2014/09/02

Almost at the finishing line ...


The vacation close-down is over and Viebrock's industrious craftsmen are putting the finishing touches on our home. They even work night shifts to get the house ready by September 8th. 

The entrance of our new house. The front door still needs its door handle.
I love the large windows and especially the corner window in the living room.

The street view.
We put a design wallpaper on one of the living room walls.
Our doors.
The downstairs bathroom.
The downstairs bathroom.
The upstairs bathroom.
The upstairs bathroom.

2014/08/26

More news and pics ...

The tile setters and painters have been busy in our new house. As a result the two bathrooms as well as the kitchen, the hall and the utility/laundry room are almost done.

The upstairs bathroom.
The upstairs bathroom (...and yeap, still no bathtub ... ;o).
The open kitchen.
The open kitchen.
The hall.
Additionally, the walls in the children's bedrooms got their designated colors. Our oldest daughter wanted green walls, because the horses (that is horse wall stickers) need a beautiful pasture.
Bedroom #1.

Our second daughter opted for yellow, because her orang utans (also wall stickers) love to eat bananas. 

Bedroom #2.

The twins are still too young to pick out their own color schemes. Thus, we choose traditional colors for their bedrooms. Antique pink for the girl - I think, her teddy bear wall stickers are going to love that color. And a greyish blue for the boy - the perfect background for dangerous dragons.

Bedroom #3.
Bedroom #4.

Getting all excited about the children's rooms ...

Our construction company has been on their annual vacation close-down for the last three weeks, but a lot happened in our house anyway. We used the time to plan the four children's rooms and drew in the furniture with chalk. The kids had a blast seeing where their beds, wardrobes, desks, book shelfs and toys will go once everything will ready to move in.

Planning the children's bedrooms.
Planning the children's bedrooms.

Of course, the kids couldn't resist the temptation to do some creative coloring on the floor screed. Now, we just have to explain to them that they can't do this anymore once the real flooring is in place ... ;o)

Creative floor art.

2014/06/29

Time to post some new pictures ...

Lots has happened at our construction site in such a short time. The facing bricks are all set up, the roof is ready, windows and doors have been installed, the upstairs rooms have been built in and the entire electrical installation has been done.
Our front door. The door is white, the red color comes from the protective foil.
Our house complete with roof and windows.

Höchste Zeit für neue Bilder

In ganz kurzer Zeit ist ganz viel auf der Baustelle passiert: die Verblendfassade und das Dach sind fertig, die Fesnter und Türen wurden eingebaut, im Dachgeschoss wurden die Wände eingezogen und die Elektroinstallation wurde durchgeführt.
The kitchen.
The living room. This is the wall were the TV is going to go.
My office.
The upstairs bathroom.
One of the children's bedrooms.

2014/06/08

Day 26 - Construction site picnic

Status report: the brickwork of the 1st floor is almost finished, the 2nd floor is coming together nicely, and the carpenters have already put up the woodwork of our roof. We celebrated the occasion by having a little construction site picnic with our kids.The best part was playing in the dirt, of course.

Three girls and one boy utterly happy.

Bautag 26 - Baustellenpicknick


Statusbericht: Der Rohbau des Erdgeschosses ist fast fertig, die obere Etage befindet sich im Aufbau und die Zimmermänner haben bereits das Gebälk für unser Dach aufgestellt. Das war für uns natürlich Anlass ein kleines Baustellenpicknick mit unseren Kindern abzuhalten. Den meisten Spaß hat natürlich das Spielen auf dem Erdhügel gemacht.



2014/05/31

And yes, the rooms DO look bigger once the ceiling is in place...

Another visit to the construction site proved what everybody kept telling us over the course of the week: The rooms do indeed look bigger once the ceiling is in place. In fact, when walking through the first floor at this point, you can actually get a pretty good idea of how everything's going to be once the house is finished. I can already picture myself cooking and baking on the cooking island in the open kitchen while the kids are calmly playing a board game in the living room ... hmmmm ... what a picture-perfect image ... okay, let's be realistic here: I can already picture myself cooking in the kitchen and having a near death experience every time the kids drag their toy cars over our new design floor or try to climb on top of the living room fireplace ... yeap, that sounds more like it. In any case, our home is going to be pretty cool and filled with life. 

