Huf Haus project blog

Any questions?

2009-11-13T14:27:00.004+01:00

Hi World,

Well, our Huf Haus has been complete for well over two and a half years, and therefore you shouldn't expect too many updates going forward. Or going backwards, either.

Anyways, I'll probably add a post or none each year as and when our car port (finally) gets built, and the garden (finally) gets terraced. However, all such home improvements are subject to the size of my annual bonus... which is subject to the performance of the financial markets... which are subject to the competence of the investment bankers.

So not much bonus expected then, hence no improvements, hence nowt to write about.

Anyways, I've received a couple of Huf-related emails recently, and both queries mentioned what a buggah it was to track down my email address. Hmm, I think the difficulty was the point. Can't receive too few emails, eh?

So here's the official Capucho Query Policy: assuming yer not too shy, then write yer queries as "comments" against this post like wot everyone else does. If your query is a bit too much of a private nature for public consumption (yer planning an S&M dungeon in yer Huf Haus cellar, or whatever) then the unofficial Capucho Query Policy is to email me directly at ric.capucho(at)gmail(dot)com.

Regards to All,
Ric

Kitchens

2008-04-10T09:21:00.024+02:00

I've received a couple of emails over the last year or so, plus the odd comment, asking me which kitchen company we used for our own Huf Haus and why. Well, here's the post I've been meaning to write to give a full and structured answer.

The Capucho kitchen (by Leicht)
One thing that's very noticable when going through the design of your dream Huf Haus is that the Huf people don't include a "standard" kitchen as part of the "standard" house.

Compare that with the bathroom situation where a decent standard comes as, erm, standard, and then a set of options can be applied to upgrade it right up to posh hotel levels of luxury. And if that's not enough for yer, then they have their StilART people waiting in the wings who can design you a bespoke solution, at a cost mind, which would make the Onassis family jealous. But I'd say that 99 times out of 100, there's still plenty of the standard bathroom somewhere underneath even the wildest StilART creation.

So why don't they offer a similar approach for kitchens?

Well, it's because kitchens are too personal, too emotional, too non-standard by their very nature. 99 times out of a 100, the Huf owner wants something different; something completely different, as the Monty Python people would say. So the Huf people pragmatically offers us a 'kitchen base' as part of the package, and that base includes the following:

Floor tiles - similar to the bathrooms and entrance areas

Water pipes sticking out of the walls

Electric sockets in the walls

Electric cables sticking out of the walls

Painted walls and ceiling

Glass in the kitchen window

Air

Erm, that's it

Lemme see, I'll carefully review that list to see if I've forgotten anything. Da di da di dah. Nope, it's all there.

Now most people would consider that to be a bit too minimalist, although I have a mate who wouldn't notice as long as he has somewhere to plug in a kettle. But for the rest of us the concept leads yer to two possible solutions: Call in the StilART people, who will suck on their pencils and work with you to design your wet-dream of a kitchen; or to call in some non-Huf related kitchen people to do likewise.

What's important to remember is that the water and electrical channels are built into the very guts of the Huf Haus, so whatever kitchen layout you end up going with needs to be with the Huf people before they start to manufacture yer house in their Hartenfels factory. They'll make a few clicks on their CAD-CAM design software and lo and behold yer electrics and water'll be in the right places when your kitchen people turn up months later to do their work. As we found out, they have some limited flexibility to move a few water pipes and electric cables about once the house is up and standing, but they can't make any radical changes without open heart surgery - and that comes at a serious cost.

So yer want to have a kitchen layout figured out before the build, or you're sunk.

The second thing to remember is that no pesky kitchen installer is allowed anywhere near yer Huf Haus until after the formal handover. This might seem like a case of over-formality, but there're a myriad reasons that make this a necessity: site insurance is an obvious one; workers tripping over each other, is another; water and electricity flowing as needed - or not flowing, as needed; floor tiles in place; etc etc etc.

So, here's a recap of the research that Claudia and I went through before landing on our own kitchen.

During our trip to Hartenfels, we had an afternoon with the StilART people; mostly on the bathroom 'cos we wanted a fancier double sink unit than comes as standard. Anyways, we also discussed the kitchen 'cos the setup in the showhouse really did look good. We left them with an outline of what we had in mind, and then waited to see what their offer would cost out as.

In parallel, we looked at some of the fancier kitchen suppliers that we're up to our necks in around Zürich.

First stop was Poggenpohl, a German manufacturer.

Poggenpohl - 250% of our budget
Now you should understand that out here in Switzerland there are people who would rather cook on an open fire built into a refugee camp gutter than to choose anything other than Poggenpohl. It's posh, it's stylish, it's tasteful, it's the tip of the top. We walked into a veritable Aladdin's cave of cool kitchens, drooling as we looked left and right.

Unfortunately, Poggenpohl's also bloody expensive.

The 'representative' took one look at my shoes and clothes, and then rushed us through a design to see how the costs might look. That quick estimate told us that the bare units without the electronics yer might need for cooking, indeed without the doors yer need to hide them pots and pans and cutlery, would be significantly outside our price range. Like 50% more than we had in our budget for the lot. I'm serious. We exited stage left feeling like tramps that had accidentally walked into Claridges instead of the soup kitchen next door.

Oops.

I have to stress that the Poggenpohl bloke was really very tactful with us, and very likely saved us all a lot of time and bother.

What would I recommend to you? Well, in theory yer Huf Haus is the Bentley of "factory-made component houses", so it deserves the Bentley of the kitchen world. Is that Poggenpohl then? Well, very likely. They're both German nowadays anyway. Maybe Claudia and I were in the wrong movie, as they say, and massively unbudgeted for what should be a significant cost in our Huf Haus project? Maybe we really are skinflints, and we should have devoted about 10% of the entire project budget to the bloody kitchen. But we didn't, so there.

Go and see for yourself, and if yer appetite and budget stretches to Poggenpohl, then go for it. What they have is beautiful, truly beautiful.

Next stop was with a local supplier who handles the SieMatic brand, also from Germany.

Siematics - 120% of our budget
The first thing we did was to establish whether we could afford the bloody prices. This rather upset the salesman who's more used to discussing such indelicacies as dosh somewhere towards the end of the sale process. Preferably while you're reading the final invoice placed upon the worktop of your new kitchen that'd been installed some weeks previously.

Slimey salesman git.

Still, this was our first opportunity to do some real research. And here's what we found: The better of yer modern kitchens have doors and drawers that don't make scraping and banging noises when you shut 'em. Oh no. They slide almost shut in a single silky motion, and then, by virtue of their built-in dampers, slowly but surely close the last bit all by themselves. The drawers themselves should be made of wood laminate or metal, and abso-bloody-lutely not be made of plastic. As goes the cupboard and drawer handles; if they have 'em, 'cos the fashion these days is to have door-width slots to break yer finger nails in. And yer can stand in them drawers, and in fact when you open the bottom drawer in the kitchen showroom, look for footprints. If there aren't any, flag a passing pimp, erm, I mean helpful kitchen salesman, and dare him to do it. The door surfaces should be as hard as nails, nay harder than nails - as hard as a decent kitchen surface which is very very hard indeed. The designs themselves are too subjective for me to discuss here, but for sure the kitchen range should include something that'll make yer dreams come true.

And SieMatics of Deutschland offers you all of the above.

Indeed, as we found out a little later, it may be the cheapest entry to that level of quality that's available here in Switzerland. Your experiences in the UK or elsewhere might differ, but have a butchers at those details just in case.

Well, the pimp salesman did for us, so we moved on... and up up up to Bulthaup.

Bulthaup - 200% of our budget
How best to describe Bulthaup? Well, Swiss designer stylish. Ever seen that Wallpaper* magazine? It's one of the few English language magazines available in a foreign airport newsagents without a photo of Keira bloody Knightly on the cover. If you know it, then you know it. Well, Bulthaup supply designer kitchens that even the snottiest and most elitist design snob couldn't sniff at; the kind of kitchens that yer see in Wallpaper*.

There're a couple of Bulthaup showrooms in Zürich, but the one we went into had easily the coolest kitchen salesman that ever existed. He was really a great guy, and we had hours of fun going through the Bulthaup range. When we'd found our look and feel, he waved his magic wand and created... art. That's what he was: an artist in the medium of kitchen sculpture. We discussed the philosophy behind the design, the original designer himself (twas some French bloke, I think). We discussed surfaces and textures and tones and shades and and and, and we discussed space and proportion.

Stainless steel worktops? But they'll scratch to buggery? Oh yes they will, but after a good few years scratching they'll look as scratched as a restaurant kitchen: i.e. they won't look scratched, they'll look glorious. Er wot? Downstairs for a look see into their training and cooking club centre, where the worktops get a serious hammering. Stainless steel worktops after a few years look... bloody glorious. We'll be having 'em.

I felt like a designer myself at the end of it all. Or as close as some git from Manchester gets.

But, and there was a BIG BUT, we couldn't afford the end result. No way. All concerned looked pained that the lack of readies had doomed all of this glorious creativity, but twas so. He choked with his pain. Claudia sighed wistfully. I clutched my wallet, and sighed with relief.

Still, there was a good outcome to all this wanky designer stuff. Up to the point we walked into Bulthaup, we were hellbent on fire-engine red cupboards and dark grey marble surfaces and a sort of barrier-reef row of tall kitchen cupboards. In between sobs into his handkerchief, our Bulthaup designer made us promise that we'd commit to the white cupboards, stainless-steel worktop and general layout of the pinnacle of kitchen beauty that he'd created for us. We promised, and exited to the sound of his heart-rending sobs.

Oh the horror of surviving alone in this world as an artist.

Next stop was Leicht, so back to the Germans. No more crying then. We walked into a major Swiss electronic chain (Fust, a sort of Comet equivalent) that supplies Leicht kitchens on some sort of strategic corporate deal, whatever that means.

Leicht - 150% of our budget
By now we were kitchen veterans, and swooped in on the salesman fully prepared for battle. Poor sod never stood a chance.

We'll be having that design, with, erm, those cupboards and this layout. Nope, we said this layout. Yep. And a stainless-steel worktop, thanks muchly. Yes, we know it'll scratch. Yes. Yes. Look, we're having the bloody stainless-steel, alright? Alright. Cupboard doors in white. Yes we said white. Look, what part of white don't you understand? Right, so white it is. Oh, and those handles over there. No, the other sort breaks yer finger nails.

Oh, and open that bottom drawer and stand in it.

Now jump up and down.

Can yer sing?

No, yer can't sing can you.

Total cost in the post? Ta muchly. Bye.

He tried it on a bit, in a similar fashion to the SieMatics pimp, but to be honest we left him with no area to play his salesman games in.

But! But! But!

But the story continues just a little longer. The offer we received a week or so later contained a little cost time-bomb (on the electronics) that I wasn't going to put up with. So, Claudia and I walked into a small kitchen supplier in a nearby town called Baar. We'd noticed that it had a Liecht logo in the window, so worth a shot. We handed over the spec to the blokey (imagine a big cheery bloke with a red farmer's face and a vicelike handshake) and an hour or two later walked out with the deal done. He'd even spotted an implication that'd slipped past quite a few expert noses; a minor detail not worth noting here. Not telling. No.

