Week 8

Sunday, January 13th - Saturday, January 19th
This week Mr M finished putting up the new drywall in grandma's kitchen and Yves, the electrician, put in the new electrical wires in our living room. We ripped out the old electrical wiring in her hallway and finished the new pipes in her bathroom.
Credits: frame and staple from Faded Freebie by [ksharonk]; font: Ziggy Zoe.

Credits: frame from Delight Freebie by [ksharonk]; staple from Sheer Joy Bonus by [ksharonk];font: Ziggy Zoe.

Credits: frame and tape from Unadorned Freebie by [ksharonk]

Credits: frame from TwoLittlePixels Freebie by [ksharonk]; staple from Sheer Joy Bonus by [ksharonk];font: Ziggy Zoe.

Week 7

Sunday, January 6th - Saturday, January 12th
Credits: template 47 by Yin from simplyyin.blogspot.com; hinge from Knocking On Wood by Gina Marie Huff from Weeds & Wildflowers Design available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com

A chair for a toddler

Take an old 60s cocktail-chair, add two IKEA Saxon bath towels & 4 IKEA Rill furniture wheels and you get a fun toddler chair. Take a look:Credits: frame from Simple Sets #26 by [ksharonk] available at twolittlepixels.com
I was looking all over for a fun and comfy kid's chair for my toddler (& me occasionally) and just didn't find what I was looking for. We had an old 60s cocktail-chair in our basement which was perfect for this project. I sawed off the wooden legs, because they were way too high for my kiddo and screwed on some furniture wheels from IKEA. The bright green IKEA Saxon towels matched the color scheme of his room perfectly and added a bit of texture too. To top it off they are cheap and easy to sew. The seat is just tucked under and stapled to the bottom of the chair, whereas the back is sewed to match the form of the chair and then stapled to the bottom as well. So 2 hours and not even €20 turned an old unused 60s chair into my toddler's favorite spot for reading books.

IKEA shopping-list

I wanted to show you a couple of items on my IKEA shopping-list. Besides the kitchen there won't be that much, because we are taking most of our furniture with us and money is tight. However some things just don't fit into the house. Like right now we have no storage space in our living room, except for DVDs, however we have a long hallway which I packed with Billys that holds a lot of our books, games and decorative items. The house has a tiny hallway in which you can't really put anything so I want to get this Besta combination to hold our games and hopefully most of our books (we read a lot). It will go all the way up to the ceiling.
Our bathroom has a tiny empty corner that I am wanting to use for storing towels and such. I don't have much room depth-wise, so instead of building something, I found this CD/DVD cabinet, called Bertby. I think that will look pretty cool:
For the top floor we will get some low Expedit bookcases, because besides being my favorite design they are exactly the attic wall height. I want a dark one for my room and some light ones for Damien's room.
I can't wait to go to IKEA. *sigh*

Week 6

Welcome to our house. This is what the front door looks like. The Christmas door wreath was made by Chris's mom.Credits: template 9 by Yin from simplyyin.blogspot.com; staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff from Weeds & Wildflowers Design available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
And now to the progress report.

Sunday, December 30th
Chris is at work and I went with the little one to Birkenfeld. There we picked up grandma and went with her to my parents. All together we drove to a furniture store and ordered the new kitchen my grandma picked out. While we were out and about Chris's dad removed the 2nd half of our kitchen floor pavement.

Monday, December 31st
While Christian is at work, his father and I removed all the wall tiles in my grandma's kitchen. He also removed the curtain rail in downstairs bathroom. Christian's mom watched Damien while we were working.

Tuesday, January 1st
Happy New Year! I'm at work and Christian is busy in our current apartment, so no one is working in the house today.

Wednesday, January 2nd
The heating installers put up the bottom of the front-wall installation on the 2nd floor bathroom.
Credits: template 9 by Yin from simplyyin.blogspot.com; staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff from Weeds & Wildflowers Design available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com

Thursday, January 3rd
Went to the house in the morning (I'm on the late shift at the moment) to plan the custom cabinets that will fit in the front-wall installation in our bath.

Friday, January 4th
Chris's dad only works till noon today, so I will pick him up and he is going to drive me around so we can get some building materials and water pipes that are needed for tomorrow's action packed day.

Saturday, January 5th
My dad and Siggi worked on the water pipes. They finished the pipes for the solar panels and did the water supply for the laundry room in the basement. They also started on the pipes in the bottom bath.
Credits: template 9 by Yin from simplyyin.blogspot.com; staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff from Weeds & Wildflowers Design available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
After only an hour we had no more work for Mr M to do, because we are not as fast with the rewiring as he needs us to be. So Christian, his dad, and me did a lot of wall slotting and Yves put in the wiring.
Credits: template 9 by Yin from simplyyin.blogspot.com; staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff from Weeds & Wildflowers Design available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com
I went to work in the afternoon and the guys continued till the evening.
Here is a layout I did for a challenge with a photo my dad took of me with the wall slotter:
Credits: The Wildflower Holiday Collection by Gina Marie Huff, Heidi Williams, and Patricia Christensen available at weedsandwildflowersdesigns.com; red splots by Jana McCarthy available at hand-made-stuff.de; font: 2Peas Scrapbook.

Week 5

Sunday, December 23th
Christian and I worked in the house, taking off tiles and putting slots in the walls for the electrical wiring.

Monday, December 24th
Merry Christmas! No one working in the house today, just some very last minute Christmas shopping and celebrating with the family.

Tuesday, December 25th
Off to Birkenfeld to celebrate there. Not working in the house today.

