Neighbor's house

This is how cool the neighbor's house and surrounding looked like on christmas eve!

staircase in place!

Matt did a great job together with staircase-carpenter-man. We now have a very nice stair case which we'll paint petroleum (we think) asap. George loves it too, and it's great not to be terrified everytime he wants to go down it. The old one serves as a short fence until it will end up on the fire...

Same day (Monday), the marble worktop arrived! It took five men to carry it up the snowy slope, I had to go outside, was too nervous to look... Now it is in place, looking gorgeous. Already noticing its ability to stain by only standing next to it, so will have to be extra tidy and wipe it down all the time. I'm happy with that, means we'll have a clean kitchen...

Let it snow let it snow let it snow

Matt just sent me this. Nice huh, wonder who lives there?

Bathroom floor

Very annoying to lay, but oh how beautiful. And yes, we still stink, but we do wash properly everyday...

And yesterday we put the kitchen lights in! Sooo nice. Will be connected before Christmas, hear hear!

And we're in!

Believe it or not, but we're in! First night was spent without heating... Poor George had double tops, sweat pants and socks on, myself and Matto had full gear too. We all slept really well though (exhaustion most likely or perhaps it was the champagne), but nice to be in the house finally! The heating is still not working upstair actually, need to get to the bottom of that problem, but nice and warm downstairs, and it seems to creep upstairs somehow a little too, so that's good.

We still don't have a shower (so yes we stink) but we have a toilet and a basin, and yesterday Matt got the gas stove to work too!

And currently, the very brilliant Mr Squire Senior is here to help, and boy is he helping! Sorting us out completely, thanks Andie!

More updates to follow shortly, plus imagery, but in the meantime, here's life in the house (no furniture in living room area cause the electrician needed to get to the space but you get the picture)

So close...

Yesterday we spent the whole day cleaning! Well, and other bits, but mostly cleaning, and putting fridge and freezer into tall kitchen cupboards. And I stained the bedroom floor. It is now walnut colour, very nice indeed!

Before we left for the night we put some bits of furniture out, just to get a bit of a homely feel. It felt sooooo good! And looks lovely too! Even though we realised our furniture looks quite small, and boring haha! Good excuses for buying new stuff, but won't have any money left...

Moving in date is now Wednesday (better keep since Matt's dad's coming on Thursday...). Fingers crossed everybody! All we need now is the heating pump and stove to work. Who needs a shower and floor boards everywhere? Or a proper worktop or shelves in the wardrobe.. ; ) Things will come to those who wait.

ps. on the last pic you can catch a glimpse of the large window wall upstairs! the front wooden bit will be painted white.

Hello everybody, we've almost got a finished house...

...hrmmm, well, almost that is. BUT, a lot has happened since I last had time to update the blog. Will try to fill you in with some of it!

- The downstairs concrete floor has gone down. Looks bloody marvellous! Has been covered with paper for the last few weeks, but we've been sneeking peaks and now we've uncovered most of it! Sooo nice!
- We've laid a lot of wooden floorboards... Yes, and the work is still going on. Ran out of good ones so waiting for another delivery which we don't know when it will arrive... In meantime we will put large wooden sheets down (typ plyfaskivor) to avoid walking on the Pex pipes.
- Matt and trouper Paul (who deserves a medal!) have been brilliant at painting and skimming (spacklat) the walls. Look at how NICE it's looking!
- Also had help from my dad, from Arnfinn and son Lasse, to put together all the kitchen cabinets and put them in place, and et voila, now you get the feeling of a kitchen!! Oh, and would like to add that I helped carry the new stove up the slope... heeavy, yessurri!
- Outside heating pump was put in position by Arnfinn, Lasse and Matt, and yesterday the chill guy (or whatever he's called), came to connect it. Very good
- The bathroom is coming along! And I'm doing it all! Mad isn't it!
- AND, the huge glass wall separating the upstairs lounge room from downstairs is in! It looks frickin amazing! No pics yet, but will come tomorrow or so! Including a pic of the smaller glass wall by bathroom though!
- There is also plywood around the windows on the inside, looking very smart indeed. Need to decide wether or not to paint them black.

And so now all we're waiting for is all the rest... The final bits of the plumbing (will we or will we not have a toilet by the end of the weekend... will we or will we not have a functioning kitchen tap, etc. etc.) Our crazy plan is actually to move in on Sunday... We need to now. We need to give mum and Arnfinn the flat back, we need to be in the house so we can work easier in the eveninge. We need to spend more time with George.