Is there a moral or six in this story?

Probably a few: We had under budgeted on the kitchen. Which is equivalent to me confessing that we've blown our kitchen budget by 50%. Take yer pick. Oh, and using the 'all fur coat and no knickers' line of reasoning, what's the point of spending a bloody fortune on a Huf Haus build if yer gonna slap in some cheapo kitchen? Well, actually there is a point, and a family we visited a couple of years ago had done just that (Ikea) to get 'em through the first few years before they could afford their dream kitchen (a bloody Poggenpohl, of course). But the most important point to all this is not one of design or cost or whatnot. It's all about service and people and trust.

Look, I've really ripped the pee out of the Bulthaup designer, but the reality was that here was a salesman bloke who really cared a damn about what he was doing, and who he was doing it for. He's the star of this story, followed by the farmer who finally sold us the Leicht. One did the design, the other provided the good service. A bit rough on the designer and his sales figures, I must admit. The other salesmen were, to be honest, the kind of salesmen that we've all learned to fend off over the years.

A week or two later, the StilART offer came through the door: someone had been on holiday or sick or something. And the cost? Way way up there with Poggenpohl.

Some time later I'll go through the electronics story, but that'll have to do for now.

Furnishing yer Huf Haus

2008-04-02T15:48:00.005+02:00

Question: how do new light-house owners furnish their light-houses? Answer: they start by chucking out all their old furniture.

The same applies to Huf Haus owners. And wind-mills, now I think of it.

I have a feeling this post'll mean more to existing Huf Haus owners (for whom it'll strike at least a small chime of a chord) than to those of you who're researching a new build. But come back later when you're all moved in, and see if I was right.

One of the things we've found as we've become accustomed to our glass-walled, open plan Huf Haus, is that most of our existing furniture just doesn't work anymore. There are two very good reasons for this: Reason One and Reason Two.

Ahem.

Reason One.

Most furniture (especially ours) is designed to be pushed up against one of the three available interior walls of a comparatively small room (compared to a typically cavernous Huf Haus lounge, for example). Almost everything is designed and manufactured with that assumption: indeed the majority of furniture, even quite expensive stuff, isn't even painted at the rear.

Saves costs, right? And who's to see anyway?

Well, yer get a wake up when you move into your spanking new Huf Haus where you have little or no interior wall to shove yer sideboard against - it's all glass, innit. Maybe you have a dinky side unit that'd look just so against that big exterior window anyways? 'Cept for the bare wood and screws on the arse end that's there for the outside world to see. Or perhaps you want to place a particularly prized antique in prime position where your visitors (already blown away by yer Huf Haus) can admire your exquisite taste in Victorian cabinet-making - only the skilled artisan of yesteryear wasn't going to spend an extra month of sundays extending that veneer all the way around the back.

So yer need to start thinking about furniture that's nicely finished on every side. Literally, furniture you could look at from every side.

The good news is that dining tables and chairs, and coffee tables are better in this regard 'cos they're designed (or so you'd hope) to be placed away from walls from the off. But here's a list of furniture that very often ain't walk-around: side boards, side tables, drawer units, shelving units and TV and HiFi units. Oh, and almost all antiques. And non-grand pianos. Buggah, eh? And there's a lot of sofas that look, well, a bit crappy from behind.

So, Reason One is due to the fact that most furniture ain't walk-around. Ergo, you need walk-around furniture. Some of your furniture is already walk-around, which is great. But then we have Reason Two to consider.

Reason Two.

Most furniture (especially ours) might look great in some suburban semi, but maybe not quite as good in that great design icon wot is known to us as the Huf Haus. A Huf Haus is cool, fresh, classically modern. It's notable, nay, remarkable. It's a landmark design, that will make yer friends, family and neighbours just a little bit envious, and yer enemies openly seeth with green-eyed jealousy. So you can't be furnishing it courtesy of Ikea and Leather World, can yer? That'd be all fur coat and no knickers, design-wise. As James Bond would say, your cuffs and collars wouldn't match.

So, that's Reason Two: you've got yerself a design classic Huf Haus, so you'll be needing to shove in the design classic furniture to match.

So, we have two good reasons. Huf Haus furniture should be design classics, and walk-around design classics at that. Ahh, don't take me too seriously, but there's a valid point somewhere in all of this.

Conversation with Frau Capucho when we moved in:

Claudia - "We need a new sofa, don't you agree? Don't you?"

Me - "What? That cost a bloody fortune - and it looks... like new. Erm, the covers can be cleaned. Nah, we'll make it work. How about putting it... erm."

But it was true. Our sofa was a bloody fortune in Italian chic, about 3m long, Only we didn't have a 3m wall to put it against. Not in that house. And it looked a bit daft when we tried it as a walk-around sofa. Chic from the front, side, and, for all we know, from below, but dowdy from the back. It had to go... and did, sort of. It's still down in our Keller if someone wants to buy it.

And that was just the start of it.

Our dining table is a 2.5m behemoth that looked smart and stylish in our old pad, but looks a bit, erm, unadventurous in the Huf Haus. It's walk-around all right, but really lets the side down style-wise. We're keeping it for now (skint) but notice has been served. Our dining room chairs passed muster. Phew.

The ethnic-Indian wall cupboard that we used to keep our CDs in never had a chance. The back end of it was unvarnished, and indeed had some sort of writing daubed on it in what looked like magic marker. The importers, one supposes. We now have nowhere to keep our CDs. But then again, we don't have a hifi either - or more to the point, we haven't figured out (a) spots to put the hifi and speakers and (b) how we could hide the cables and (c) whether there's a hifi unit that doesn't look daft from the back.

Sigh.

We desperately need shelves and storage, but just about everything we've looked at won't work. Unpainted at the rear. Falls over unless screwed to a wall. Falls over, even then. Not cool enough. Decidedly uncool. Very cool, but useless for storage. We've had it up to here, really we have.

Soooooooo, here's the thing. We've turned our attention to a whole class of furniture that's not only walk-around, but also design classics comparable to the building they'll be going into. And as I've got to do a shed load of research on the furniture subject, I thought I'd write it all up for you lot. Well, the truth is that I've already done plenty of research, but it'd look daft if I started reeling it all off without some form of introduction; which is what this post is about.

Gives me something to write about, anyway.

DaVinci differences - an update

2008-04-01T12:38:00.005+02:00

I've received quite a lot of extra information regarding pricing of the DaVinci Haus, so here's another post on the DaVinci theme. I must stress that everything below is from someone else who really went into a full and detailed comparison, so I can't claim anything 'cept the wording and grammar. Wot is mostly mine. So there.

There's a more significant pricing difference than I'd imagined. All DaVinci models are available in two versions that roughly translate as "budget" and "premium".

The "premium" version comes with a similar level of goodies to the equivalent Huf Haus, but at a saving of 10% to 15%. However, there are some under-the-skin differences that help to explain the saving - more anon on those.

Yer "budget" version gives a cost saving of about 30% compared to a Huf Haus. By "budget version", we're talking about no balconies, no underfloor heating, and by implication a few more missing bits and bobs. Such as a roof? Of course, our friends in Hartenfels will likewise strike big chunks out of your Huf Haus specification, and this appears as a "credit" on yer protocol. But I'm guessing that you'd be down to bare wood and concrete to get yer Huf Haus cost down by a whole 30%. But let's forget the budget version, because if we were budget people then we wouldn't be building our own home, right?

So we're comparing the premium version DaVinci to the standard Huf Haus. How come the DaVinci is 10% to 15% cheaper?

Well, there's a touch of apples and pears going on.

The equivalent DaVinci's windows are double-glazed, compared to the triple-glazing that comes standard with Huf Haus. Double-glazing offers a lower level of insulation, and let's not forget that these are primarily glass-walled houses, so the energy leakage really adds up. My secret informer, erm, secretly informs me that this ups your heating bills by about 15% to 20% per year.

Is this extra energy consumption really a big deal? Well, that's up to you. If you drive a Prius, then yes. If you drive an SUV then no. The rest are somewhere in the middle. Personally, I think the best way to reduce one's carbon footprint is not to be born at all, but I think it's a little too late for that. And pegging it may generate more carbon dioxide than gasping out the rest of your life: the hearse, the church service, the bloody singing. Not to mention the cremation. Hmm, this is a clear digression. Must continue. Sorry.

You can take some greenie solace in the fact that we're talking about different levels of German insulation standards here, which are already way up there with the best in Europe. "Very good" versus "excellent", then.

The next point is a cracker: the lower and upper floors of a Huf Haus are basically made of concrete, whilst the DaVinci floors are all wood. Believe me, concrete's as expensive as hell, so this goes a looooong way to explaining the cost differential all by itself. One can imagine that this might cause a few concerns to those of you like my pure, mountain-bred Swiss wife who're used to living in decent buildings where you can't hear people clumping about upstairs. Unlike almost every house I've ever lived in back in Blighty where a quick trip to the loo sounds like the charge of a bull elephant - with our without carpets. And then there's the bloody plumbing to deal with after yer done.

Eek, another digression.

There's also a more subtle impact which I'll quote:

"The ceiling is a wooden-one, not a concrete ceiling like in a Huf-Haus, which means you have a different "climate" in the house as the concrete stores the heat better than wood – still some people like a wooden ceiling better."

Got that? Good.

The last point's one of standardisation. Huf Haus offer their windows and walls in three different widths (known as "raster sizes") of 2.3m, 2.5m and 3m. In fact they can offer almost anything in between if you have a particularly sticky problem to solve (like wot we did) but that's a different story. Yer DaVinci people've standardised on 2.3m to save their own production costs, 'cos standardised sizing leads to standardised purchases from standardised suppliers. Is this a big deal? Well, that depends on whether you're looking to take advantage of the flexibility that the Huf Haus raster sizes offer.

That's pretty much it on the house itself: increased heating bills 'cos of double glazing 'stead of triple glazing; clumpy wooden floors with a different climate, whatever that means; and a standardised raster size of 2.3m and not a centimetre more or less.

But there's a big difference when it comes to the cellar costs: The bare-bones DaVinci Keller is about 40% cheaper than its Huf equivalent. Why's that? 'Cos DaVinci use a well-known (to the German market) cellar company, while Huf Haus do it all in-house. That well-known cellar company (oh ok, it's called Knecht-Keller) has far larger economies of scale, while Huf naturally builds a maximum of one cellar per house. Stands to reason, dunnit.

Bottom line?

My informant reckons all the above can trim up to EUR 100,000 off a typical project.

Would Claudia and I have made a different choice if we'd known the above? Nay, nay and thrice times nay. No way. Not on yer nelly. Huf Haus it was, and Huf Haus it would be if ever we do it all again (I'd love to, by the way. Very much). We're a little more greenie than I let on (not a lot, but definitely more) and we like the mix 'n' match of the different window raster sizes - in fact we'd have been a bit buggahed with our planning permission if Huf couldn't have offered us the flexibility of trimming a 20cm slice off our central 3m raster (facing the house, it goes 3.0m - 2.8m - 3.0m which tells you something of the precision that yer Swiss planning permission goes into). Anyways, we loikes having whopping big 3m windows in the main, with the odd 2.3m and 2.5m units here and there to make it all a bit more interesting.

