Weeks 6 and 7 - Writing from abroad

Dear Reader,

Tonight I'm writing to you from Manchester, UK, where I'm having an intense conference week, surrounded by inspiring new research projects and great friends and colleagues...

My heart is however pulled in opposite directions, knowing that while I'm so far away from home our Schwedenhaus-Team is completing the work on our house structure. All I can do from here is to enjoy the pictures that Holger sends me daily and share a few of them with you.

But first, I still need to catch up with pictures from last week...so here a brief update on Week 6 of the Hausaufbau.

In Week 6, all the raw electical system and water pipes were completed and the chimney arrived:

Thomas, Jörg, Günther and Mike also arrived as you already know (and here is how you know that the Schwedenhaus-Team is back at work!!)

And they immediately started closing the roof:

At the end of the week we could admire the roof in all its beauty :-) and all the last nitty-gritty revision works on the façade were also completed:

Some revisions required more patience than others...but at the end we were all satisfied and grateful of the end-result!! ;-) Hier nochmals vielen Dank für Euer Geduld...und Thomas, wenn du das liest, das Fenster sieht jetzt tiptop aus, thanks...

At the beginning of Week 7 then a huge step was achieved: the scaffolding was taken away, while our Team was working on closing all walls and preparing the porch... I haven't seen yet the house without scaffolding myself, but these pictures look for me simply stunning (...biases are possible of course ;-)) and I can't wait to see in person how the house looks and feels, for the first time without 'cage' around it!!!

Also the attic included rooflight was completed, walls were all closed, the porch was partially assembled and today our house door was installed!!!

So many changes, so many impressions...I'm happy I can share this with you dear reader, while I'm waiting to be back home and touch my home-door for the first time... :-) 

For now, I wish you a good night of sleep. Dream well and take care,

a presto,

Ele

Good Bye Schwedenhaus-Team

This was a hard weekend at the Baustelle. A large, important phase of the building process is coming to an end (which is great!) and that means it was time for me to say good bye to our Montageteam, Thomas, Jörg, Gunther, and Mike (Tilo wasn't here this week).

I say - it was time for me to say good bye - because our guys will stay here a week longer to continue working on the porch, terrace, attic, and walls, while I will have to leave (again!) for a working week in Manchester...

So the time came to shake hands.

Thank you so much guys, it was so great to get to know you, and to have you building our house. I like to think a tiny piece of your humor, sweat, music (!), and passion for your work will remain embedded in our home, and it will make it a bit more alive, and more comfortable.

 

http://www.schwedenhaus-team.de/

Grazie.
Ele

Hausaufbau Week 5

Dear Reader,

as promised here a few pictures of the house from inside this time.

The walls are still open, but all electrical wires and water pipes have been prepared. Now we could even move our dinner table from the garage into what will be the future kitchen/dining room!!! :-)

This is were our kitchen will be (the white thingie there are pieces of the handrail for the terrace -- Holger's father painted all of them this week!!! Hero!!):

Here again the kitchen together with the (already furnished! ;-) ) dining room:

We even managed to organize a fridge and a coffee machine - although these are now located in what should become our built-in cabinet in the hall...

 Here 'my' living room section: the music corner!! :-) :-)

And here again an overview of the dining room/music corner from the stairs:

Indeed, Tilo and his team crafted a nice temporary staircase ;-) a bit steep yes, but much more comfortable than the ladder we had earlier!!

Here the first floor: staircase...

and allroom / Büro / Studio:

...when I managed to take some pictures of the other rooms, a couple of hours were gone and we were blessed with an awesome evening sun:

Back downstairs, with sun now :-) :-) :-)

In the mean time, the painting adventure continued on the outside.

And here are a few pictures of the house (and part of the yard) in its current state with morning...

and evening sun B-)

These Sommer evenings are lovely, I could spend the whole evening sitting on the scaffolding (we have no chairs yet!) and observing the house and landscape around... :-) More and more people stopped by these days to tell us how much they liked the house, how warm and cosy it looks...this always makes me smile, I also think the house looks gorgeous and already so welcoming - even with scaffolding and all!!!

Next: We still have some fine work to do with the colour (small revisions on windows mostly, these are sooo difficult to get neatly painted, they gave us more than a few headaches in the past days!) and then we'll be ready for next week, when the TiloTeam will be back to start closing the walls. 

Everything moves so fast now, we really have to be there everyday to make sure (fast) everything is realized according to plans. It is hard to keep track of all the decisions, communications, payments, and little and large works that need to be done! Also: I'm struggling with the last fine tuning of  lightining (kitchen & bath) and bathrooms design. But well, this all belongs to the game, and we're every day happy and grateful to be living this adventure :-)

I hope you also had a challenging but productive week;

Have a lovely Summer weekend and take care,

Ele