This is going to be the kitchen.
The dining area in front ot the open kitchen.


The living room with its large corner window.
The pantry/laundry room.

The construction company also put the staircase in place and we were able to go upstairs for the very first time. Here are a view images of the not-yet-existing second floor bedrooms the kids already fight about ...

The staircase.
Upstairs facing South - i.e. in direction of our garden.
Upstairs facing North - i.e. in direction of the street.

 

Und ja, die Räume sehen wirklich größer aus wenn die Decke drauf ist ...


Ein weiterer Besuch auf der Baustelle hat bewiesen, was uns alle im Verlauf der Woche immer wieder beteuert haben: Die Räume wirken wirklich größer sobald sie erstmal eine Decke haben. Wenn man zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt durch die Räume geht, bekommt man bereits einen tollen ersten Eindruck wie alles werden wird wenn das Haus fertig ist. Ich sehe mich jetzt schon an der Kochinsel in der Küche kochen und backen während die Kinder friedlich ein Brettspiel im Wohnzimmer spielen ... hmmm ... perfekte Familienidylle ... okay, jetzt wieder realistisch: Ich sehe mich jetzt schon jedes Mal beim Kochen in der Küche einen Beinah-Nervenzusammenbruch erleiden, wenn die Kinder ihre Spielzeugautos über unseren neuen Designerboden ziehen oder versuchen auf den Kamin hochzuklettern. Yeap, das klingt richtig. Auf alle Fälle für unser Eigenheim absolut cool und mit jeder Menge Leben gefüllt sein.

Viebrock hat übrigens auch bereits die Treppe eingebaut, was uns die Möglichkeit gegeben hat zum allerersten Mal ins obere Stockwerk zu gehen. Die Kinder streiten jetzt schon über die noch nicht existierenden Kinderzimmer.

2014/05/24

Suddenly there were walls ...

We drove by our construction site today and were amazed to see how much the work on our house has progressed within the last couple of days. Almost the entire bare brickwork walls of the first floor are up and you can already make out the downstairs rooms. Interestingly enough, in this building stage the rooms look scaringly small and my intial reaction when steping onto the lot was: "Okay, did they forget about half a meter of house or what?". But apparently this is due to the fact that our eyes can't properly grasp the real dimensions. We were assured that once the ceiling is in place, we will be able to perceive how big the rooms really are. I sure hope that's true, because right now I'm seriously concerned whether or not our double bed with its cast-iron frame will ever fit into our bedroom... Hmmmm... maybe I should just jump on the chance and try to convince my husband that we'll need to buy a new bed. Tempting thought... very tempting indeed...

 

Plötzlich waren Wände da ...


Wir sind heute an unserem Grundstück vorbeigefahren und waren absolut erstaunt wie weit die Bauarbeiten in den letzten Tagen vorangeschritten sind. Fast die kompletten Rohbauwände des Erdgeschosses stehen schon und man kann bereits die Räume ausmachen. Erstaunlicherweise kommen einem die Zimmer in dieser Bauphase allerdings erschreckend klein vor. Meine erste Reaktion als ich das Grundstück betreten habe war: "Ok, haben die irgendwie einen halben Meter Haus vergessen oder was?". Aber anscheinend ist dies vollkommen normal, da unsere Augen nicht in der Lage sind, die realen Dimensionen gänzlich zu erfassen. Man versicherte uns jedenfalls, dass wir erkennen werden wie groß die Räume wirklich sind wenn erstmal die Decke fertig ist. Ich hoffe inständig, dass das auch tatsächlich der Fall ist, denn im Moment frage ich mich noch wie unser Doppelbett mit seinem Eisenrahmen jemals in unser Schlafzimmer passen soll... Hmmm... vielleicht sollte ich auch einfach die Gelegenheit nutzen und meinen Mann davon überzeugen, dass wir ein neues Bett kaufen müssen. Verlockender Gedanke ... wirklich verlockend ...