Week 1

During our first week as house owners we accomplished more than I had hoped for.
Saturday, November 24th:
On Saturday, the 24th of November we started working in our house. My parents, their dear friend Siggi, Christian's parents, our friend Niels, and we 3 were there. We measured, inspected, prodded, and evaluated it, collected ideas and started to go to work. The guys hammered out the upstairs tub and threw it out the 2nd story window. It is was one of the old cast iron tubs, so it weighed about a ton. The old sink and toilet came out too, as well as the fixtures. We also started to knock off the tiles in the kitchen. First we thought about leaving them on and just putting new ones on top, but we were one inch short for our dream kitchen (version 1) to fit in. The tiles in the kitchen (as well as the bathroom) were not glued to the wall as one would nowadays, but were pressed right into the mortar. That means a hammer & chisel and a lot of sweat & muscles were needed to take it down.Credits: frame from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com; alpha brush from Summer Bright by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
We also took care of the front garden, by trimming all the trees & bushes and taking down the vines on the side of the house. Now the bottom window gets light and you can actually see our house number.
Credits: stitched frame from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com; alpha brush from Summer Bright by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com

Sunday, November 25th:
On Sunday we planed and prepared everything for the upcoming week and took care of odds and ends from the day before. My mom baked 3 cakes on Saturday evening (I have no idea how she found the energy to do that after working all day and driving an hour home) and we picnicked with my parents and their friends Siggi & Inge in our future living room.
Credits: frame from Unadorned Freebie by [ksharonkdesigns], tape by Gina Marie Huff

Monday, November 26th:
My mom is staying the entire week in Saarbruecken to help work in the house. She is sleeping at my in-laws as we don't have a guest room in our apartment where she can sleep at. She also brought with her today her sister, my auntie Gudrun. Together the three of us took down all the wallpaper on the 2nd floor. Some of them were painted over so many times that neither water nor the steamer had any effect and we had to scratch them off bit by bit. When we removed the ceiling wallpaper we unwillingly took a paint shower. I tell you those little chips of old paint were everywhere and we left a trail of them where ever we went. In the evening we brought my aunt to the train station, where she set off on a 2 hour train ride back to her home.
Credits: frame from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com; ribbon wrap from Warming Heart by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
Even though removing the wallpaper was an awful, no fun task, the three of us were laughing all day.

Tuesday, November 27th:
My mom and me took down all the wallpaper on the top floor and went to the home improvement store, Bauhaus. We looked at some tiles & tubs, checked out the prices on tools, and bought some plaster to redo the walls.

Wednesday, November 28th:
My dad took off work and brought Siggi along. Together they took down old heating expansion, aka the monster, we had hanging from the ceiling on the top floor. I have never seen anything like that before.
Credits: frame from Warming Heart by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
While the guys were busy taking care of the monster, and my mom was removing wallpaper on the first floor, I started to take down the wall between Christian and my future PC/gaming/scrapping room. That was fun. Taking all the stones down afterwards bucket by bucket was a lot of work.
Credits: frame from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonkdesigns] available at twolittlepixels.com; font: Pea Becky

Thursday, November 29th:
Mom and me removed a very ugly and restive wallpaper in the 1st floor bedroom. Can you believe it took us all day? Well it did, and it didn't help that there was another one under it.
Credits: frame and stitching from Fancy Free Freebie by by [ksharonkdesigns]
In the evening we picked up Christian from work and went to yet another DIY store, Globus Baumarkt, and found the perfect sink with vanity for the top floor restroom. And it was on sale too. I love it's simple and sleek look.
Credits: frame from Warming Heart by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com; staple from Unadorned Freebie by [ksharonkdesigns]

Friday, November 30th:
My mom continued removing the 1st floor wallpaper, while I started to pull out the old electrical cords on the 2nd floor. Hammer and chisel were practically glued to my hands all day.
Credits: frame from Simple Sets #20 by by [ksharonkdesigns]; tape by Gina Marie Huff
In the evening I picked up Christian from work and we went to our electricians house. His girl-friend is a co-worker of ours. They basically have the same as house as we do, except they have it already fixed up. It took them 2 years to get it that way, but it was beautiful. Not only did they give us a lot of great ideas as to what you can do and tricks as to how to do it, they also gave us hope that it is possible to do it yourself with some help from the pros. They showed us some pictures of their renovations where I just thought OMG. But when you see what they made out of the place, it was definitely worth it.

Saturday, December 1st:
Today everybody pitched in again: my parents & Siggi, my in-laws, us 3 and our electrician were working in the house. We took more old wiring out of the walls, removed even more wallpaper and some the old water pipes, made holes for the new pipes, partially took down the wall in each bathroom, removed all the tiles in our kitchen and the tiles in both bathrooms including the floor tiles, and removed the toilet and vanity in the top floor restroom. Here are some impressions of what today looked like:
Credits: rectangle frame from Fancy Free Freebie by [ksharonkdesigns]; square frame cluster from Meme Challenge by [ksharonkdesigns]
And what do we have have to show for after week #1? Our garage went from housing a few garden tools in a wheel-barrel to this:
Credits: frames from Seeing Stars by Heidi Williams available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com;