Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bathroom tiling and more landscaping

Another week closer to the handover, and another week's worth of progress.

On arrival, we couldn't help but see yet another fundamental leap forward in the landscaping. It had snowed last Monday, so we'd really hoped for little or no progress. But, in keeping with the weird winter we've had, the snow had pretty much melted away by Wednesday, so the landscapers had clearly resumed.


The parking area has (finally) been correctly levelled, shored up both uphill and downhill, and there'd even been a little progress on the paving stones. About a third of 'em are down, and the rest are on pallets sat on (ahem) our neighbour's land. If the weather holds (a big if) then we can expect the rest to be down by the end of next week, and maybe even the various trimmings done, such as edging stones and whatnot.

As usual, I mentally turned my car into the driveway, and found plenty of (mental) space for the swing in. Reassuring Claudia will remain a chronic task, one thinks, perhaps ending a few weeks after we've moved in. I've seen (and driven into) plenty of tighter driveways over the years, so I reckon after a few hiccups we'll be feeling our way in and out with nary a thought.

Inside the house, we raced to the downstairs bathroom, right next to the front door, to see the results of the tiling...


...and we were very very happy indeed. The light grey tiles had been a significant point of discussion during out Hartenfels trip (only nine months ago, wow!) so the overall effect was, well, both reassuring and simply great. The shower base had been installed, and short of the loo and shower cabinet, the general outlines of the downstairs bathroom are now there. If yer squint yer eyes, that is. Hmm, might be better to close them entirely.

But it was the upstairs bathroom that blew us away.


Bath pedestal, shower base, boxy thing where the sink's will go, all present and correct. Again, the loo and shower cabinet were absent, but the overall shape and spaciousness of the bathroom was quite simply great. When you're in the middle of a building project, surrounded with mud, concrete dust, wires coming out of the walls, and Lord Knows what else, it's easy to forget the reason for all this: we're here to build a beautiful house, with beautiful bathrooms, and a beautiful (meaning bloody expensive) kitchen. The progress in the bathroom was a welcome taste of, erm, taste to come.


Lastly, as we left, we spotted the The Mystery Box mounted on the exterior wall of the kitchen. Does anyone out there have any ideas as to its purpose? We're at a complete loss...

Next week, the parquet flooring work begins according to the schedule. It'll need two weeks of nailing down, which makes me wonder. Is that one week preparation followed by a week of yer actual fact bonding of wood to floor? Or will we be seeing some parquet during next weekend's progress trip?

Stay tuned, folks!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could the Mystery Box contain external meters for the electicity supply?

Ric Capucho said...

Turns out that you're right. It's a standard Swiss electricity meter and supply box. One thing we didn't notice is that the snaky cable from next door's gone 'cos we're on the proper mains now. Compare and contrast with the pain poor old Mr Bob Salmon's been through with his electric company. Our Swiss supplier just turned up and did it, no fuss.

mark in the park said...

We really love the tiles in your bathrooms please could you tell us what they are and where you got them from?

Ric Capucho said...

Hi Mark,

The tiles are out of the standard Huf Haus catalog. No extra charge at all.

Regards,
Ric

Cecile said...

The bathroom tiles are beautiful and well crafted. How did you get the design? Are these handmade for you or readily available in the market?

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Ric Capucho said...

Hi Cecile,

The bathroom tiles were simply selected from the range of standard Huf Haus ceramic tiles. They also offer an upgrade to stone slate tiles, but we were pleased enough with the ceramics, and went with those.

Ric