Das Bauprojekt: Week 5

We saw since since week 1 how the house construction has progressed in a smooth and steady cadence. It sometimes makes me wonder if there’s ever going to be a crescendo, when always the works are in full-blast Anyway, the house interior is now taking shape, upstairs in particular. All electrical wirings were also fertig. So now to account for the works done this week:

Drywalling

This is probably the major accomplishment this week. Last week, I already showed you the beginning of the metal framing for the rooms upstairs. So the Trockenbauer took a total of 7 days to finish all the upstairs insulation, room partitioning and drywalling. Let’s begin with the bathrooms 🙂

These are the bathrooms upstairs and downstairs. Before the drywalling, the wall-panel frames housing the toilet tanks had first been setup by the sanitary Installateurs. The toilets are wall-mounted so the water tanks would be walled-up together with the water pipes.

These are after they had been walled-up, now ready for sealing and tiling. They used a special sheetrock here intended for damp areas such as bathrooms. These boards are about 15 mm thick and are supposed to be impregnable. The niches on the walls had also already been framed. Now I understand why it cost extra to have these niches, because they did require more fiddly work, which I suppose would be the same for the tilers later on.

I just had a bit of freak-out moment with the installation for the vanity (pictured below). If you recall from my post about the bathroom, I have my own tiling plan for this area and I need the wall installation to recede a bit from the casing for the exhaust pipes. In the drawing, they have it leveled with the vanity panel wall, as in the original rendering of the bathroom.

Anyway, it’s good that we managed to communicate this before they’d walled this up. Engineer just checked if this could be done because there’s really not much space on the wall next to the window. But he confirmed that it’s machbar, so now I’m happy

As for the other rooms, you’ll see here (guestroom) that they had the metal frames stuffed with insulation, which I think is also partly for sound absorption. We worried at first, since the walls are not solid concrete, that we’ll hear through the walls but obviously they’ve already considered that. Sound absorbers/insulation will also be laid on the the floors.

After which they had been boarded up. I think this is pretty much it for the walls upstairs. They just need to seal and smooth the seams and they should be ready for priming and painting.

Just this one here is a bit of an irritation for me – the skylight not being centered. I already noted this before in the plan and discussed it with the Engineer before the roofing began. But he said, “no can do”. It has something to do with the spacing of the rafters. But if I insist, it would cost me an arm. And as you know, I easily scare when one talks to me of damages. At any rate, I’m happy that we decided to add this. It really brings a lot of Helligkeit into the room, though it would be quite tricky to clean.

Laying of Pipes

Apart from the wall-panel installations in the bathrooms, the Installateurs had also laid the pipes for water/wastewater (here in gray foam covering).

You’ll notice here that not all water pipes are wall-mounted, like this one here for the kitchen sink. I think all pipes that could be concealed behind cabinetry are made so. The pipes in the bathrooms, however, are all flush-mounted.

Exhaust pipes had also been configured here on the ceiling (of the utility room). Unfortunately, these are going to be exposed. I wish they could be prettier but these are what they have. It’s good however that these are confined to the utility room!

All these pipes, both for water and exhaust air, are integrated in the house’s heating system. This fridge-looking box here is the heart of this heating system and partly also the ventilation system, which I’ll talk about in another post.

Exterior Wall Rendering

Lastly the white stripes (non-bricked exterior walls) in the back and front of the house had just been rendered. Here’s the one in the back. We thought they won’t be painted over until next week but we were there yesterday and it looked like they already did. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of painted facade, but it’s very similar to this…just whiter.

The masons were also back for a day to do the rowlock sills. It’s the bricking of the exterior window sills as in photo below. Sorry I don’t have a proper photo. This is just cropped from photo above.

So that was it! Next week will be the wall finishing on the ground floor. Installateurs will also be back to start work on the floor for the laying of the radiant heating pipes. So until next week guys!

Das Bauprojekt: Week 5

We saw since since week 1 how the house construction has progressed in a smooth and steady cadence. It sometimes makes me wonder if there’s ever going to be a crescendo, when always the works are in full-blast 😉 Anyway, the house interior is now taking shape, upstairs in particular. All electrical wirings were also fertig. So now to account for the works done this week:

Drywalling

This is probably the major accomplishment this week. Last week, I already showed you the beginning of the metal framing for the rooms upstairs. So the Trockenbauer took a total of 7 days to finish all the upstairs insulation, room partitioning and drywalling. Let’s begin with the bathrooms 🙂

These are the bathrooms upstairs and downstairs. Before the drywalling, the wall-panel frames housing the toilet tanks had first been setup by the sanitary Installateurs. The toilets are wall-mounted so the water tanks would be walled-up together with the water pipes.