And a wooden floor instead of concrete? Pah! This is our home, not a tool shed!

One last point: one of the comments on my last post (you hum it, and I'll play it) is from a chap who built a DaVinci Haus in lieu of a Huf Haus. He said:

"I didn't go with Huf because they were generally rude and didn't return my phone calls when I was speccing the house. This despite having prepared plans for my house with an architect and visiting their offices in Hartenfels. So I was clearly a serious customer. I got the feeling they were swamped with business following the grand designs show."

And here's a quote from my secret informer:

We would have gone with Da Vinci, if their architect had not been an arse in the pricing negotiations... we're moving in our Huf in 2 weeks time."

Go figure.

p.s. A great big thank you to my secret informer, who I recall sent me his first email right at the beginning on my own project when our land was still mostly a grassy bit of Alp, and his own project was (clearly) still deep in its head-scratching paper phase. You know who you are, my friend.

Huf Haus versus DaVinci Haus

2008-02-01T14:58:00.000+01:00

Over the last year or two I’ve received regular emails and the odd blog comment asking me what I thought of the DaVinci Haus system, which, on the surface looks like a copy and paste Huf Haus clone. From the beginning I’ve maintained that the example DaVinci Haus I’ve seen near Zürich (a 4-axis) didn’t measure up to the equivalent Huf Haus examples. And I’m pretty sure my own white 3-axis Huf Haus knocks that particular DaVinci Haus into a cocked hat on every measure I care to imagine.

So that’s that then… but… well, two things have happened recently that've caused me to think that I’ve done DaVinci Haus a grave injustice.

This is a DaVinci Haus - not a Huf Haus!

The first thing: just before Christmas I saw another “queer looking” Huf Haus that looked rather fantastic – and no wonder it looked a bit different; it was a DaVinci Haus. I’m resisting the temptation to be more specific than that, but I think that the owners deserve to keep their privacy – however, I did get a quick look around the place and a peep inside, which was very nice of ‘em as they didn’t know me from Adam. The second thing that happened is that whilst sniffin’ about the web looking for landscaping ideas, I came across the following website:

http://www.davinci-house-pictures.com

And my oh my, don’t those DaVinci Haus pickies look nice.

Sooooooo, as an apology to DaVinci, I’ve decided to write this post to try and straighten the record a bit.

Like Huf Haus, DaVinci Haus are an established German manufacturer and erector of turn-key factory assembled houses. (Note the term “factory assembled”. During a social event last year, I spent and hour or so chatting to a very senior Huf Haus manager who made it clear that they take a dim view of alternative terms such as “pre-fab” and “kit”). Like Huf Haus, yer typical DaVinci Haus is characterised by the post and beam architecture, steeply sloped roofs, floor to ceiling glasswork, open plan interiors, sweeping staircases and open floor-to-roof galleries. Yer DaVinci woodwork is available in black, white and grey. And you’ll see that most DaVinci owners opt for those black roof tiles, but red and dark grey tiles are on the menu as desired. Both have that fresh, modernist look that makes ‘em look like visiting UFOs when lit up at night.

Or during the day, for that matter. Nowt else in yer neighbourhood looks as fresh and modern and clean… unless it’s another Huf Haus… or (mumbles) some bloody DaVinci Haus.

Let’s be clear: what’s beyond question is that the Huf Haus company is the original and only manufacturer of the landmark modernist design dreamt up by the great Manfred Adams during a fit of artistic creativity. However, DaVinci has entered the market with a similar concept, that, while not the real thing, is somehow similar enough to be in the same space. Is it a clone? Well, that’s a harsh term as it implies a certain level of cynical plagiarism. Erm, well there are plenty that’d say it’s just that: a open clone and therefore an example of cynical plagiarism. But l’d more tactfully say that it’s very similar, and the differences (and there are quite a few, as it turns out) tend to escape the casual glance. All I can say is that when I saw that particular DaVinci Haus in the distance I immediately assumed it was the real thing: “Oh look, a Huf Haus… erm, but it looks… not quite right. Hang on… is it a DaVinci? I think it is…”

Ok, so in the interests of not landing up in some court, I’ve managed to skirt the cloning issue, so let’s concentrate on what’s significantly different about DaVinci.

How are DaVinci to work with as a company? Dunno, we went with Huf Haus and I’ve written about 100,000 words on my impressions – very good ones. But does anyone seriously think that one successful German construction company would be greatly inferior to any other? And they’d be insulted to think that they’re only equal to a Brit equivalent, so the “German-ness” has a lot of credibility in itself - DaVinci are a success in Germany, and they’d not get even a whiff of that if they had a reputation for slackness or sharp practices.

How do the costs compare? I’ve heard DaVinci’s about 5% cheaper, but can’t give any guarantees – probably not enough to change yer life, but then again 5% of a lot of money is still a lot of money. What about the material quality then? Erm, just imagine the correctness and strictness of the German building codes and that should take care of that concern. German houses don’t fall down or rot – and yer can drop a feather behind a window on a windy day and it’ll fall straight down to the floor. The loos flush, the showers shower, the plumbing doesn’t creak and rumble and the heating heats. The windows and doors open and shut, and the locks lock.

So what are the differentiators?

Well, they’re mostly in the product design itself…

DaVinci Haus interior

Daft as it seems, I didn’t notice the headline difference at first: the structuring of the DaVinci beams is very different from the Huf Haus design. Now yer Huf Haus lateral beam very obviously starts outside one end of the house, continues inside, and extends all the way through and out t’other end. The cross beams do the same, side to side, and go under the lateral beams, criss-cross – and the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle are held together with whopping great steel bolts. So, yer Huf Haus beams (side-to-side, end-to-end, criss-cross, cross-criss, whopping big steel bolts) are one of the most definitive features of the Huf Haus interior, along with the walk-around posts, extensive windows and the vast open plan areas. Well, yer DaVinci beams don’t criss-cross in the same way, nor do they as obviously pass through from the exterior to the interior. They’re almost apologetically countersunk into the walls, into the ceiling and indeed into each other – so much so, that there are some owners of black DaVinci houses who (gasp!) paint their interior beams and posts white!

Exterior and interior beams painted in different colours! Well, imagine that! They’d be much scowling and muttering into beards at Hartenfels if some Huf Haus owner had the temerity to do the same. But to be fair, the more blended DaVinci interior beams allow such painting without the exterior/interior disparity looking as daft as a paint brush.

There’s also a subtle difference in the area above the windows – yer Huf Haus windows have a sort of wooden plate running along the top that is used both to hide the light cabling above and the curtain rail below. Very handy. The criss-cross of the Huf Haus beams also liberates some space above the windows - which is where the skinny upper windows go. Have a look elsewhere on this blog and compare with an interior photo from the DaVinci website above and you’ll see what I mean.

The next difference is very minor: the DaVinci stairs, gallery and balcony handrails are of painted wood instead of steel tubes. Ok, no drum rolls or crash of cymbals required, but it was one of the differences that contributed to the “not quite right” exterior look of the DaVinci Haus I saw.

I’m really unsure whether my next observation is fact or just the way that things have turned out in those DaVinci pictures and the two examples I’ve seen in the flesh: your standard Huf Haus has windows literally everywhere, and in fact apart from a few solid wall panels here or there to hold the bloody house up, you’re free to use as much window as your modesty and inhibitions will allow you. Endless windows come standard with your Huf Haus – and you are then free to reduce them as you wish – at no extra cost sir. When you look into your standard Huf Haus catalogue (you’ve got one now, right?) you should assume that the few solid walls shown on those various floor plans are the ones needed to safely support the structure. Many of the DaVinci pickies show houses with less windows than their Huf Haus equivalents – especially in the bedrooms for some reason, but also here and there in the downstairs areas. Why is that? Do the standard designs come with fewer windows, so more windows equals more costs? Does the different beaming system have an impact on the structure, so yer need more solid walls to hold the house up? Is it simply because yer average DaVinci punter uses the interior space differently, or are invariably less into naturism? The jury’s out, but I can’t help feel it’s a combination of all the above.

Except for the shyness, ‘cos most Huf Haus owners are reluctant streakers, instinctively using the internal posts and the odd piece of furniture as 'natural cover' during the inevitable midnight streaks from bathroom to refrigerator to bedroom.

And this brings me onto the overall aesthetic difference between the two designs: yer Huf Haus is more industrial looking inside and out. There are a number of touches that DaVinci have done to soften the look – wooden handrails and countersunk beams are just two examples, but if you look very carefully at the DaVinci imagery, you’ll see other ‘softening’ details – for example, those whopping big exposed bolts that are so evident inside a Huf Haus are kept to an absolute minimum in the DaVinci.

Looking through the DaVinci imagery, I can see that their system is as equally flexible as Huf Haus. Lot’s of different shapes and sizes, and fancy tailoring is in evidence. However, I believe there’re a few DaVinci examples that the Huf Haus people might not have been too enthusiastic about… Now Huf Haus is quite rightly proud as punch about their product family, and consider each and every example scattered about the European countryside to be a three-dimensional advert of what they’re about. They’re guardians of the original Manfred Adams design, and therefore can and should be forgiven for occasionally keeping an eye on the aesthetics when some prospective client steps a little bit too far “out there”, taste-wise. Well, there are some DaVinci pickies which show customisations that I’m sure Huf Haus would have cooperated with, but might perhaps have gently advised their clients against if at all possible. To my eyes, some of DaVinci’s customised balcony extensions and non-standard roof treatments look, to be frank, ungainly. And there are some skylights hammered through here and there that could have been a bit more thoughtfully integrated into the overall design. One can only imagine that DaVinci are more “accommodating” to the wilder wishes of their clients…

Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well, few of us want to be strongly guided by some representative of the taste police – taste is subjective, after all. But then again, even fewer of us want to think that our dafter ideas will be politely agreed to with an insincere smile, a cynical shrug and an outstretched palm for the extra dosh. Neither Huf Haus or DaVinci go to these extremes, thankfully, but which company has the better balance? Well, I suppose that depends on you. I’m personally glad that I was talked out of one or two of my dafter ideas by Huf Haus – and shudder to think that I might now be living with those ideas if we’d gone with DaVinci.

Any regrets that Claudia and I went with Huf Haus? Of course not. We’re Huf Haus people, through and through… erm, well we are now. But on balance, I reckon we’d have gone with Huf Haus even if we’d done a more thorough job of assessing DaVinci – ‘cos we really do prefer the look of the Manfred Adams original: the criss-crossed beams, the expose whopping big bolts, the endless windows, the more industrial feel of it.

Now if anyone reading this knows a thing or two about DaVinci and would like to correct or add to any of the about, then feel free to comment. As I stated earlier, the intention is to paint a fairer picture of DaVinci.

