representative we've been working with asked for a final okay on the floor we chose, but when he showed us the floor, it wasn't our choice!  We changed a few weeks ago from oiled to varnished, and obviously the guy who marked our change wrote down the wrong style of floor too (our regular guy was on vacation at the time.)  So, when we were at the showroom yesterday, he asked, are you sure you want this one?  Sure enough, the other guy noted that we wanted a parquet that is made of thin strips pressed together, to give a very lively, modern look to the floor.  Those readers who know me know where I was hit, at modern.  Nope, no modern in our house!  We quickly clarified that we wanted the much more traditional look.  We also discussed oiled versus laquered.  Yes, we were warned that the oiled floor would required re-oiling twice a year, but in the end, we went the floor we liked more, which was the oiled. 

The following picture highlights everything I was just describing: 

The floor we chose is the bottom.  It is much redder and more classic than the top ones.

The one on the top right is the laquered version, it is browner, and not as warm. 
The example on the top left is the "strippy" floor.  Cool, but not my thing. 

We agreed though that applying the oil by hand twice a year was not our thing, so we will be hiring someone from the floor company to come out to the house twice a year to oil the floors.  Some may see this as a waste of money, but we will have to look to save somewhere else, and just accept this is an unavoidable cost.  No matter what the oiled floor looks so much better!

Last, we finally got the tiles for the cellar.  Although I posted before that we had chosen a tile for the cellar, we never purchased them.  In the end, we cheaped out and went to a Home Depotish store, and but the tiles.  They're beige and shiny, and I'm pretty sure they'll still look awesome. 

Today marked the next phase in the building process, but I will leave that post until tomorrow, because the beginning of a new building phase means looking forward, no more updates or reviews.  Without giving too much away, all of a sudden, we are starting to feel that we WILL move into the house, and not in the next five years.  I feel like moving in will become a reality in the near future!  Wahoo!



Happy Anniversary, Dear House

One year.  One crazy year.  August 27, 2010 began looking like this:

And now, this is standing on the same spot:

I admit, I had hoped that after 365 days of building, we would be in the house, but good things cannot be hurried.  The good news is that we've reached the "Endspurt," or "race to the finish."  September will bring with it the beginning of the finishing work, exterior paint, tiling, plumbing fixtures. 

No matter, it was a very exciting day to realize that we have come really far in a year.  Obviously, things will be much different on August 2012!  So, HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY dear, dear house!  We love you so and are so looking forward to moving in, and spending many happy years with you!

A new room design!

I just ordered new furniture.  And, I completed a design board, for my favorite room in the house!

About one hour ago, I completed my nursery furniture order!  The furniture is counterclockwise from top left:  from Pottery Barn Kids:  Larkin 4-in-one crib, Charleston Rocker and Ottoman, Larkin Hi-Lo Changing Table, and the Tailored Stripe Rug (center;)  from Babies R'Us: Ahoy Mate Bedding.  I fell in love with the bedding because it is nautical, with an adorable twist:  MONKEYS!

The furniture should be in by early October latest, and shipped to Germany in the middle of October!  I can't wait to set up our little man's nursery!

Some updates

Well, since it has been almost 3 weeks with no post, I'm sure you have all figured out that Joern did not update while I was gone :(
But, at least I'm back now, and realtively over my jet lag and heat-induced pregnancy miserableness. 
There was actually quite a bit of work completed in the house while I was gone.  I guess the best way to go over everything is to break up the descriptions by trades.

Electrical:
The electricians started back last week to work on connecting the electrical panel. 

And thanks to a good organization system:

it went from looking like this last week:



to this today:

They also installed more in our "command center":

Don't ask me to explain much, but one is for the radiant heat and one is for the fireplace.

Builders:
One of the interior guys from Mr. Builder's crew was back last week to build walls.  I know, our walls were built long ago, but we still needed a few things:

A little hard to see, but they built a wall around our wall-mount toilet in the cellar.

More walls in the master bath because we have a wall-mount toilet, and a mini-wall around the toilet would look dumb.

A wall around the built in parts for the bathtub faucet.

A wall between the shower and washer/dryer in the kids' bath.

Plumbers:

Not too much right now with the plumbers.  But, the heat pump has been working to dry the flooring, and the air filtration system has been working for a few weeks too.  The air filtration sounds like a very distant airplane in our rooms.  Interesting. 

One thing the plumbers did was to finish off the mechanical room.  They labeled all of the pipes:







Plaster/ Stucco guys:

Probably the biggest deal was that first layer of stucco was applied to the outside of the house two weeks ago. 

                                Its a little hard to tell, but the house looks lovely now with one continual surface

instead of being broken up by the joints of all the bricks.

Those are the latest updates from the house.  We met with Mr. B the day I got back from the US.  He walked through and measured the moisture of the floors.  It is imperative that the floors are dry by the beginning of September, which is when "Cute Tile Guy," is set to begin tiling.  Mr. B also informed us that the tiles will be delivered this upcoming Friday- wahoo!  We discussed the status of the parquett flooring, which is turning into a major production.  Most excitingly though, he proposed a TIMELINE!!!!!!

So, we're looking at about 2 weeks for the tiles, which will bring us to late September.  Then, the plaster guys will come in to do the second layer of plaster, and paint.  This brings us to early October.  The parquett will be installed in early October.  Then, the plumbers will come in to install the fixtures, and the electricians will come in to install switches and lights.  We should let the kitchen company know that we're looking at mid to late October for the kitchen installation.  And then, he told us the most exciting news- the kitchen is pretty much the final thing before moving in.  This means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  That light will appear in NOVEMBER!  We really should be in before Christmas and the baby!  Hooray!



Trying to get Joern to post

I hope that Joern will be updating in the next few weeks, cause I'm in Connecticut!  I'll most certainly be buying some more home items, which will definitely deserve their own post.  But, for right now, Tchuess for the next two weeks!