The First Month in Review

Dear Family and Friends,

We have been working on our house for 1 month now and it looks like we have done…

absolutely nothing.

If you are just joining us now, you can check out the first updates here:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

A New Guest

Instead of getting a lot done on our house this weekend, we spent a day enjoying it with a very special visitor: Thomas’ son.

At 18 years old, Thomas’ son does not visit us as much as he used to and he hadn’t had the ability to see the house yet.

We spent Saturday afternoon showing him around and then got out the grill and barbequed for the first time on our patio. #housefirsts

Afterwards, Thomas lit the Swedish log he had made a couple weeks ago from a leftover stump at the house. He was curious to see how it would work out and so was I.

Needless to say, it was FABULOUS! I have always said we need a dedicated fire pit. There is just something special about sitting in front of a fire watching the sun set. Sigh. For me, that is reason number 1 to go camping.

Sunday, we managed to get in a couple hours work before more visitors came bringing ice cream. They wanted to see the house and Thomas had a few questions concerning adding electricity to the garage. I wanted the ice cream.

We spent a couple hours showing them the house and eating ice cream on the patio. Thomas got out the hose and played with the four-year-old visitor. What a relaxing way to spend a hot summer afternoon.

Now THAT is what I call a successful weekend: barbeque, campfire and then ice cream sundaes. So much for the work—it will still be here next week and the week after and the week after that. Family, friends and fun are what are most important to us.

Reality Check

Something nobody tells you about renovating a house: the hardest part is NOT demolition; it’s not tearing down and building up walls; it’s not laying tile or replacing windows. Really, it’s not.

I know, it sounds completely off. That is hard work. It is physically challenging—especially when doing something new for the first time and still learning the techniques.

No, that is not the hardest part. The hardest parts, at least for me, are twofold.

1) “Well-Meaning” Nay-Sayers

All the people (older than us) who look at us when we tell them we have bought a house and their first and only responses are: “Well, now you’ll never have free time again.” They laugh at us and nod knowingly and smugly.

They make the adventure seem like a long dark slog through the worst place imaginable and can really pull you down.

The unfortunate part is: each of these people own their home and have plenty of free time, they like where they live and are yet are looking down at us from above with a superiority complex I just don’t understand. It may be some weird Bavarian “humor” I just don’t get but I really don’t think insulting people is a way to get them to like you or trust you.

Seriously! I try to encourage people starting out on the road I have taken. Never would I laugh at someone or make their road seem harder than mine was. There is no honor in that. It has nothing to do with being “honest”. It’s just mean.

I find that insulting to both Thomas and me. He can shrug it off better than I can, but I also hear him sometimes repeating their words and I know that the negative focus (even in jest) has colored our perspectives.

Lord, help me not to deck the next person who says those things to us—orange is just not a good color on me.

Glass Half Full

I am a glass half full person. Shocking, I know. People who have known me forever and a day know that I have always tended to be “negative”. Therefore, it has been interesting to have people tell me: well, you are just a “glass-half-full” person.

They see my lack of focus on the negative aspects of renovations and my enthusiasm for the change as being a positive person. I think I am just being realistic.

Yes, this is going to be a lot of work. No, it is not as much as if we were building the whole house from the ground up ourselves. The house is not a ruin needing to be leveled or completely torn down to the bones and rebuilt.

These “Negative Nancies” (no, the irony is not lost on me that most of them are men) see us working on the ceilings of two rooms, replacing carpeting and tile in the main rooms, purchasing a new kitchen, and painting (and possibly refinishing) the walls as “insurmountable”.

Heck. On reality TV this isn’t even worth a 1-hour show. There is nothing to see here, folks. Moving on now. Go make someone else’s life difficult.

2) Decisions, Decisions

We have hit the point where we need materials to continue on.

The problem isn’t the drywall for the ceiling. No.

The problem is… the floors. There, I said it. We are getting beat by the flooring.

Before we can move forward, we need to find the time to visit flooring stores and figure out what we want, what we want to afford and find the solution that is on both of those lists.

This is a decision we need to make together, but we are finding it challenging to do just that.

Thomas has told me: “Just pick out the flooring you want and I will install it.” The dream of every woman I know.

Every woman, that is, but me. I want us both to choose things together. I understand Thomas. He says he has no idea or vision of what the house should look like and I obviously do. Clearly, it should be me who decides what we install in the house.

If only I were as secure in my vision as Thomas is in me.

I am just not that person.

To complicate things, the main stores have opening hours here of 9am – 5pm Monday through Friday. Makes it difficult when you are working full time. I hope that we can find some time next week when we have vacation to visit a few stores.

We also have decided that we can wait for a sale or good deal. The idea was great in theory, but now we are feeling the pressure to get moving on this project. Everything hangs together and the we need to find the pieces so they can start “falling together”.

Looking Back: Negative News

When people talk about renovating a house (or building one, for that matter), one of the major topics is always “The Surprise”.

Everyone has one. The major catastrophe unseen during the walk-through or by the building inspector. You just cannot see through walls and floors. Something is bound to come up.

Termites. Water leak. Open electric cables. Rotten wood. Roof structure unstable or needing replacement.

Ours is… not yet apparent. We are hoping that we are among the fortunate few who do not have to face a budget-breaking repair.

A Crack in the Plan

All is not perfect, however. We found a crack through all the tile directly through the middle of the great room. The crack runs from wall to wall and is smack dab in the middle of the room directly where the entrance is. There is no good way to repair it.