A few more photos

2007-12-01T12:40:00.001+01:00

Still feeling a bit guilty that I've rather neglected you lot for the last few months. Anyways, here're a few more photos that I took this morning - as the snow's gone (for now) you'll get a better butchers of the current state of affairs.

Note the posh Biohort shed - aluminium, and bloody great. Bought a matching aluminium box for the outside cushions and sun-loungers. Also note the posh postbox, aluminium, and bloody great. I think we might have an aluminium thing going on... oh no, that soddin' great armco's made out of steel. As yet there's no paint on it, but I reckon it'll collect it's first ding sometime this winter.

Couldn't resist the temptation to take a nerdy photo of the snow-thrower thingy. Nice colour innit?

I think the photos also capture the progress in the garden quite nicely. The earth is there simply 'cos the gardener came last week and hoicked out the weeds - leaving plenty of gaps between the plants. Prior to that the whole area was a sea of green. Oh, and you'll see our infamous weed patch. Going to break someone's back to weed that lot out again. Broke mine last summer, so not doing it again.

Oh, and the full splendor of our wooden decking/terrace. Well, fullish 'cos it is winter. Discussion with Frau Capucho this morning on that very subject - we built a huge one, but we're very glad we did. Now looking forwards to endless summers with the kids on one side, and Claudia and I on t'other with a glass of wine each.

And that's that for now...

Winter is upon us - again

2007-11-28T18:14:00.000+01:00

Been a while since you lot got some sort of update, so here it is...

We're... living in our house. The last significant step was the fencing and armco, but they've long become background features. We're now in that nice business-as-usual period of simply living in our beautiful Huf Haus, and wondering if we should buy this or that stick o' furniture for this or that nook or cranny. Not that yer Huf Haus has any nooks and crannies. As stated before, finding a wall to put a cupboard against is no mean task when the majority of yer walls are windows.

The wooden flooring is bearing up - parquet floors are surprisingly durable if yer stick to the rock 'ard woods, and therefore inevitably the most expensive ones. Only major ding was done by yours truly last weekend, when he dropped a whopping thick glass jar on the kitchen floor - missed my foot (thankfully), jar survived, notch in the floor.

The other thing that's bearing up very well is the central heating system. Oo! Oo! Meant to tell yer all about that. Mr Banking and IT here had absolutely no idea as to the significance of the heating system we ended up buying. Nuff said that it was supposed to save money (makes me happy) and generate copious amounts of heat on demand (makes Claudia happy) and all's well with the world. Turns out that the air/air heat pump system is actually fairly greenie. Not as green as a ground/air heat pump, mind, but then the local geology was against us on that. I'll say to anyone that it's a crime against nature that some form of heat pump isn't a mandatory requirement for any domestic new installation or replacement throughout the western world - which would reduce the rather pricy acquisition price still further. They're cheap to run, efficient, greenie and just bloody marvellous.

One just hopes that one day it becomes so.

I'll continue to day-dream about some form of solar power for the hot water (currently running 100% off the electricity) but will await developments before I commit. Surely there's a market for roof tile-shaped solar panels? And surely someone can design one that's snow-friendly enough for use half-way up a mountain? Current mountain area planning regulations take a dim view on solar panels 'cos snow readily slips off 'em thereby putting any visiting vicar at risk of a decapitation.

What else?

Good thing the pickies below are snow-bound because although we've found a local gardener to take care of the borders and grass and stuff, the uphill side of the garden is still a massive weed patch. We have a local landscape garden firm submitting a 'concept' very soon - although one mistrusts 'concepts'. 'Concepts' usually need copious amounts of money to 'realise'. Still, we'll have a butchers at whatever they come up with.

And I've left the best and coolest thing for last. We've bought ourselves what's known as a snow-thrower - one of those lawn-mower looking machines that yer see on the telly sucking up snow at the front and then spraying it out of a nozzle on the top. Really bloody cool. Cleared our entire driveway with it in just a few minutes - a job that would have taken me an hour or more by hand and spade. Cost me about CHF 1,500 or, what's that, six hundred quid. Eek! Anyways, I'm made up with it. Four-stroke petrol powered, for those that understand such things, and light enough for Claudia to use it when I've succumbed to frostbite.

Anyways, here're the long overdue pickies...

Fencing

2007-09-26T14:13:00.001+02:00

A quick update in lieu of the pickies. I'm still waiting for a decent enough day to venture out with the camera, but the weather continues to suck.

The fence people have done their stuff. One day they came to set the metal posts in concrete, then a week passed and we returned one evening to find the steel cable fence complete, and also a short stretch of very Formula 1 looking armco.

All's well.

The cable fence looks a bit, erm, industrial with steel posts and ten rows of ultra-tight steel cable. It's set amidst the hedge-to-be, which is still a very gappy affair - the odd branch and twig with a leaf or two. Once it all thickens up over the next year or so, the fence'll disappear entirely methinks.

The armco is something else entirely. My word, 'industrial' is too wimpy a word for it. It's about three metres long, with rounded ends in case an articulated lorry hits it end on. My money'd be on this armco even so, let me tell yer. We've always been a bit nervous about that two metre drop on the down-slope side of the parking entrance. At the bottom of the drop's the kitchen corner of the house, and the nightmare scenario has been the nose of some ice-skating car crashing throught the kitchen window one snowy evening. Quite apart from the big structural risk to the corner of the house, plus the written off car, not to mention the crushed kitchen and a half-cooked family dinner, there's also the look of surprise on the car's occupants to take into account.

It would have been a very bad day.

Anyways, this armco's just the ticket, and unless that car belongs to Claudia or me, (eek, the likeliest scenario), then bring it on, I say.

Outside

2007-09-17T11:43:00.000+02:00

Long overdue for an update, folks, so here it is...

No changes within the house, at least none worth discussing in detail. Bathroom mirrors and their lights turned up in August (from memory) and were carefully nailed to the walls, so two more electric cables that had been peeping out of their respective holes finally disappeared. A few new bits of furniture materialised, and a few more were formally declared casualties to the cause... they might have been super in whatever nook or cranny they squatted in at our last place, but there's no place for them in our Huf Haus. Oh no. Not really a Huf Haus issue, as that's something that happens to yer any time there's a house move. Oh and Claudia figured out a sneaky way of putting up some curtains (yawn) in the kid's bedroom, which saved us a lot of playing up during those long daylight hours of summer. And that's it.

More goings on outside the house...

The wooden decking was completed sometime in late June, just in time for 2007's summer that wasn't. Within a couple of weeks of the final screw being tightened the usual paraphernalia appeared on it; table and chairs, sun loungers, whopping big parasols and some big pots with plants in 'em to make it cosy. Oh, and lord knows how many multi-coloured plastic toys, buckets and spades, a sand pit filled with wet sand and pebbles, and a limp faded paddling pool containing rainwater, bits of grass and dozens of dead flies.

One can only imagine that the proud owners of those designer homes that appear in House & Garden are typically childless.

The two parasols we bought are worth a brief plug: they're a cantilevered design (generally more wind-resistant that yer normal parasol) called the Sunwing C+ and manufactured by a pure, mountain-bred Swiss company called Glatz. The concrete bases weigh 90kg a pop, so they're as safe as houses against strong gusts; although you'd still want to leg over and close 'em up sharpish. I have a horror of parasols falling over and impaling the kids - seen far too many close shaves over the years.

I finally persuaded the landscaping chaps to cut that shed-sized paved area into the slope behind the house and shore up the walls against landslides. Once completed, father-in-law and I assembled the metal shed during one of the few sunny weekends of the summer. Claudia was greatly relieved as the plethora of gardening tools, lawnmower, plant pots, and lots and lots of outdoorsy stuff finally disappeared from their customary clumps and piles around the house - and I have to say that I'd become so used to seeing the mess that I was pleasantly shocked as to how nice the outside suddenly became.

A real transformation.

In 20-20 hindsight, I'd have done something about the shed from the start.

Again, the shed's worth a plug. It's an all alloy wonder called the Avantgarde manufactured by an Austrian company called Biohort. The coolest shed I've ever seen, and puts yer traditional wooden model to shame as it's essentially maintenance free, and should last decades. Pricy of course, but I couldn't bring myself to plonk the garden tools into some green plastic disaster that wobbles when yer shut the door. If the door can be shut at all.

And the garden itself?

First the good news: the lawn has grown up all nice and strong, and gets thicker and stronger every time we cut it. Even better, the meadow beyond our lawn has regrown, so there's a continuous stretch of grass from our wooden decking to the horizon. The dark swathes of soil left over from construction is a faded memory: it's amazing how quickly yer can make a garden superficially straight enough not to drive you nuts simply by chucking a few grass seeds around.

Final plug of the day: the lawn mower's from an American company called Toro, and its the lightest petrol mower currently available - 20 kg for a 40cm width. It has a mulching widget for those days when yer want to feed the lawn - oh alright, for when yer garden waste container's full to the brim. Light weight is good for us, as we have some slopy bits to negotiate.

Claudia's done a fine job of starting up the flower beds around our entrance are. There's a lot to be said for her 'instant gratification' approach; lavender, herbs (especially mint) and a few other bits and bobs which soon filled up the space. We also planted some of those japanesy maple saplings as per yer standard Huf Haus specification.

Erm, what else?

Oh, we planted two containers with various herbs and stuff and added water regularly. Two of 'em delivered big time: the basil and, amazingly, the chilli plant. We had big green basil leaves all summer, which is a first for me as all basil plants within ten feet of me normally peg it within days. But it was the chilli plant that was the revelation: over the last month or so, we've had dozens of fat red chillis. Well chuffed. Next year we'll plant only basil and chillis and see what happens. I'm all up for farming the buggahs.

The hedge along the parking area's slooooowly thickening up. Still transparent, but showing some promise of opaqueness for next year. Hmm, must buy myself a hedge trimmer.

Over the next week the safety fence for the parking area should be completed. We've been 'legal' since we moved in courtesy of a make-shift wooden post and rope affair. It's been looking a bit rough of late, with the rope between posts sagging sadly and the odd post leaning over due to fatigue. The fence itself'll be there to stop people/children/livestock from falling the three metres to the concrete path below. But there's a short stretch near the entrance corner that we've opted to properly armco to deter any wayward SUV from plunging downwards and thence through the kitchen window.

And the bad news?

Well, the long steep slope behind the house is a long, steep slope of weeds.

The ground cover plants have been struggling to compete with the local flora since they went in during late May, but in spite of a centimetre by centimetre weeding session by yours truly in early July, they're simply swamped with the fastest growing weeds I've ever seen in my life. A bloody triffid would be left in the starting blocks compared to these buggahs. Claudia's decided that we should go with the flow and simply call the entire slope an 'alpine flower meadow' (Bluemli-wiese). Not a bad idea, as yer bona fide alpine flower meadow is a mixture of grass, alpine flowers and, erm, alpine weeds.

Just need to add grass and flowers.

One shall post up a bevy of piccys again as soon as the rain stops for long enough to take a snap or six. Until then, sayonara...

A little bit greener...

2007-06-03T13:14:00.000+02:00

Another deluge of photos... taken about 11am in the morning, so the sun hasn't had time to come around yet.

