First Floor – Building a House in Germany Blog

Interior Doors, Skirting Boards and Laminate Floor

Our interior doors and skirting boards on the ground-floor and the cellar are installed. One man arrived (completely on his own) on Thursday and installed 6 door frames (complete with hinges), then came back again on Friday and installed the skirting boards.

The doors are not hanging yet, as the adhesive that holds the door frames in place needs a day or two to completely set first. All we need to do is to lift the doors onto the lugs, in a few days time.

The first-floor doors and frames have not been installed yet (although it was originally planned that these would also be done). It is simpler when this is done after the laminate floor is laid, so he will come back and do them another time.

On Friday, we started laying the laminate floor. The first room (bedroom) is now finished. Four rooms to go!

We will install the first-floor skirting boards, after the door frames are done.

Only 50 Days To Go

From August 8th 2016 (when we first found the plot that meanwhile belongs to us) to April 19th 2017 (the planned final handover date) is in total, 255 days.

Just over 200 of these are now behind us, and there are just 50 days more to wait.

Essentially the construction of the house is already completed, and the work that remains to be done is more or less the same as ‘redecorating’ would be – painting, tiling and bathroom suite installation.

Of course, there are a few other things still to be done as well:

The electrician still has to connect up all the wires and the electricity, water and telephone connections are still to be done.
The solar inverter and battery (finally we have confirmation that we are getting the Tesla Powerwall) are still to be installed.
The stairways and interior doors have to be installed.
The kitchen has to be installed (immediately after the final handover from Viebrockhaus).

When walking around the house now, it is looking almost finished and it definitely feels like we are on the home straight…

Entrance Hall: Dining Room, Lounge and Kitchen: Utility Room:
Landing:
Bathroom:
Bedroom:
Guest Bedroom:

Office:

Over Half Way with the Bricks

Since it has been warmer in the last couple of days, the bricklayers have made a huge amount of progress, and are on target to be finished by Wednesday.

The windows and doors should then be, as planned, installed in the second half of the week.

p1010070 p1010072 p1010082

Another Brick in the Wall

Since I was out early for a 7am haircut, I dropped by the site at around 7.30am.

It was still dark, and the builders were still sitting outside in their vans. It was the first time I have arrived before they had started work! They had however switched on the lights and radio, so I was able to go in and have a look upstairs.

There is not much place to walk about, as they have stocked up with building supplies before they put the roof on (while they could still use a crane to do save all the lifting and carrying!)

Finally today it was a little warmer, and they have been able to continue with the bricklaying.

One of the long sides of the house is now bricked up to the top of the ground floor level, the other long side is about half-way up, and the ends are not started. Hopefully, it will stay warmer for a few days to let them get that finished by the middle of next week. After that, the weather will be a much less important factor.

We’ve got a Roof

Due to needing to be at the office early, we were not able to visit the site this morning, but our new neighbours were there and were very kind and sent some photos to us 🙂

The roof had already been unloaded from the truck and was being lifted into place.

By lunch time, almost all of the rafters were in place and covered, so the house is now waterproof from above. Yesterday the stairs led to nowhere, but today we can say that we (almost) have a first floor!

Later in the afternoon, the builders had already made a lot of progress with the blocks for the gable ends.
p1040544 Today, we also received an e-mail with a detailed plan of what will be done each week until the house is finished.

The next major milestone should be reached next week – when the doors and windows are scheduled to arrive.

Stairway to Nowhere

So far this week, its been somewhat too cold for bricklaying, therefore no real change to the appearance of the house since the photos at the weekend.

Hopefully, it is going to warm up again by the end of the week, and they can continue with the bricks.

The builders, however, have kept busy – the interior walls in the cellar are now finished, and they have tidied up (not that it was particularly untidy even before they did!) both inside and out.

We also now have wooden staircases going both up to the first floor and down to the cellar.

We went up the stairs to have a look, but of course, the first floor is not there yet. Just a concrete floor, but no walls!

We had a quick talk with the builders, who were also having their lunch break, and they confirmed that the roof is coming tomorrow.

I had thought that they needed to build the walls up further before that, but no, the wooden joists sit on top of the ground floor, and the gaps get filled in afterwards.

Hopefully, we will have some pictures tomorrow.