These are after they had been walled-up, now ready for sealing and tiling. They used a special sheetrock here intended for damp areas such as bathrooms. These boards are about 15 mm thick and are supposed to be impregnable. The niches on the walls had also already been framed. Now I understand why it cost extra to have these niches, because they did require more fiddly work, which I suppose would be the same for the tilers later on.

I just had a bit of freak-out moment with the installation for the vanity (pictured below). If you recall from my post about the bathroom, I have my own tiling plan for this area and I need the wall installation to recede a bit from the casing for the exhaust pipes. In the drawing, they have it leveled with the vanity panel wall, as in the original rendering of the bathroom.

Anyway, it’s good that we managed to communicate this before they’d walled this up. Engineer just checked if this could be done because there’s really not much space on the wall next to the window. But he confirmed that it’s machbar, so now I’m happy 🙂

As for the other rooms, you’ll see here (guestroom) that they had the metal frames stuffed with insulation, which I think is also partly for sound absorption. We worried at first, since the walls are not solid concrete, that we’ll hear through the walls but obviously they’ve already considered that. Sound absorbers/insulation will also be laid on the the floors.

After which they had been boarded up. I think this is pretty much it for the walls upstairs. They just need to seal and smooth the seams and they should be ready for priming and painting.

Just this one here is a bit of an irritation for me – the skylight not being centered. I already noted this before in the plan and discussed it with the Engineer before the roofing began. But he said, “no can do”. It has something to do with the spacing of the rafters. But if I insist, it would cost me an arm. And as you know, I easily scare when one talks to me of damages. At any rate, I’m happy that we decided to add this. It really brings a lot of Helligkeit into the room, though it would be quite tricky to clean. 🙂

Laying of Pipes

Apart from the wall-panel installations in the bathrooms, the Installateurs had also laid the pipes for water/wastewater (here in gray foam covering).

You’ll notice here that not all water pipes are wall-mounted, like this one here for the kitchen sink. I think all pipes that could be concealed behind cabinetry are made so. The pipes in the bathrooms, however, are all flush-mounted.

Exhaust pipes had also been configured here on the ceiling (of the utility room). Unfortunately, these are going to be exposed. I wish they could be prettier but these are what they have. It’s good however that these are confined to the utility room!

All these pipes, both for water and exhaust air, are integrated in the house’s heating system. This fridge-looking box here is the heart of this heating system and partly also the ventilation system, which I’ll talk about in another post.

Exterior Wall Rendering

Lastly the white stripes (non-bricked exterior walls) in the back and front of the house had just been rendered. Here’s the one in the back. We thought they won’t be painted over until next week but we were there yesterday and it looked like they already did. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of painted facade, but it’s very similar to this…just whiter.

The masons were also back for a day to do the rowlock sills. It’s the bricking of the exterior window sills as in photo below. Sorry I don’t have a proper photo. This is just cropped from photo above.

So that was it! Next week will be the wall finishing on the ground floor. Installateurs will also be back to start work on the floor for the laying of the radiant heating pipes. So until next week guys!

Das Bauprojekt: Week 4-Part 2

As promised, I’m back with report on the rest of week 4. So Thursday and Friday had been dedicated to the cozying up of the upper floor, readying it for room partitioning and drywalling. But apart from that, a bit of drywalling had also been done downstairs. This is the doorway to the kitchen from the dining/living area, here being framed.

I didn’t realize how thick this wall is. The additional walling for the pocket doors ate a lot of wall space next to the big window in the dining area. I worry a bit about the curtain situation later. Anyway, we’ll see 🙂

Upstairs: remember before this, there were only the rafters and beams. So the walls and ceiling had been stuffed with insulation.

I think it’s about 20-22 cm thick judging from this photo. It is the same material sandwiched between the inner shell and the brick facade in the ground floor. It is thicker here because next to this is just going to be the drywall.

But before the drywall, it had been sealed first with this special foil, to prevent moisture from creeping into the insulation and I guess, vice-versa. I may have spoken too soon about the house being able to breath through the walls. Because it’s certainly not the case here. So part of our house is actually wrapped in plastic!!!

Friday, they’ve battened it up. Now the upper floor is ready for the electrical wiring guys.

They’ve also started the metal framing for the rooms. This side is where the bathroom and guest room are going to be.