The story continues...

ps. Had a huge falling out with the builder boss last weekend, but everything should be back to the original plan now. Which is good. Just mentioning it makes me feel really really tired...

More cladding

Finally, almost all the cladding is on...

We've also got doors! But unfortunately we're not 100% happy with the result. They don't line up properly. Have already spoken to Nordhus about it, and as always, they have been very accommodating and are looking into it.

Other things on the agenda:

- Inside staircase. Met with them today and we measured everything, but will have to do the final measures once the floor is in. There had also been a little misunderstanding regarding design (and price), which is now sorted with both parties happy.
- The heating pump will be delivered next week!
- Argued with Schenker on the phone who wants more money to deliver our wooden floor... That is not going to happen! Update to follow...
- Did a revised order for floor heating stuff, so that Westcon can finalise it.
- Toilets have arrived from Germany today!
- Will pick up 'wet proofing' materials from a friend tomorrow. Will get on the case this weekend and also paint the last bits of the outside of house!

Next week:
- Bottom layer of concrete floor, downstairs, to go down on Friday!
- More skimming of walls (spackling)
- Painting (?!!)
- Laying wooden floor next weekend
- etc. etc. etc.

With a little help from our friends...

...Petra, Kim, Cissi and Henrik, at the weekend, we managed to shift a HUGE pile of rubbish (it was half way up the pine!) and take it to the recycling place. Filled the lorry up twice. The girls also did a bit of painting, and the boys helped out with the water pump (which had broken for the third time, but not really cause we managed to connect it and then it worked again...)

THANK YOU SO MUCH for all your help! We're very grateful! It gave us the energy to stay and finish off the floor heating (meaning Matt spent 14 hours at the house on Saturday... new record?)

Oh, and me and Petra took a morning trip to Hornbach and bought ten (10) inside doors too...

Also, the living room window is in! It is big! And lovely!

Under floor heating

Right, so we've finished the under floor heating! Last weekend. Matt did most of it actually, I was helping as best as I could, but he did a brilliant job, and it looks very professional! Fingers crossed it works professionally too...

The other pic just shows work-in-progress really...

Matt just sent me this...

... the cladding finally going up on the back! Whohoo! The builders have put focus on the inside but is now also finalising the outside. Looking good! Matt's out there being the top man - making tracks for the underfloor heating with a funny looking machine. At the weekend we'll be spending lots of time out there to put the piping down. Fingers crossed.

And more pics to come from progress inside!

Update

It's been a while... Been so extremely busy, but here's the current status:

- All windows are in apart from the large window wall in living room. That is going in next week after they have removed the lift used to put the ceiling plaster boards in place.
- All ceilings downstairs now have plasterboard
- The electricians have made progress, more is needed, will come shortly!
- Inside walls have gone up!
- Matt's friend Paul has started with the skimming of the walls (spackling)
- Danne will come and help us with the painting, bless him!
- Matt and myself to start putting underfloor heating down at weekend.
- Floorboards for upstairs will be ordered
- We've found really nice wash basins for the bathrooms which we'll order
- Matt's looking into marble work top for kitchen
- I am ordering toilets (yep that also has to be done)
- we'll be ordering the new kick-ass heating pump from Nibe, called Nibe Split
- we won't be in by end of october, but HAVE to be in by the weekend after... fingers crossed everybody!

It's a miracle!

You've doubted us, we've almost doubted ourselves, but in the back of our heads we knew we'd come through... Introducing the Leach Squire Kitchen! Oh yes! And we both love it! Some minor changes will be done, but this is basically it!

Black plywood doors. Back wall painted black. Marble tops and brass (mässing) backsplash if possible! Baking, cooking, mixing, trixing!

Put your tongues back in, stop dribbling, this one belongs to us.... squeek squeek, that's my head growing again... Seriously, it feels great to finally have it sorted, and we are both so excited about it!

Update!

Slowly but surely... And this week lots of visible progress! Me, Matt and lovely Arnfinn went out to paint the outside of the house the other day. Transparent protective stuff, UV-lasyr in Swedish. Looks fab! And it didn't take too long, so that was good.

Bedroom window wall's gone in, looks amazing, can't wait to lie there and look at all the land that belongs to us... haha, can anyone hear my head growing...

The living room ceiling has been lowered too, and the lounge room above the kitchen now exists! Wicked!

We'll be going out at the weekend to paint another layer and sort out the water pump once and for all (which broke again but we've bought super stuff to fix it!)...