Wednesday, December 26th
Today we enjoyed a relaxing Christmas day, just Christian, Damien, and me.
Credits: frame from Simple Sets #26 by [ksharonk] available at twolittlepixels.com; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]; font: Joyful Juliana

Thursday, December 27th
My mom and Siggi drove up from Birkenfeld. While Siggi and Christian worked on our water pipes, my mom, Damien and me picked up the insulation and new plasterboards for the top floor restoration. My dad has a small trailer to hook up to the car, so we were busy all morning driving back and forth. After 3 trips we had it all at the house. The dry wall installer, Mr M., started as soon as we had the first load of building materials there. He insulated the entire top floor in one day!
Credits: frame and staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]
My mom took Damien to my in-laws house and played with him and succeeded in getting him to take a nap. In the afternoon I took out the floor pavement in the bottom bathroom with the hammer drill our heating installer kindly borrowed us. I also removed the layer of tile adhesive/concrete from our kitchen floor, but didn't bring it out to the garage yet.
Credits: frame from Unadorned Freebie by [ksharonk]; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]; font: Joyful Juliana

Friday, December 28th
My mom and Siggi are back in Saarbruecken. My mom watched Damien today and Siggi and Christian continued working on our water pipes. Mr M. started putting up the plasterboards, and the heating installers were back to put up the front-wall installation in the bottom bathroom.
Credits: frames from Simple Sets #26 by [ksharonk] available at twolittlepixels.com; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]
Bucket by bucket, I took down all the tiles & rumble from the kitchen and did some finishing touches to the wall slots on the top floor, so Mr M. can put the plasterboards up without the electrical cables getting in the way. I also ran some errands, buying cable, staples for the staple gun, a satellite dish, mail-boxes, etc.

Saturday, December 29th
My dad and Siggi drove up from Birkenfeld and together they continued work on the water pipes. Today they successfully installed the outfall pipe and started installing the pipes to the solar panels. When we are finished we will have two solar panels on our roof to heat the water.
Yves, our electrician, has a middle ear infection and couldn't work today. Poor guy. He did however come by to give us some instructions. Christian and his dad carried up the plasterboards to the top floor. Mr M. worked like a maniac again today. This man doesn't eat, nor does he take a break. He actually puts up the 1250x2000mm (49x78") plasterboards by himself - unbelievable. He finished the two large rooms and did the part of the hallway that was already finished. He went home in the afternoon, because there was nothing else for him to do. Now we have to put up the remaining pipes and cables first, so he can finish the top floor.
Credits: frames from Simple Sets #26 by [ksharonk] available at twolittlepixels.com; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]
Christan's brother, Frank, came by and helped me remove all the built-in curtain rails on our floor. I'm not a big fan of curtains and if it must be, we use curtain rods or preferably the hot IKEA curtain panels. We already have them in the bedroom and I hope we have some money left for the other windows. Frank got the first minor injury in our house while pulling off the rails. I went to get our first-aid kit but he didn't want his finger tended - men...
Credits: small frame from Simple Sets #26 by [ksharonk] available at twolittlepixels.com; large frame called framethanks was a gift from [ksharonk]; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]
In the afternoon I started to remove the floor pavement in our kitchen with a hammer and chisel - what a pain, but I did finish half of the room till it got dark.
Credits: frame from Unadorned Freebie by [ksharonk]; staple from Stationary Plus 2 by [ksharonk]

Week 4

Sunday, December 16th
We were at work in the house again for a couple of hours, but in the afternoon we relaxed at Chris' parents and rested our arms.

Monday, December 17th
We both have to work today, so nothing is happening at the house.

Tuesday, December 18th
The heating installers, Karsten Bruche and his helper Tom, started to put up our new central-heating boiler. Instead of two separate gas boilers, we are going for one large gas condensing boiler with two separate heating circuits and hot water via solar panels. That means they also have to put a pipe in our chimney, because condensing boilers don't create enough heat as the old boilers used to.
The container guy came by and picked up his full container. The plasterboards are hazardous waste, so this will probably cost us a small fortune.Credits: frame & staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com;

Wednesday, December 19th
The heating installers are working on our new heating boiler. In the meantime my mom picked up my grandma and they drove up to Saarbruecken. Together we looked at some kitchens for my grandma and we went to the bathroom showroom, where I showed them what I picked out for her bath. It's going to have a large walk-in shower with a grab handle and a higher than standard toilet. I also got some new ideas for our kitchen, so in the evening I sat down and planned it yet again. We have decided to go with the extreme dark IKEA kitchen (Nexus black-brown) in combination with white counter-tops and some white glass doors (Rubrik white). We are aiming at a sleek lounge look and feel. Kind of like this one from the IKEA homepage:


Thursday, December 20th
Karsten and Tom finished our new gas condensing boiler. Not only were they fast, and the nicest heating installers that made us an offer, but they were the cheapest too! So if anybody in the Saarland region is reading this and needs some help with their heating system, drop me a line via email and I'll gladly give you the contact data.Credits: frame and staples from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com;

Friday, December 21th
Finally I'm off work for Christmas (till New Year's Day). Christian and I worked in the house today, slotting the walls on the top floor.

Saturday, December 22th
My dad and Siggi drove up from Birkenfeld to work on the water pipes. Yves, the electrician, put in the electrical and network cables on the top floor. Christian, his dad and I took off the concrete behind the tiles in the bathrooms and removed the gas water heaters that were in both bathrooms. Christian and I also started to take off the kitchen floor tiles.Credits: frame from Cherish add-on by Gina Marie Huff available at WeedsAndWildflowersDesigns.com;
On the way back my dad not only took Damien with him, but he also took all the bags full of insulation with him to bring them to the garbage recycle yard. His trailer was full to the brim. After dropping Siggi off at home and bringing Damien to my mom, he went to he recycle yard. My poor dad got home after 10pm after unloading all the insulation bags by himself. Thanks dad.