Landscaping & gardening (mainly)

2007-05-07T14:15:00.000+02:00

(Ahem)

Last time we talked, we were well and truly moved in. Most of the lights, and, I think, blinds were up (yawn). Boxes emptied, kitchen and bathrooms fettled, wardrobes erected, larder full of food, cellar full of wine. Indeed, a myriad things had been done that help to make the house habitable. I'll add a few more recent points to the above list, and then get down to external business:

One of the idiosyncracies of living in a Huf Haus is that there're few flat walls to put bookshelves, wardrobes or any other cupboardy thing against. Our 3-axis house is a typical case, as just about every downstairs wall is made of glass. And then each of the bedrooms has just one 'normal' wall, and that's yer lot. They also offer a triangular-shaped wall 'cos of the slopey roof, which would be great if Ikea started manufacturing triangular-shaped cupboards. So our storage furniture options are somewhat limited. Claudia and I've been scratching our heads to find 'creative' ways of solving this or that storage problem in this or that room.

You would do, too, if it happened to you. As the song goes.

Now don't get me wrong here, we're not dealing with converted lighthouse or windmill levels of problem, but it does need some thinking about. We found a big white shelving unit for the kids room in Ikea, and some chromium-plated metal shelves for the nooks and crannies in the bathrooms. Existing wardrobes from our previous house swallowed up two of the available bedrooms walls. The bugger is what we're going to do in the living room. The cellar's a long way to go to find a CD. Ah well...

The last of the one zillion lights went up last weekend. These were the two long flourescent strips for the cellars, and both went up fairly easily. After forty odd lights I'm getting quite the dab hand at this. No more electrocutions, so I reckon I got off lightly; you might want to budget for taxis to the hospital when it comes to your own project. I also put up the five external lights a couple of weeks ago, so I no longer need braille when unlocking the front door late at night. One bit of good fortune is that we won't be needing those automatic security lights for our parking area after all. It turns out that next door's security lights're of Colditz specification: hyper-sensitive and hyper-bright. All we need is the barbed wire, sirens, machine guns and guard dogs. Anyways, job's a good un, 'cos a mouse coughing on our parking area would set 'em off.

Curtains and blinds're up... (yawn)... and the cellars're a chaotic mess. So we're pretty much back to normal, then.

So, onwards to the Outside.

If you recall, the landscapers did a good job of levelling the various bits of land, so that while it was still looking a bit, erm, bare, it was at least looking less like the Second Battle of the Somme. Cheapo concrete slabs were put down under what will soon be our wooden decking terrace, and boy have those slabs served us well. Our wee lads have had a ball throwing loose dirt, big and small stones, soil and sand all over the place, so those slabs at least gave us an area that could be swept clean of fallout. Something to consider when you've got small kids: a newly built house offers endless amounts of ammo to chuck at each other/the papa/the nearest windows.

A couple of weeks ago, the Bodendecke (literally, groundcover) plants were put into the steeper bits of hillside. These actually have a structural duty to perform as they'll be holding the hillside up come the monsoon season, so they're much more than a pretty face. A few more areas need the Bodendecke treatment, and there's still lots of soil around each of the plants, but for now it's a relief to see at least some sort of green. Sometime next year we should see the plants merge into each other, and any fool-hardy weeds strangled to a miserable death.

The 'safety' hedge has been planted up along the parking area. Dunno what type it is, but it's not a privet. The hedge already offers a bit of mental security, as the three metre drop doesn't seem quite so bad when there're a few plants between you and it. It is as bad, it just doesn't seem to be. Again, these'll take a couple of years to thicken up, but for now they'll do nicely.

And finally finally finally, the grass seeds have gone down. More or less at the same time the farmer reseeded his field (if you remember, our soil mountain sat on it for four months). I spent many an evening watering the 'lawns', and also chucked some water on the field to inspire the farmer's seeds to action. Then late last week the weather finally broke, and the rains descended on us big time. By yesterday lots of thin little grass shoots started, erm, shooting up everywhere. We're a couple of months from having a lawn (and field) we can walk on, but at least it's on its way.

And on Friday/Saturday the landscaping chap will come again, only this time he'll be building our wooden sun deck. Just when I'd become used to sweeping the concrete slabs. Anyways, Claudia's all excited and I must say I'm also very curious to see how it looks. Just about every other bit of gardening on that side of the house's on hold until this thing's built, simply as the geometry of the garden'll change drastically. Hard to explain, and I won't even try. This is what yer get when yer write yer blog using the 'stream of consciousness' method; painted into visualisation corners. Anyway, once it's there we'll know where to put various bushes, big pots, the parasol, etc.

Oo oo! The parasol! Lots of recent discussion with regards to the parasol. Absolutely imperative at 730m amsl, 'cos the sky's very very clear. Often turquoise clear, which is a nice problem to have. We have to wear sunglasses inside our house, so yer can imagine how bright it gets out on the sundeck-to-be. One of the things we've found is that our spot can get very windy, in a sort of no-wind to gusty-blast sort of way. To put this into context, we're talking wanky Swiss wind here. Proper Manchester wind would laugh and point at weedy Swiss wind, but it nevertheless deserves a bit of respect when it comes to parasols; 'cos gusts and parasols don't mix well in my experience.

Anyways, we've found a sort of cantilever design that's supposed to be far more resilient to gusts, 'cos the umbrella bit just wobbles about on the universal top joint, thereby spilling the wind. One shall continue one's researches and then revert, but it looks very very promising. They have similar ones at an outside restaurant near where I work, and I recently had lunch there in a wind that was blowing the beer glasses off the table. Parasols just shrugged it off. Very neat.

There's also a cool 'new' system that looks rather like a horizontal yacht sail, and in fact is called a Sonnensegel (sunsail). This is typically a whopping big triangle of thick fabric that's anchored to yer house on two corners, and then yer bolt the spare corner to a very secure pole wot yer plant in yer garden.

I do hope I'm not being too technical.

Now this Sonnensegel concept has some possibilities as a parasol surrogate, although the cantilevered design's looking favorate at the mo' 'cos it can be swung in an arc to track the sun as necessary. However, the Sonnensegel people also do a super-dooper-thick-weather-proof-all-year-round-and-supports-rain-and-snow version. And it's this that I've got in mind for our carport.

Gasp!

Yes indeed. If I'm right, we'll end up with the coolest carport in Switzerland, at, erm, half the price of a real one. And believe me, we need to save a few quid right now. Again, will continue the investigations and then revert.

And the plants and stuff themselves?

Well, as stated earlier we've not committing until we see the sundeck in all its glory. The idea is that we have some japanesy-looking trees (red and green pygmy maples) here and there, plus the odd pampas grass thingy. We also fancy some bamboos for that cool oriental look, but've been advised that they'll rapidly colonise the rest of our garden, then the village, and then the entire mainland of Western Europe. Within weeks. Anyway, if there's a way of growing bamboo in big pots, then we'll probably go for it.

Elsewhere, we're plotting big and small ferns for the base of our retaining wall. Cool and shady there, so it'll likely be the practical solution anyway. Also fancy a patch of hostas, and think I have just the place for 'em.

What else? Ahh... the watering system. We bought one of those Gardena wheel things for the hosepipe on one side of the house. I also fancied their new system with an enclosed reel and have mounted it on t'other. Works very well. I toyed with the idea of installing an underground watering system (actually fairly affordable, if not exactly cheap) but have put that project on hold due to (a) the cost and (b) because I couldn't be arsed to tackle it just now. Two hosepipes'll have to do for the time being.

And finally... the garden shed.

There ain't one. Tools are either resting on the ground, against the house, or in the cellar. And there's no logical place for a shed, either. The 'hidden' side of the house has a rash of air-vents, heating vents and skylights along the ground which means there's no shed-sized area available. The only solution that offers itself is to cut a shed-sized step into the sloping hillside, shore up the sides with concrete slabs, and then half-submerge the shed like some military bunker. Needless to say, Claudia is less than enthusiastic, and my heart sinks just thinking about it. But the lack of a shed is already a pain in the harris, so once we actually have a garden it'll become impossible. It's not like we even have a garage to shove our gardening stuff into like wot other people do.

Typical Huf Haus costs

2007-04-21T13:41:00.000+02:00

Well, I've been putting it off for months, but the time's finally come for me to spell out the costs involved in building a Huf Haus... well, building our three axis version anyway.

It's probably not escaped yer notice that our house hasn't been built in Blighty, and as Switzerland's not in the EU, and thus not an Euro nation, that our costs are a mixture of Euros and Swiss Francs. Not a Pound Sterling to be seen anywhere. But that doesn't mean we can't come up with a useful way of breaking the costs down.

Ok, here they are, warts and all...

	GBP(£)	EUR(€)	CHF(CHF)
Building land 660m2	£168,708	€248.513	CHF408'000

Architect	7,236	10.659	17'500
Excavations, water, etc	68,228	100.502	165'000
Local services	21,502	31.673	52'000
Project costs sub-total	£96,966	€142.834	CHF234'500

General landscaping	33,080	48,728	80'000
Gardening	2,068	3.046	5'000
Wooden decking	7,443	10.964	18'000
Car port	8,270	12.182	20'000
Landscaping sub-total	£50,861	€74.919	CHF123'000

Huf Haus 3.09.30	238,882	351.866	577'729
House extras	38,064	56.067	92'056
Standard cellar	53,746	79.167	129'984
Cellar extras	1,383	2.037	3'345
Insurance	930	1.370	2'249
Huf Haus costs sub-total	£333,005	€490.507	CHF805'363

Heating system	9,511	14.009	23'000
Kitchen	16,127	23.755	39'000
Bathroom extras	4,549	6.700	11'000
Lights	827	1.218	2'000
Non-Huf internal costs sub-total	£31,013	€45.683	CHF75'000

Grand total	£680,552	€1.002.456	CHF1'645'863

Yes, it's quite scary isn't it. Better sit down for a while, if you haven't already.

Feeling better now? Right, so what does this mean for your dream Huf Haus project?

I purposely split the costs into the above categories 'cos I reckon the external costs are more or less proportional to the size of the land, and the Huf Haus and internal costs are proportional to the size of the house. Now our land is 660 square metres, and the internal floor area comes to 240 square metres.

Land costs/m² (660m²)	£255	€376	CHF618

Project costs	146	216	355
Landscaping	77	114	186
External costs/m² (660m²)	£223	€330	CHF541

Huf Haus costs	1,388	2.044	3'356
Non-Huf internal	129	190	313
Internal costs/m² (240m²)	£1,517	€2,234	CHF3,668

Ok, so we finally have some per square metre projections. But isn't every country different? And what about variations in land prices? Well, I honestly think that the internal costs are pretty much the same across Europe. Huf Haus will charge you in Euros, and assuming you don't go too crazy with non-Huf internals, even variations in VAT or whatever won't make too much difference. The land prices are another story though, hence I've given 'em their own sub-total.

An example... you have in mind a 1,500m² plot which is up for grabs for £300,000 (Ha! You wish!). How much would it cost to shove a 350m² 5-axis Huf Haus palace on the top of it?

