We are in!

Sorry I have been so late posting this but things have been really chaotic and we just got the internet last night. Finally.

Anyways, we are now in the house, there are still some things to finish up (yard, Alice's room is still a storage room, small odds and ends...) but we are in. We still don't have picts of everything yet but more will come soon.

Here is a pic of part of our yard and the kids playing.

A fairly old pic of the kitchen. Will have to get a more recent picture soon.

Another view of the kitchen.

Dining room

living room

almost there!

well the plumber has almost finished installing everything and Andrea and his brother started putting up the light fixtures. Problem is that many of the lights don't work and so we have to call the electrician and find out why.

Note on the photos- many of these are crooked, the sink, etc are not crooked, it was just a really bad photo since I was in a hurry.

main bathroom: bathtub, toilet and bidet.

main bathroom: sink, toilet and washing machine (still not put in place yet).

The sinks, bidet and toilet are the same for both bathrooms.

our bathroom: shower =)

washing machine. it might seem strange to be so excited about having a washing machine but when you go for years without one, you would understand =).

dryer (still in kitchen, should be brought up today I think)

kitchen: sink and dishwasher are in and now we are trying to find a color for curtains to close off under the counter.

living room: one of the non working lights (we can mold the light legs or whatever in whatever shape we want so it might get changed later on) and the doors to bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. that are waiting to be installed.

Picts and update

Well the cleaning party was canceled and the heat pump still does not work. We will be staying in this apartment for at least another month, if not more.

The good thing tho is that other things have been moving along such as window shutters, dirt for the yard, painting and tiles.

Living room and part of dining room

Kitchen doorway to the dining room

corner of the kitchen... the stove will be at the end of the counter.

Other corner of the kitchen where the pantry and fridge will be.

Some of the shutters have been put up.

well....

The good news is that I have started cleaning out the house and packing some stuff.

The bad news is that some of the bathroom tiles that we had ordered 2 weeks ago still aren't in yet and the heating pump or whatever it is we have does not work. There are some people out there today to take a look at it and some coming out tomorrow afternoon I guess to take a look also but I have a bad feeling about it.

We still are set to have the 'cleaning party' on the 5th but if the heat does not work, we can't move in. So wish us luck!

We're getting there!

More and more is being done everyday now... These picts were as of yesterday morning... the kitchen counter has been put in and they are getting further and further along with the flooring, walls, etc. We also picked out the paint color which they will be doing next week. The ceilings are being done right now.

Bathroom walls and floor. Still to be painted.

Close up of kitchen counter top

Kitchen counter... it is a bit of a mess right now but will get some more picts later when you can actually see all of it.

WooHooo!!!!!!!!!

Warning: It is 7am, my mind does not start working til somewhere around noon so I am sorry if this post does not make to much sense. Just try to follow around and enjoy this picts! =)

Went to the house yesterday and found that the main door is in, the flooring in the upstairs is finished (working on the molding thing or whatever that goes around the wall/floor) and needs to be grouted now. Also the wall that will be tiled in our bathroom is almost finished.

A lot of people will be coming this week, painter, tiler, electrician, plumber...... this is one week that I will not be asking Andrea for the exact days that so and so will be coming, what they will be doing, etc.

We also will be meeting with a gardener soon so that we can get an estimate for tearing up all of the ground so that I can re do everything. For right now we are just going to be putting down some more dirt and doing the hole thing in grass.. later on when we get the money to redo the fence and everything, we will put in an actual garden.

The stairs/flooring

Our bathroom wall and floor. The wall will be tiled all the way up but the rest of the walls will be like a cream color so will not be too dark and over all result will be nice =).

Alice's bedroom. As you can see, the molding is done in this room.

The door!!

The front of the door from a distance.

WINDOWS!!

The windows are in!!!

I am so happy that I can finally write that the windows are all in! I was not too happy at first when Andrea told me that the windows were white but now that they are in I like them. There is a problem with the top hallway window/door since it is curved... it does not open all the way and hits the wall but they have a solution for that tho I have no idea what it is. The main door came and left again since there was a problem with the frame or something. Whatever the problem, it is a minor one and the door will be in place soon.

Now just the electrician, the plumber, the painter and the tiler have to come and we can move in! I was even able to talk Andrea into getting the painter to do the bathrooms first so that we can get the plumber in to install the sink, etc asap so that we don't have to wait until the painter is done =).

Also thanks to some wonderful friends, I will have some help cleaning up the house before we move in so it will not take very long at all. Thank you guys!

Anyways, that is all until next time..............

One of the windows of our bedroom, seen from where our bed will be.

Window to balcony of Mattia's room.

Front of house. Yes, there is a piece of the balcony missing.. it is out getting redone.

Side of house.

ugh

The windows will be coming in not this week but next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. If they are not in, I will be getting the phone number of the people who are supposed to put them in and will start callling and calling and calling until they do come. =D

Since it is so cold, we have to wait til the windows are put in until we put the flooring down and so they will hopefully be putting that down at the very end of the week next week or Monday of the week after. As soon as the flooring is put in, we can start slowly moving some of the stuff over which will be real nice! =)

At least they are still working on the place tho and doing the sewer system as well as installing the bathtub I think.