Speaking of wiring, D did a little bit of wiring on Thursday. We decided to add recessed lighting along the underside of the eaves in front (pictured below) and back of the house. We have several exterior wall lamps planned around the house but then we realized we only have one in the back.  Considering matters of symmetry and such, I found there’s no space on the wall to put a second lamp. So I suggested recessed lighting under the eaves. However, the electrical people are not coming back until Tuesday (Monday is holiday again!) and by that time, the eaves would be boarded up already, so D offered to lay out the wiring.

So here’s the eaves’s underside that had been sealed with the horizontal soffit. Now we just have to drill through these boards to get to the wires.

These will still get a couple of coats of paint but I’m afraid, we will have to paint them again at some point. We were given a choice before between real wood soffit boards or plastic, which wouldn’t require any repainting. We chose wood of course. Though I’ve seen the plastic… they’re really not bad to look at, to be honest. But I was second-guessing the combination of plastic planks and the wood rafters here at the front entrance. That would not have “worked”, don’t you think?

Oh when I talk like this and about these things, I’m fueling D’s accusation (and some other peeps) that I am “anal-retentive” 😀 That’s the word. Not even “perfectionist” or “stickler”!! Well maybe I am 🙂 … but I’m convinced we should be anyway, especially when it comes to projects like this, which we get to do once in our lifetime, if at all. Oder? 🙂

Das Bauprojekt: Weeks 3&4-Part1

I didn’t do a Week 3 update anymore because there’s really not much to report. After all it was just a short work-week, Thursday being a holiday. The bricking however had been completed. It’s just the grouting now and rendering of the facade. We expected for the windows to be installed on the Wednesday before the Ascension, but it was canceled and moved to Monday. This on top of a choc-a-bloc of other activities already lined up for Week 4. So here’s a partial rundown of the works accomplished this week.

Window Installation

Windows and the shutter casings had been installed on Monday. Here’s a view on the west-side.

About them windows, I can only say that I am VERY happy with our choice 🙂 I’m glad that we didn’t go for the dark frames. I think the white frames contrast very nicely with the dark walls, while also echoing the stripes of white render in front and the wall dormer in the back. To think that my only motivation for staying with white was because I’m a cheap-o and didn’t want to pay extra for color-lamination. So  I guess… I saved money for more aesthetic appeal 😉

Upstairs windows with the shutter casings, which will be covered with plaster later. Now I have to take care where I screw my curtain rod brackets.

Downstairs windows in the dining area. Apart from the kitchen window (one on far left) and two narrow windows in the foyer and guest bath (in photo below), all other windows are leveled with the floor. Now that I see them, I realize that’s a LOT of glass surface to clean. Argh!

Front door (pictured here) and side door had also been installed, meaning the house is not accessible anymore to the Neugierig 🙂 Not that we mind people checking out the premises. I also like checking out other people’s houses 😀

Roof Tiling

Roof had been tiled on Monday and Tuesday. This was originally scheduled for Wednesday after the windows had been installed, I think because of the skylight. So we were surprised to find the Dachdecker there tiling away on Monday. Here’s a photo of the tiled roof in front.

Here’s one while they’re tiling the back. As with the other works, it’s just hard to keep up! They are recht schnell. The next thing we know, it’s done! And always, we miss the crane 😦

A closer look at the tiles.

I’m happy we skipped the slate sheet cladding on the eaves boards (here the white boards). If you go back to the first photo above, I love the way they framed the roof; again lending that nice touch of contrast to the dark roof (and walls). As if by accident, everything seems to be working out together seamlessly (so far). Because to be honest, I didn’t have pictures of details like these in my head when we were picking materials or deciding whether to add a certain detail or not. Sometimes we think they’re just minor decisions compared to things like the roof or bricks. But I am one who thinks that details like these make the difference… although of course they could also be the undoing of your entire concept.

Going back to the roof, need I say that I love it (them tiles)? :-), me posting 3 close-up photos when one would do. I knew the first time I laid eyes on them that I WANT them. I mean I would LOVE to have them. However I also knew that they’re not in the standard package. The original are the classic corrugated tiles, which are also pretty. Just that I find these schlichter, cleaner, and more consistent with the modern vibe I’m going for. But as with all non-standard stuff, there’s always the premium to be paid. So I would’ve gladly stuck with the standard, if not for the superb haggling of dear father-in-law, who managed to get the cost of the upgrade halved. So YAY! 😀

Electrical Wiring

Electrical wiring began on Monday and will run until next week. Wiring on the first floor had already been completed on Tuesday. They’re just waiting now for the upper floor to be insulated and boarded up, then they can continue with the wiring there. You’ll see here that clusters of wires, encased in orange tubes, will run underneath the floor; while wiring for switches and outlets along with the casings already embedded in the walls.