Lemme see, the land cost itself is already known at £300,000. So the external costs will come in at 1,500m² x £223 which comes to, erm, £334,500 externally. And then we have the Huf Haus itself plus internal specials, which comes to 350m² x £1,517 = £530,950. Add the land price, external and internal costs together, and we come to a grand total of £1,165,450.

Eek!

So, have fun calculating... and can a few existing owners let me know if the above calculations tie in with your own experiences?

Another shitty day in paradise

2007-03-31T10:49:00.000+02:00

After the photo famine comes the feast...

Almost shipshape

2007-03-26T09:38:00.000+02:00

Most of the rooms are now looking a little less like a refugee camp.

The mayhem lasted a few days, but, by close of day Sunday, we had our bedrooms, bathrooms, snug, kitchen and HUGE living room reasonably functional. Even the infamous Bastelraum and Weinkeller are roughly as they'll be, although we have a long way to go. The guest bedroom'll be done this evening on a just-in-time basis; it's Claudia's birthday tomorrow, so her mother's coming to babysit while we go out scoffing fine food and quaffing wine.

Ooerr, I still haven't thought of anything to buy her.

The main Keller's still a disaster area of regional importance. As we're short of a garden shed, there're all sorts of outdoorsy stuff here and there, including our garden furniture. Plus two adulthood's worth of 'valuable' but unused-for-donkey's-years crap that we really should either sell or scrap. Box after box after box of it.

Now what really gets me is the way that removals people the world over think. Or don't think. Or maybe they do, but their sadistic sides get the better of 'em.

Imagine four or five removal blokes walking into our Keller, all bearing identically sized boxes. Identical in every respect, with the logo of their company on the sides. Stack 'em good, right? Well, the first seems incapable of placing his box against a wall, and the rest are equally incapable of putting their boxes upon a box that's already there and waiting for them. Result? They drop their boxes all over the place according to some random dispersion pattern that'd baffle a Chaos theoretician. The next batch of boxes then arrives, and are likewise scattered about the place... but wait! Wait! Look over there, that bloke's actually putting a box upon another one... oh... oh no... no no no.

He has of course placed the box rotated roughly 50 degrees to the previous box, and offset enough that it's centre-of-gravity's somewhere over the edge. As the bloke turns his back, it slowly tilts and then slides off until one corner touches the floor. It's progress is then halted by a garden rake that's lying on the Keller floor, a perfect setting for a slapstick routine. The rake's about three feet from a corner that even the most idiotic person I've ever met (you wouldn't know who you are) would recognise as a prime location for gardening tools.

Hmm, another chap's getting very close to the rake. Will he? Will he? Heh heh heh... go on, it's only divine justice... Oh bugger, he's dropped his box directly onto the rake's tines (crunch at they break through the cardboard, hopefully nothing broken inside). Booby-trap safely deactivated by a mixture of apathy, incompetence and Mister Magoo levels of good fortune.

Disaster avoided, the chucking in of boxes and stuff continues, and the colour of the Keller floor becomes a distant memory. It's now looking like a squatter's township as almost nothing's higher than a single storey. Progress slows as it takes quite some fancy footwork to navigate across the Keller...

(sigh)

Onto happier subjects...

The lights situation? I put a couple more up in the kitchen this weekend, so that's a total of... oh lordy I've lost count. A good few dozen done with my own fair hands. No further electrocutions, so I think I'm getting the hang of it.

There're two more utility lights to go up in the Kellers, but the nice Huf Haus people don't bring those until Thursday. And we've finally found a decent design to be nailed onto the outside walls of the house, so we'll be ordering five of 'em. At least I think I counted five sets of cables out there. Must check later today. Oh, and we've decided on bathroom mirror's with integrated lights, so I think they sort of count, so two more.

The light's at the end of the tunnel (sad pun intentional).

The kitchen's 99% finished. We're waiting on a piece of glass for the splash back that couldn't be ordered until the last moment. Accurate measurements, dontchaknow.

What else?

The shower cabinet arrives by Huf Haus on Thursday, so we'll be able to bring our main bathroom up to scratch. The blinds are likewise up on that side of the house, we'll be able to use the main bathroom without a show. I'll be able to chuck Claudia's bathroom stuff out of my downstairs bathroom and then it'll be mine, all mine. Mine! Hah hah hah...

Curtain rails are up throughout, but out of action 'cos the curtains guy needs to come back and cut notches here and there so we can thread on the slidey things. For now we're surviving with the blinds on the upstairs side that faces the neighbours. T'other side's uncurtained for now, but then there's nothing out there but rolling hills and the odd farmhouse in the distance. Downstairs we have the outside electric shutters. It'll all look better when we've got proper curtains, but for now we're functional.

And why no photos?

'Cos we're waiting for the electrician to come and conect up the phone and TV cables. Until then, no internet access from home. And that means no way of posting up photos for a little longer. Should be up and going by next weekend, but we'll see.

Needless to say, we're ecstatic about our house.

We're in!

2007-03-23T14:14:00.000+01:00

We moved in on Tuesday.

Five words summarises the whole thing, but as always the story was a bit more complicated than that.

You should know is that during the first official days of spring we were inundated with a full winter's worth of snow. The flakes started to descend on us on Monday evening, as we finalised the packing, then intensified during the night. By Tuesday morning, there was a respectable blanket covering most of Switzerland.

Ooerr.

Still, could have been worse. Oh hang on, it was worse. Because our old house is at a far lower alititude than the new one, (by about 300 metres, or a thousand feet), so if it was inconvenient at one end, it was going to be a bloody nightmare at the other. Lots of worried glances out of the window on Monday night and Tuesday morning. Lots of mental plans to defer the move a day or so, or to at least figure out where I could steal a snowplough. Or a husky.

Only... it seemed to go alright.

The chaps turned up about an hour late ("Snow chaos across Kanton Zurich"); filled their wagons in more or less the time they said they would; drove over to the new house; unloaded and were away before yer could say Bob's yer uncle.

By Tuesday evening the house still looked a bloody mess, boxes and unbuilt furniture everywhere, but at least our bedroom was intact enough to sleep in. Kids remained with Claudia's parents.

As we're a tad short on the curtain front, that night we had an open view from our bed out of our bedroom window (floor to ceiling, if you recall) right across the rolling farmlands. Fluffy snow lay everywhere, and the weather cleared enough so that the visibility was crystal. The few farm houses out there were still lit up, presumably as them Swiss country folks were still feeding their goats or something. Each light gave a glow to the surrounding snow. Little pools of light.

Magical.

Packing

2007-03-18T22:00:00.000+01:00

Claudia and I've spent most of the weekend packing up our stuff. Kids were dropped off at the grandparent (Swiss side) yesterday morning, and by lunchtime we were cracking on with the job at hand.

I recently counted the number of times I've moved house since leaving the family nest aged 19 years. It came to, erm, a little more than once per year. In the old days, it'd be a bootful of books and stuff. Then when I started buying furniture, I needed a rental van of some sort. For the last few moves I'd called in the professionals, and coughed up instead. But this move's looking very different...

What was a bit shocking was the massive increase in posessions that's come with parenthood. It took us a few hours just to pack up all the kid's stuff. And the lads're only 3 and 1 years old. Imagine what it'll be like when their spotty teenagers... or maybe they'll have less stuff 'cos they'll be aborbed into their computer games by then.

Anyways, packing's been a bigger job than we expected.

Anyways, I'm going to bed now. Knackered.

Things are coming together...

2007-03-17T07:05:00.000+01:00

A quickish update... things really are coming together.

The kitchen has now been completed. True to his word, the Kitchen Guy had a new worktop in the correct stainless steel made up. It arrived on Thursday, and that was the piece that allowed all the last few pieces of the kitchen jigsaw to be assembled. Yesterday, (Friday), the plumber came and did his stuff. He also spent about an hour downstairs in the Keller plumbing in the washer and drier. So, both our kitchen and laundry room are now 100% complete.

Erm, but we have no idea how to use the new appliances 'cos the electrics guy forgot to leave us the instruction manuals. Hmm. However, one expects they'll appear soon enough, so a minor point.

The Curtains and Blinds Guy also turned up yesterday. He put up the somewhat essential blinds in the main bathroom and 'overlooked' bedroom. They're a good solution, and should spare some blushes. He's supposed to turn up again on Monday with the six or seven kilometres of curtain track that'll be needed for the endless glass areas. Ok, one exaggerates, but needless to say, the Curtains and Blinds Guy was a little shocked at the final tally once he'd done a sweep around with a tape measure.

Then there's the Bastelraum parquet situation. Do you recall that the Parquet Guy forgot to reserve the stuff we wanted? And there wouldn't be any more until April? Sheesh! Well, Claudia and I had another look at our samples, and opted for a slightly different parquet, which is definitely available right now. "It also looks much warmer..." says Claudia. Hmm. Anyways, he's also supposed to turn up on Monday, so hopefully he'll get on famously with the Curtains and Blinds Guy.

And those lights? Those endless lights without which our Huf Haus will be a dark place when the sun goes down? Well, I've put up 32 of 'em myself. Another 4 were either done previously, or were done by the Kitchen Guy. A few more to go after we're moved in, plus another 5 for the outside of the gaffe.

I did a fantastic job, even if I say so meself. And only got electrocuted once. Eeek. Good tip for you do-it-yerself electricians out there: put up some sort of provisional light bulb as a visual clue to whether the electric's on or not. And if you do get zapped, don't write it up in yer blog or yer wife'll find out, ("But you told me you knew what you were doing..."). Still, it was all worth it. The house looks far less alien now it doesn't have bare cables poking out of every orifice.

And then there's the landscaping. Now I must say that the only non-Huf supplier who'll consistently provided Huf levels of service has been the landscaping people. They guided us through the various negotiations with the local Gemeinde (local government), helped us sidestep the stupid situation of the Case of the Stolen Land, and generally solved this or that problem as and when it arose. I've a lot to say about the progress outside, but it must wait for another post. However, the punchline is that the general earthworks are now finished, and I couldn't be happier. The landscaper's remaining work could be better termed gardening and joinery.

Progress on all fronts!

Back to reality

2007-03-10T07:32:00.000+01:00

Well, those wonderful, reliable, punctual Huf Haus people wrapped up just over a week ago... and now we're getting a glimpse of what everyone else has to put up with when building a house: the fact that the vast majority of companies and suppliers work to a different level of service to Huf Haus.

A lower level, in case you're on the wrong track.

The construction of our kitchen started last Friday, and continued on the Monday. It was supposed to be finished that day, only a few hiccups surfaced. We'd ordered two stainles steel worktops, one for the area around the sink and t'other for the cooking island. Well the kitchen guy had ordered the sink worktop in some other non-stainless steel material. Furthermore, while unwrangling the worktop problem, half the wiring up was delayed; so we're missing the sucky hood thing over the electric hob, the dishwasher's still in its wrapping, that magnificent food centre's full of melt water, and and and.

In theory the wiring'll be done next week. In theory the new worktop for the sink area'll arrive the week after. In theory this'll all be wrapped up just before we move in. In theory this was all to be finished last Monday, so yer can shove that theory where the sun don't shine.