So photos will not be here this weekend but the one after.

New Year, New house... soon.

No photos this time but I hope to be able to put some up this weekend.

The window guys are coming to put in the windows this Thursday (knock on wood), the sewer system will be done tomorrow (Wednesday), the tiles of the basement are finished and all of the heating system and water tanks are in and are doing a great job of taking up every bit of space in the basement. The bathroom sinks, toilets, bidets, bathtub and shower have arrived.

Next week (we hope) we will start putting down the floor tiles of the house. The kitchen counter top (the one that we had fallen in love with... the picture is in a previous post) has been ordered and should be in by the end of the month. Also we went out the other day and ordered all of the inside doors. They are not the nicest, and actually one of the cheapest that we could find but I think that they will still look good.

And this all means that we get to go to my favorite store: Ikea! =) For some strange reason Andrea is not nearly as excited about it as I am. Ok, to say that he is really NOT looking forward to it is more accurate. However this way we get to order the kitchen island/bar and get all of the loose ends, mainly stuff for the kids rooms.

And soon we will be in the house and I won't be tempted to jump from the balcony because of chasing Alice around as she gets at the tv (she won't be able to over there) and undoes the gates (new gates =) ). Also since she will have her own room we can put her to bed whenever and we won't have to wait anymore til Mattia goes to bed before we put her to bed. Oh and forgot to mention that two of us will actually be able to be in the kitchen at once! =) =) =)

Hmmm.... can you tell that I am looking forward to moving?

Well, best be off now... again, I hope to be able to post some picts this weekend or early next week.

Later!

flooring and walls

We just went and ordered the tiles for our floors and bathroom walls. We decided against the wood since it was way too expensive.

Flooring

Bathroom walls.. will only be doing part of the walls with this.

Set Back

Well things have been put on hold a bit. Work has stopped until January and so the new move in goal is middle of March or so. We really hope that the new owners of this apartment that we are in right now do not rent it out right away. If they do, we will be homeless until the house is ready.

So please wish us luck =).

See ya next year!

Heating

Well our house now looks like it is ready for the holidays! This is the floor heating and the oustide paint job. We now have to wait til the windows are ready (they 'should' be ready at the end of this month.. we shall see), put the windows in and then turn on the heat to make sure that all is working. Then we put down the flooring =).

We are trying to decide right now if to do the floor of the entire house in that tile (posted a picture awhile ago) or to do just the kitchen and bathrooms in that and the rest of the house in bamboo flooring. Any opinions?

Update

Well part of the house has been painted (the outside), the wall of our bedroom/closet has been put up and the under roof is almost done (insulation and small wall to block it off so we don't waste heat). The balcony has been partially repared and painted. The rest of it is staying as is since it is way to expensive to do it all.

We had a 'discussion' on if to do a gray 'frame' around the windows on the outside or not (just paint around the windows gray) and I am happy to say that we will not be doing it. It is I guess common on old homes here but I think that number one, it is ugly and number two, if it was a darker yellow (like some of the older homes), it would be one thing but since it is a faint yellow, it would not look good at all (read reason number one).

Anyways, here are the picts =)

Closet wall, on the right will be our bed and you can see the door to the closet just left of the center of the photo. The doorway on the left is the doorway of our room.

The inside of the closet

Outside wall of closet

Paint color

The outside

The house is moving along, the insulation is up, the stone at the bottom of the door is in and they are doing the last layer of stucco on the inside walls (the part that they then pain). Then they will be putting up a fake wall thing in our bedroom for our closet area and then the plumber will be coming to lay down the floor heating.

Still hope to be in during the holidays (between Christmas and the 8the of January).

Forgot to mention that they are also doing restoration work on the balcony =).

No picts til next week..

Was not able to get picts this week, but.....

The tubes, wires, etc for the plumbing and electricity is in and they have put down the plaster or whatever to cover them up.

The insulation is finally here and they have started putting that up last Friday but today it is raining (I hope just for today) and so will not be able to work on that today.

Also the kitchen walls have been fixed... they were a bit too tall and so they cut them down a bit.

Good news... we will be able to get the kitchen counter top that we wanted since we will be getting a huge discount (but that is another story).

Anyways, it is all moving along fairly well and still plan on moving during Christmas holiday. For those of you that don't know however, Christmas holiday lasts til the 8th of January, so that does not mean by Christmas time.... altho I really hope that we will be in by then.

Will put up pictures next weekend.

Ciao Ciao!

More pictures....

And here are some more photos =)

Outside wall/front of the house, 2nd floor, standing right outside of Mattia's french window.

2nd floor hallway... taken from in between our bedroom and Alice's, looking in to Mattia's.

Our bedroom. Mattia is standing in the doorway and the door next to him is where our bathroom will be.

Front door view from the stairs.

Andrea is standing at one of the windows in our bedroom. Pic taken from Alice's room.

pictures!

Ok so we finally went to the house AND remembered to take the camera =).

Kitchen. This is where the fridge and the pantry is going to go.

Kitchen. Corner of kitchen... the half walls sticking up will be the cabinets.. it is a built in kitchen.

Looking into living room corner from dining room.

Living room as seen from dining room.

Dining room as seen from living room.