Samstag, 24. August 2013
A new house (3)
The hardwood-floor in the kids' rooms has been laid and each child was allowed to pick the color for the walls.
Ina, August 22nd 2013
Wiebke August 22nd 2013
Katrin August 22nd 2013
Nils August 23rd 2013
Nils' and Katrin's bathroom August 22nd 2013
Ina's and Wiebke's bathroom August 22nd 2013
Donnerstag, 22. August 2013
A new house (2)
While the house's basement was drying the workers continued with the upper floors:
Entrance July 2nd 2013
Living room July 2nd 2013
Dining room July 2nd 2013
Kitchen July 2nd 2013
Master Bedroom July 2013
WIC July 2nd 2013
Wiebke's Room July 2nd 2013
Kid's hall on the 2nd floor July 2nd 2013
Heating system and water tank in the basement July 2nd 2013
Master bathroom July 25th 2013
Kids' bathroom July 25th2013
The house doesn't look almost ready but most of the work is actually done by now: all the walls have been boarded, plastered, and smoothened. What's missing now is just the "final layer": paint, tiles and hardwood floor.
The house doesn't look almost ready but most of the work is actually done by now: all the walls have been boarded, plastered, and smoothened. What's missing now is just the "final layer": paint, tiles and hardwood floor.
Mittwoch, 21. August 2013
A new house (1)
I'm really still planning on finishing our West Coast adventure (it is a great souvenir for us to read this belated diary). But before I do so let me come to more recent events: the construction of our new house.
Our kids just didn't stop growing and their rooms as well as our kitchen and everything else grew too small so that we decided to move out. After a long time of fruitless research for a house (we were even ready to leave the direct surroundings of Laudenbach) we decided to buy a lot in our very cul-de-sac in winter 2011. It is a 684 sqm (7400sft) lot, which is one of the bigger ones here in the south of Germany close to big cities like Frankfurt and Mannheim and especially the kids were happy that they didn't have to change anything again now that they had just adjusted to this area, schools and friends.
The lot was covered by shrubs, small trees and mounts of blackberries that Dietrich and I cut away in a couple days in spring 2012.
July 17th 2012
As our neighborhood is situated in the old Neckar riverbed all the houses need to be built on concrete pillars to prevent them from subsiding.
August 8th 2012
22 enormous wholes have been rammed into the ground by an even more enormous drill and filled with concrete to form the necessary pillars.
Right after that Dietrich sprang into action. As we try to pursue an ecological concept in different aspects we opted for a geothermal heat pump. Our system provides winter heating by extracting heat from shallow heat exchangers that are buried horizontally in 2 to 3 metres (3 to 8 feet). It was hard work but Dietrich and 2 friends (and Nils) also had much fun digging the trenches and burying the pipes:
With the baseplate the hole already didn't look that deep any more:
On the plate they sat the large walls of the basement and insulated it:
October 10th 2012
October 17th 2012
October 19th 2012
The working space around the basement got filled up and then we had to wait through the whole winter before we could have our first afternoon tea in our future living room :-))
(The reason for the long idle time were difficulties with our building project organizer and delays of the house's delivery)
March 2nd 2013
But finally one sunny day in March they delivered our house!
March 4th 2013
As it is a kind of a prefabricated house (you can see the walls on the truck that almost didn't manage to enter our cul-de-sac) so that it didn't take long to have it all set up:
March 3rd 2013
March 5th 2013
March 6th 2013 The ceiling of the 1st floor
The roof being finished the house got the traditional blessing by the carpenters followed by a little party with the workers that had contributed so far to the construction of the house and neighbors and friends (only the first glasses of wine has traditionally been drunk on top of the roof by the youngest carpenter who had to say the blessing and a little poem).
Our kids just didn't stop growing and their rooms as well as our kitchen and everything else grew too small so that we decided to move out. After a long time of fruitless research for a house (we were even ready to leave the direct surroundings of Laudenbach) we decided to buy a lot in our very cul-de-sac in winter 2011. It is a 684 sqm (7400sft) lot, which is one of the bigger ones here in the south of Germany close to big cities like Frankfurt and Mannheim and especially the kids were happy that they didn't have to change anything again now that they had just adjusted to this area, schools and friends.
The lot was covered by shrubs, small trees and mounts of blackberries that Dietrich and I cut away in a couple days in spring 2012.
As our neighborhood is situated in the old Neckar riverbed all the houses need to be built on concrete pillars to prevent them from subsiding.
22 enormous wholes have been rammed into the ground by an even more enormous drill and filled with concrete to form the necessary pillars.
Right after that Dietrich sprang into action. As we try to pursue an ecological concept in different aspects we opted for a geothermal heat pump. Our system provides winter heating by extracting heat from shallow heat exchangers that are buried horizontally in 2 to 3 metres (3 to 8 feet). It was hard work but Dietrich and 2 friends (and Nils) also had much fun digging the trenches and burying the pipes:
August 23rd 2012
In the beginning it looked a little messy but they ended up doing a neat job, didn't they?
August 25th 2012
After Dietrich had buried the loops around the place of our future house the workers could finally come and dig the pit for the basement:
September 21st 2012
With the baseplate the hole already didn't look that deep any more:
September 27th 2012
On the plate they sat the large walls of the basement and insulated it:
The working space around the basement got filled up and then we had to wait through the whole winter before we could have our first afternoon tea in our future living room :-))
(The reason for the long idle time were difficulties with our building project organizer and delays of the house's delivery)
But finally one sunny day in March they delivered our house!
Our house is a low energy house that is built in two corresponding layers. Air is warmed in a winter garden and circulates in the space between the layers and up to the attic. Next to a warming effect that allows us to turn down a ventilation installation that we weren't really fond of.
As it is a kind of a prefabricated house (you can see the walls on the truck that almost didn't manage to enter our cul-de-sac) so that it didn't take long to have it all set up:
The roof being finished the house got the traditional blessing by the carpenters followed by a little party with the workers that had contributed so far to the construction of the house and neighbors and friends (only the first glasses of wine has traditionally been drunk on top of the roof by the youngest carpenter who had to say the blessing and a little poem).
March 14th 2013
Unfortunately, spring brought a lot of rain and although the walls of our house are 100% water proof it came in through the basement's window :-(
June 1st 2013
It went under the concrete in every room of the basement and wholes had to be drilled into the floor so that the blow dryers could dry out all the water:
June 12th 2013
Abonnieren
Posts (Atom)