And then we have the Bastelraum parquet situation. That was to have been laid down last Wednesday, and the skirting boards nailed to the walls. Easy-peasy, no risk, no trouble. Except that when the parquet guy popped over to his supplier to pick up some 50 square metres of the stuff, he was stunned to find nary a stick of it. Someone'd mopped up the lot on Monday. Claudia was likewise stunned to hear that the factory won't be able to produce more until April, so in lieu of a time machine, we won't have a Bastelraum parquet in place until a couple of weeks after we've moved in. I, on the other hand, was stunned that the daft sod hadn't reserved the parquet a few weeks back when we'd made the decision.

C'est la vie? C'est le guerre, more like. Why do these people insist on introducing unnecessary risks into their work? Do they want their lives to be more exciting? I'm sure this has happened time and time again, over the years, and he still doesn't get round to making that crucial reservation.

Daft sod.

Claudia and I've decided to take all these things in our stride. We've just left the Huf Haus autobahn (efficient, fast, free of traffic) and are now on the local roads (pot-holed, clogged, diversions). We can either bitch about it, or we can feel smug about the fact that 97% of our project was on that autobahn.

On a happier note, the sink unit for the bathroom arrived on Wednesday. Claudia was there to let 'em in.. and was surprised that they'd already been inside the house for an hour. Huh? Turns out that local suppliers operate a sort of house key exchange; they'd got it off the kitchen guy.

Anyways, the unit had been nailed to the wall by the time she arrived, although there was still some work left to do... which was just as well as it was 5cm higher than it should have been. Claudia took the snap shown above, gave the orders to move it down a notch, and left. We'll see how it looks in its full glory later today.

Another happy note: I painted the keller floors last weekend, using a special keller floor paint. Sort of battleship grey, so a side of one of Her Majesty's fleet'll be short a lick o' paint. I really got quite a buzz of satisfaction out of making my own contribution for once. Until that then, I'd been more like the gentleman farmer of the project; mumbling some irrelevence or other, waving a stick at this or that, and then watching the hairy arses march off into the fields to do the real work. At that moment, I joined the ranks of the hairy arses, and it felt rather good.

Also on a happy note, we managed to find lots and lots of lights this week. If you recall, we've a total light count of 45. So we were left with a lot of research and shopping around to do. And the likelihood of spending a lot of money.

Well, we found the window wall lights at Interio, and bought 12 of 'em. CHF 69 each, so what's that? About 30 quid a pop? And we found the 4 wall lights we need for the stairs at a place called Moebel Pfister, a mere snap at CHF 62 each (about 25 quid). And we also picked up 6 ceiling lights at, erm, at one place or other. Hard to recall as all those light places are beginning to merge in my mind's eye. Anyways, they cost CHF 59 (also about 25 quid). We also bought two spot light clusters, but they were way more expensive at CHF 150 each (65 quid).

A total cost of CHF 1,730 (750 quid) for 24 lights. Plus whatever we paid for the four we already had, plus the two on the way from Huf Haus. And muggins here's going over to the house today to start wiring them up. Should take a month of Saturdays, eh?

Make sure you pop over to Bob's Blog (link on the right) as he's experiencing similar difficulties. Well, maybe a lot worse...

Final handover!

2007-03-01T10:13:00.000+01:00

So, the final Huf Haus handover date arrived. Claudia was supposed to do this alone 'cos of my work commitments, but a bit of finessing of a meeting or two made it possible for me to jump into my car and get up there. I arrived towards the end of the handover process.

The house was looking very very beautiful. All the mayhem of earlier in the week had either been nailed to the walls, or cleared up. There was a cleaning bloke doing some final touches here and there, plus a big hairy bloke was going around with a toolkit adjusting this and that. And there was our nice Huf Haus blokey, Rudiger, a different Rudiger from that Bob Salmon but naturally close colleagues. Anyways, he had his clipboard clasped in his mighty mitts, and a cheery smile on his face.

There were a few details already written down (trivial stuff, to be honest) but the handover had almost reached the bit where signatures were to be applied to paper. But what's this? A box of touch-up paints, just in case? And a fixit toolbox (think similar to those kits you get in posher cars, but more extensive)? There were a few more bits and bobs like that, all of which contributed to that nice warm feeling yer get when yer deal with a company like Huf Haus.

Wet ink on paper, handshakes all round, and we were done.

And there I was feeling a bit sad that this was the last of our regular meetings with Rudiger. But then we did have rather a nice house to compensate for that.

I spent some time looking at the parquet flooring in its full glory. This was the first time all the wrapping had been taken off the staircase, and the floors were clear enough for a, erm, clear view. Click click click with the camera. The results of which are posted here. This doussie parquet's not for everyone, but we're ecstatic about it. And if you recall, it's harder than nails. We will see if it proves to be harder than two hyperactive wee laddies.

This was also the first time we'd looked at our bathrooms without the usual construction mess lying around. Again, not for everyone, but we are very very proud of the look. Posh New York hotel, we call it.

Of course the main bathroom's missing a few things. We elected to source our sink unit from elsewhere. Should arrive a week on Friday. The shower cabinet's also missing, down to a minor Huf Haus cock-up. Seems that someone ordered the tall shower cabinet which wouldn't have fitted under the slopey roof; it should be here before our official moving in date (20th March) so no harm done.

The last point is an object lesson to all who're about to move into a Huf Haus: living in a goldfish bowl's all well and good, but few of us are brave enough to use a bathroom without some form of curtain or blinds. Our blinds arrive in a couple of weeks, but until then it's handwashing only. Oh bugger, no sinks. Maybe we can use it as an office?

But the downstairs loo, really a shower bathroom downstairs next to the front door, was 97% complete. The missing 3% represents the two lights that need to go up. I'm still strggling with myself whether to diy this, or call in the professionals. However, short of those lights, my bathroom's finished. Heh heh heh.

Just as we were finishing up, Herr Arkitekt (he of the bowtie) turned up for a butchers. Lots of back-slapping, jokes, handshakes and peering at this or that detail.

Nice bloke.

Just after we left, it seems the kitchen guy delivered his stuff ready for the Friday's work. Talk about quick off the blocks. The following photos were taken Friday afternoon, so you can see that the clutter's back. Ah well.

By that Friday afternoon, most of the kitchen units had been positioned. Our cooking island was looking vast. More like a cooking continent. During a lull in the proceedings, I stood in front of where the elecric hob's gonna be and gloated at the extensive views both inside and outside of the house. I'm going to feel like a master of the universe standing there. Won't miss a trick, so watch out.

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And then we have the food centre. Or food center, as this one's an american model.

Ok, this bloody big metal thing's an outrageous extravagance. We looked at all manner of fridges during our kitchen research, and landed on some Seimens food centre as the way ahead. Rationale was that plenty of people spent money on a normal fridge for the kitchen, and then more money for some sort of vampire's coffin of a freezer in the garage or cellar. If we put that money together, then we could justify a single food centre with plenty of space inside, job done. Only the Seimens food centre turned out to look a bit, erm, crap and tinny.

Now, the kitchen guy had some whopping big General Electric food center humming in his show room. He cottoned on that the Seimens research had been a failure, and offered us this one at a massive discount. All's well then? Well, erm, not quite. Even the discounted price of this GE box was way more expensive than the Seimens version.

And our original cost justification? One expensive box is the same price as two less expensive boxes? Hah! We could have bought a fridge, a cabinet freezer and had a long weekend in a posh hotel for the price we paid for this thing.

And for those landscaping fans out there, a brief update. The driveway paving's finished (again). Everything's now cemented in place, so I've been told that by Monday I can test drive my driveway by driving my car on it, and see how it works for us. The various gaps you can see here and there are for soil which'll have to wait for drier weather.

The sandy stuff you see all over it's actually... sand. The idea is that after a few rains it'll wash between the cracks of the paving stones and set 'em rigid.

48 hours to final handover

2007-02-27T22:16:00.000+01:00

So, it's the Tuesday before the final handover on Thursday, and we had an appointment to go and see the nice Huf Haus waterworks bloke.

When we arrived, we could see a little more progress on the grinds, but as there'd been a few days rain that was more than we could have hoped for. Anyways, landscapers were beavering away on the paving stones for the driveway. (sigh) And there's a story behind all this.

Actually, two stories:

The whopping big stone wall wot acts as a bastion against the few hundred tonnes of earth that's underneath our parking area had moved a wee bit, one dark and stormy night. (gulp) The landscaping boss man had noticed something not quite right, called in his troops, and basically rebuilt the wall quietly one day. Gratis, of course. However, the bloody big digger that they use for moving half tonne granite blocks about had stirred up the beautifully lain paving stones on the parking area. Soooooo, the landscaping bods were busy repaving the driveway.

And then there's the second story. It could be that our driveway might be a few centimetres too narrow to park our two cars side by side. They can definitely park sidish by sidish, which is a start. However, anyone with a bit of exposure to the sidish parking concept will instinctively know the implications: last in first out, first in last out. We'll be forever having to let each other out. Buggah. I had a go with the lads there to see if they could squeeze an extra 10cm width out of the driveway, and they agreed. However, even then there're no guarantees.

Back to the house...

So this is the nice Huf Haus water bloke that we met up with. The photo's a bit unkind 'cos it looks like he's superglued his hand to his head. Not so. He's busy negotiating or confirming something or other that Claudia asked him. What that something was will forever remain a mystery 'cos I was busy gawping at stuff.

After the clear floors, and general emptiness of the house during the laying of the parquet flooring, it was a shock to see the bloody mess was back. Well, to be fair, most of the bloody mess was protecting our expensive wood flooring from collateral damage.

Nice bloke whisked us from bathroom to bathroom; this towel rail goes here, this loo roll holder goes there... hmm, where should we have the heated towel rail thingy? And the bog brush holder (a magnificent chrome-plated affair, so far too posh to clean bogs with)? Anyways, that kind of trivial, but ultimately important final final decision stuff.

Well, choices made, and toolbox at the ready.

A bit of drilling later (while we were outside negotiating with the landscapers) and we were ready for an early water-works handover. All, of course, present and correct. Bath? Check. Shower? Check. Shower cabinet? Arrived later this week. Bog? Check. And then a tour of the underfloor heating system in rapid fire german. Fortunately, my wife's fluent. Unfortunately, my wife is incapable of remembering anything remotely technical. Fortunately, we were handed the operations manual. Unfortunately, in german. Hmm. So I'll figure it out anyway. Reading the manual's a sign of weakness, anyway.

More tours down the Keller where... oh... where did that fluorescent light comes from? All part of the Huf Haus package sir. Great, so only 44 more to put up. Anyways, a further tour of the various pipes and stopcocks, inside and outside.

Job done.

Claudia signed the paperwork (for my maximum deniability later, heh heh heh) and the waterworks bloke's nicely setup for an early trip back to Germany, one assumes. Really great bloke, I must say.