Had the tile been something we loved this could have been our catastrophe. Fortunately (I guess?), neither of us were fond of the tile throughout the first floor. It is practical but we had already been discussing the area rugs we would need to purchase to cover up the large expanse of brown Italian tile.

In addition, the crack is only in one room and does not follow through to the back of the house. As the hallway creates a “shotgun” perspective, we would have seen if this crack signified a serious fault in the foundation. It does not.

YAY!

The Forgotten Walls

Yes, we have two walls (and a ceiling) they forgot to plaster. That means that we get to plaster them ourselves. Yay again.

The hardest part about that is going to be matching the plastering technique of the other walls. If we were perfectionists (which we are not—Thomas wants to finish the house before our retirement), we would take a sander to all the walls and refinish them all at once with the same coating. But that is a lot of work and did I mention that we want to finish someday soon?

Electric Shock

Thomas has had some difficulty with the photovoltaic on the house. We knew there may be problems with it but we had to buy it with the house, so we are stuck trying to figure things out. We had someone come over and inspect it and they found a lot of problems, so we contacted the company that initially installed the system.

They finally came out and agreed that there were “issues”.

We contacted our insurance. Thankfully, we had chosen to assume the insurance already on the system—I cannot imagine the headaches we would have had, had we changed providers. They want another opinion.

There is enough here to write a book and we have only owned the system for 3 months. Oy vey.

Looking Back: The Positives Are Better

Let’s be honest here. We have actually found more good news than bad.

We realized when we had the walk-through that some of the wood paneling in one of the bedrooms had shrunk and insulation was visible on the ceiling. It was dark enough, that I was not sorry we had to take it down. Thomas, on the other hand, had kind of liked it. It gave the larger room a cozier atmosphere. If it had not been shrinking, we would have probably left it.

Removing it, however, was a seriously nerve-wracking moment. What would we find? The house was built and insulated in the mid-90s. that meant 12 cm insulation between the ceiling and the roof. The roof was traditionally a ventilated roof and it was not usual for them to tape the insulation seams as they do today.

The energy advisor we spoke with mentioned taping the insulation as the number 1 way to save heating costs and improve the efficiency of our house in general.

Pulling down that ceiling showed us what our roof and insulation looked like. We did not know if the wood was simply paneling on drywall or if it was the roof and wall.

We found 3 extra centimeters insulation and dry-walling taped and sealed. Better yet, we also found out that the insulation above the drywall was taped and sealed. YAY! We have an efficient house!

We assume that the other rooms are the same.

It also appears that the one tree blocking our view from the neighbor’s property will be removed within the near future, as well. As much as we love the tree (what’s not to love—it is a lawsoniana, a Port Orford cedar from Oregon!), we are looking forward to having a great unobstructed view.

We love our view every day and living in the country has so many benefits. We like our neighbors (see my earlier posts), we love the view, we get a lot of tiny visitors throughout the day. Things could really be worse.

More (Tiny) Visitors

This past weekend we also had more visitors than the ones mentioned above. It is becoming quite the ritual. This time, in addition to having human visitors, we had our first forest creatures decide to pay us a call.

Going Bats

The first visitor was discovered by Dominik. Thomas’ son has come to stay with us for the next two weeks and he came with us this past weekend to see the house and help out a bit.

While he and Thomas were moving the ceiling paneling we had stacked in front of the house, they inadvertently uncovered a bat taking refuge there for the day.

WE HAVE BATS!!!!! I am soooo excited! We were hoping to have many forest neighbors and had even talked about building a bat house to convince them to join us. Now we don’t have to.

It turns out that they live in the neighbors’ barn. We get all the benefits with none of the drawbacks. Score!

Our local bat population is stable but not large. That makes it even more special that we have them where we live.

I left to get water in case the bat needed to be revived (it was REALLY hot outside that day). Yes, I ran for water, not the camera. By the time I got back, the bat had just taken off and flew up into the trees. We are thankful that it seemed to be unharmed.

That evening, while we were barbequing and sitting around our first campfire, a bat kept swooping in and out around our lot. I choose to believe that “our bat” was saying hello and choosing to visit his humans again.

Hedge Hopping

I should feel left out but I just don’t. I had my “near-animal experience” later that day. When taking the kitchen scraps out to our compost, I heard something rustling in the hedge. Thinking it was one of our blackbirds, I ducked in to see what was going on. (Some have called me curious).

There was no blackbird. Instead, it was a large field rabbit ducking in for some shade. I just saw the ears and his large feet as he hopped away. But we know they do come all the way to the house.

Our Morning Crow

Speaking of birds—we have a crow that visits us ON.OUR.BALCONY. Yes, he flies up to the balcony and watches us through the window (open or closed makes no difference). He’s been coming around every morning since we started spending the night.

Last week, we learned just how interested he is in us and our lives.

I was getting ready for work in the bathroom when I heard someone knocking on the back balcony window. Scared me to death until I realized we live where no one would climb up onto our balcony to knock on the door. The neighbors are civilized and use the doorbell like God intended.

I looked around the doorway to see the crow watching me from the outdoor window! He had a straight shot into the bathroom.

The only thing I can figure is that he landed on the main balcony, saw Thomas alone in bed and decided to find out what I was doing.

As soon as I saw him, he nodded his head, jumped up onto the railing and flew off.

These visitors will most definitely keep us on our toes. We cannot wait!

I promise to start adding our animal stories to the website when I have time (or when I am tired of painting). Right now I have to leave to fix dinner.

We have company this week. Dominik is staying with us while he attends classes in Munich. It’s my “Mom-time”.

Until next time.