This is in the living room. The right wall will be the TV wall so D had it peppered with lots of outlets and various other hook-ups for internet or satellite. I don’t know. D did most of the e-planning.

Here will be the kitchen. The wiring here was planned by the kitchen dealer, which we communicated with the electrical wiring guys. The kitchen guy, who was there Wednesday for the measurements, said wiring is as planned so that’s good.

This is going to be the laundry area. Well, the only place where they did something “wrong”. Actually there’s one other but I’m not going to talk about that anymore. You’ll see on the left side 2 electrical casings which are going to be the outlets for the washer and dryer. They had it wired 1.2 meters above the floor, I guess assuming that the machines will be stacked. We’ve mentioned several times that we want the machines side-by-side. For some reason, this has not been reflected in any of the revised plans so we thought they must have it noted somewhere. Anyway, this shouldn’t be too hard to correct. The only thing that will probably bother me is that I wanted the outlets above the counter to be on the left side. Exactly those that are now wired for the washer/dryer. Unfortunately, we cannot switch these anymore as they are already configured in the main switchboard. Well I suppose I’ll just try to live with outlets in the middle instead. Oh Pech!

Sorry I have to stop here. I’m already over 1,000 words. Yes I talk too much!!! So the works I described above are 2 days worth of work (Monday and Tuesday). Wednesday (yesterday) was the weekly meet-up with the Engineer who reported that everything had been done up to his standards, except for a minor sealing issue with a window upstairs. The drywallers are starting today until next week. I will report on other activities by end of this week. Stay tuned!

Das Bauprojekt: Roof Framing

Day-to-day goings-on at the Baustelle on week 2 have been harder to document. First because we’ve completely missed the highlight of this week’s work, which was the roof framing. It would have been awesome to see the actual hoisting of the wood beams….with spectacular crane maneuvering 😉 D was disappointed of course and actually so was I. So not seeing that was a bummer. And second because other than the roofing, there was really only the continuation of the walling.

Monday was quite relaxed. No work was really done on that day. But we’ve met with the site engineer. He did the inspections and reported a few spots which didn’t satisfy him. It’s hard to tell when something was done subpar, because to me everything looked quite alright. So they say, it’s critical to have an expert check the completed works before moving on because it’s hard to correct/undo things once they’re covered up. While I have full confidence in our engineer and believe him to be thorough and exacting, we felt it may still be worthwhile to hire an independent building surveyor because after all he is employed by our builder. Overall though, I think he’s wonderful…not to mention someone with whom I’m sure many of my single lady friends wouldn’t mind being acquainted 😉 Oh gee, hope he’s not reading this blog 😀

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the roof was framed and boarded up. This was really blitzschnell. Some of the neighbors even came up to us when we were there in the afternoons and told us how astoundingly fast everything was. The work still involved a lot of physical labor and I’m sure having power tools helped. But I think it’s mostly the organization and precision of their work that made this possible. It must be a true display of German efficiency 😉

Anyhoo, here is how it looks like now in the front and back. The scaffolding and pile of earth obstruct the view a little bit but both sides are already walled up all the way to the eaves.

Just to see what it was like last week.

And here are some photos of the roofing works that we managed to capture. Weather was terrible on those days. Rain poured heavily for a moment, then sun shone through for bit, then came hail. It was crazy. These guys did scramble to have the roof foiled-up and secured.

Temporary stairs to the upper floor has also been setup so we were able to see what was going on there.

You can see here that the eaves sides are not walled on the inside but are wood-framed and affixed with the rafters. So the entire roof structure will rest on these vertical posts. The facade however will be bricked/rendered as in the lower floor, but here will be insulated and then dry-walled. I’ve heard some people criticize this particular feature of the Viebrockhaus, saying that it’s not really massiv as they claim the house to be because it’s more customary to have these sides also walled up. But I think, the main object is to have the house as sealed as possible and maybe this method is more time- and cost-effective. I assume this also does not really make the structure less solid or stable.

So while the roofing is happening, the masons/bricklayers have been equally fleißig with their work. The gable walls have been walled up on Thursday and also almost completely bricked.

Have I mentioned that we also already got the day-to-day schedule? complete with the types of work expected to be done per day and the companies responsible for them. As per this schedule, final hand-over is set for the first week of July! It basically says that indeed they only need 12 weeks to finish everything. Unfassbar eh!