In parallel, another Huf Haus bloke was busily hanging doors on hinges and a few other bits and bobs. And the final details of our house, if we could have seen beyond the bloody mess, were coming together. Skirting boards, bezels for the various light switches and plug sockets, a strip of wood here, a bit of something else there. Yer turn a tap and water comes out. A miracle! Yer turn a knob and the electric shutters descend like something out of... of... well, out of a Huf Haus.

Hands shaken, and off we went.

Thursday's the final handover date.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow wow wowsy wow.

Capucho on interior lighting...

2007-02-21T15:31:00.000+01:00

One of the less obvious features of yer Huf Haus concept is that the combination of wide stretches of adjoining windows, endless stretches of wooden beam, large open plan rooms, broad entrances, staircases and galleries, all takes quite some interior lighting.

Quite some lighting, indeed.

Consider those windows: leafy views during daylight hours are all very nice (actually really wonderful) but they become large black squares at night, or even worse, scary black squares. Aarrgghhhh!!! Therefore each of those beams above the windows are screaming for at least one cupped wall light every two metres or so. And even then, the vastness of (especially) the open plan downstairs living area means there'll still be a few underlit areas away from the windows. And then we have to also worry about the entrance area, central bit away from all the windows and the kitchen. And of course the bedrooms. And the bathrooms. And then we have the sweepy staircases and that whopping big 'suicide' gallery.

And finally, positioning yer posh dining table under the open gallery is all well and good, and probably a great opportunity for yer kids to throw stuff down upon the heads of dining guests. However, most of us want some lighting above the table, but the (sloping) ceiling's somewhere around eight metres above yer bonce.

An explanation of my terminology will help here: a window segment is the roughly 3m wide by 3m high square wot has a window in it. A wall segment is the equivalent, only with cement instead of glass. A roof segment is the equivalent roughly 3m by 3m square wot is above yer head. All segments are deliniated by wooden beams, so, the walls, windows and downstairs ceiling are all defined by (roughly) 3m by 3m wooden beam squares with either cement, glass or, erm, more cement in 'em.

With me so far?

Now the good news is that most of these issues will be discussed and (mainly) resolved during your Hartenfels trip. The nice Huf Haus chappy yer spend a couple of days with will devote around 2-3 hours to discuss yer electric cabling needs, and believe me, he'll be very proactive in suggestions. He needs to be, 'cos Claudia and I hadn't much of a clue.

The bad news is that, as is the norm outside of the UK, yer Huf Haus lighting facilities as delivered will amount to nothing more than a pair of twisted wires poking through a small hole. Still, might be a good idea to get at least that bit right up front, eh?

(Minor digression: these continental types sneer at the cheap plastic bulb sockets that dangle from the ceilings of almost every British household. But then again, you might still want to do it the Brit way, and good on yer for resisting the pressure. Needless to say, one's wife's a foreigner, so one's choices were somewhat limited).

What yer Huf Haus bod'll recommend will probably run along these lines:

One cable centrally up on the wooden beam above each window segment for those cupped wall lights. Very diffuse, very elegant, very Huf Haus, dontcha know. Fairly obvious downstairs, as every Huf Haus in christendom has the same solution, but less obvious upstairs in the bedrooms. Do those have one or two segments? Oo-err... turns out 3-axis and 4-axis house bedrooms have the equivalent of two. Two cables per bedroom then.

Now bear with me here, 'cos there'll be a punchline to all this...

The entrance area and kitchen needs plenty of downlight, and he'll nudge you towards a cable located right bang in the centre of each of the roof segments in that area. We went for two cables per ceiling segment in the entrance area, equally spaced, 'cos Claudia likes her spots, she does. Only one per ceiling segment in the kitchen because because, erm, just because.

The stairs need a wall light mounted left and right. They'll have to be fairly flush to the wall, though, 'cos they're positioned about elbow high. Ditto the upstairs gallery area, although they can have cupped wall lights 'cos they're up above your head. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.

The bathroom is shaped like a bedroom, so gets the two window segment treatment, but you'll also be needing a lighting cable above or behind yer bathroom mirror. Yer can't have too much light in a bathroom. Unless hung over, or spotty, or pale. Or me.

And that dining table light? Well, we all love to have some sort of light hanging down from the ceiling, beaming a cone of muted light down upon on those wonderous culinary creations wot you and your guests are scoffing. But that huge gallery above yer head is a big problem 'cos that big light needs to dangle from something, and also needs electricity. There's no easy solution. Well there is, but few of us will want an extra wooden beam above our heads just for the damn light. The more difficult solutions fall into one of the following categories:

1. An extra wooden beam above yer... - no way!

2. Super-long cables all the way down from the sloping roof far far above your head. The downside is that if yer as much as cough near your light, then it'll swing like Foucault's Pendulum for a month of sundays. That and the impracticality of hanging yer light from a cable that weighs more than, erm, your light.

3. Use one of those super-sized cantilever floor lights, which'll reach right over yer table. Hmm, not to everyone's taste. And an object ripe for bumping into, and knocking over, after a couple of digestive brandies.

4. Some other approach.

According to Huf Haus, this always causes a few headaches so there's no prescribed solution. "Be creative", they say. Which translates to "Yer on your own, mate".

Well, in a fit of inventiveness, I went for the "some other approach" option. I reckon I might be able to use a couple of cross-wires braced left and right on the downstairs ceiling beams as both power cables and supporting points. Attach our above-table light to said cross-wires and bob's yer uncle. Hmm, at least that's the theory. Might end up looking like the cables above an electrified train line, but then again it might just look ok.

And the punchline?

Numbers, dear heart, numbers.

Our 3-axis house has a mere:

- 8 downstairs window segments (1x cupped wall light per)
- 6 bedroom window segments (1x cupped wall light per)
- 2 bathroom window segments (1x cupped wall light per)
- 2 bathroom mirrors (1x mirror light per)
- 1 Bastelraum (2x ceiling lights per)
- 3 Keller rooms (1x flourescent ceiling light per)
- 1 cubby hole room (1x ceiling light per)
- 1 downstairs loo (1x ceiling light per)
- 3 entrance area ceiling segments (2x spot lights per)
- 2 kitchen ceiling segments (1x spot light cluster per)
- 2 stair cases - down-to-Keller, up-to-bedrooms (2x flat wall lights per)
- 1 gallery area (2x cupped wall lights per)
- 1 dining table (1x dangly light per, and bloody complicated at that)

That lot comes to:

- 18 cupped wall lights
- 6 spot lights
- 4 flat wall lights
- 4 ceiling lights
- 3 fluorescent ceiling lights
- 2 mirror lights
- 2 spot light clusters
- 1 dangly dining table light

...and a partridge in a pear tree.

Count 'em. That's a grand total of 41 lights (including the partridge) to be found, paid for, wired up, and securely screwed to the wall or ceiling.

Ouch.

So, there's a logistical issue to be addressed here.

One thing's for sure, no one in their right mind's gonna choose a mixed bag of 18 totally different cupped wall light designs. Standardisation's the key here, and not only because they'll generally look better than way. The way I've presented the list above isn't the way that we carefully thought this out. Oh no. It's a sort of standardised list that we arrived at after a lot of discussion, poking about light shops, and after the realisation that we needed a lot of lights had slowly sunk in.

And then there's the cost.

The dangly dining table light's already paid for a few years back (I still shudder at the insane cost of that super-trendy italian design icon) as are the two spot light clusters for the kitchen. But the rest...

Well, if we're not too careful we'll end up spending a fortune on the rest. Not just the light units themselves, but we must also consider the installation costs... unless yer fancy wiring up around 40 lights yerself... No? Thought not. We budgeted (budgeted? Hah!) about 50 quid a pop, rising to 100 quid plus for the special stuff, i.e. the bathroom mirror lights. Roughly double that for the installation, and that gives yer a total of, erm, oooooooooh lordy, somewhere in the region of 4,000 quid.

So we slashed the per unit budget down to about 30 quid a pop... and generally found some half decent candidates. I'll have to do some of the installations myself; think fluorescents, spots and clusters, normal ceiling lights and, ahem, the dangly dining table light, in fact anything that feels generally like the sort of job that any normal bloke could do. The trickier stuff will need the services of a professional.

Who'd have thought there'd be so much to write about on interior lighting, eh? More anon regarding external lighting... (sigh)

Postscript

A detailed look over the plans this morning's turned up a few more lights...

- +4 downstairs window segments (1x cupped wall light per)
- +1 bathroom window segments (1x cupped wall light per)
- +1 keller lobby area (1x ceiling light per)

But it turns out that 'only' two of the entrance hallway ceiling segments need two spots per. One of them's due for a single spot light cluster... which costs about the same as two single spots.

(sigh)

- 23 cupped wall lights
- 4 spot lights
- 4 flat wall lights
- 5 ceiling lights
- 3 fluorescent ceiling lights
- 2 mirror lights
- 3 spot light clusters
- 1 dangly dining table light

So we're up to 45 lights, not including the poultry.

On the bright side (too jaded for puns) we've already bought ten of the cupped wall lights... that's all the Interio warehouse had on stock. Interio's a sort of Swiss Habitat, and will figure large over the next couple of months, I'm sure.

(sigh)

Capucho on flooring...

2007-02-20T09:17:00.000+01:00

What is it about Brit tastes in flooring?

Speaking as an expat Brit (well, as British as a half-portuguese, bit-of-french bloke, married to a swiss girl, and living in Switzerland, can be) the flooring differences between Britain and the rest of Europe are easy to see: southern europeans have polished tiled floors, upon which they place one or three beautifully woven turkish carpets; northern europeans have wooden parquet floors, upon which they place either yer beautifully woven turkish carpet, or if they're a bit racier, they go for the iranian or persian options; eastern europeans have survived the post-WWII years with lino or worse, but please believe me that as soon as they catch up economically, they'll go for the polished tiles or the wooden parquet, but they'd laugh and spit on the idea of putting down fitted carpets.

And the idea of skimming and varnishing the bare floor boards, as the trendier Brit is liable to do, looks to yer continental european eye like someone forgot to order the real flooring. "Poor lambs, can't even afford lino. Maybe next year, eh..."

Tis trooooo.

Yer typical visitor to British shores find the flooring situation perplexing to the extreme. In fact the flooring situation, to foreign eyes, is trumped only by the ugly wall-mounted hot water radiators positioned just so underneath every window in the house; windows so ill-fitting that the radiator is doing a better job of heat up the exterior of the house than the interior.

One digresses, as one is wont to do.

Ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit for comic effect, but each and every one of yer knows there's a kernel of truth to the above, eh?

Now yer bog standard Huf Haus comes with the following: bathrooms, front door entrance area, and kitchen come with 'standard' ceramic floor tiles in a dozen different colours; the rest of the floors come with fitted carpets in a myriad of exciting hues. A British homemaker's dream come true then...

Hang on!

We're building a Huf Haus here, not a two and a half bedroom Barratt house. The rest of this post is not meant to be some sort of style guide, although one hopes the first few paragraphs might give one or two Brits something to think about, but one hopes the cultural background to the choices Claudia and I have made will be a little clearer.

First things first: the tiling. On our very first visit to Kindhausen (where the main Swiss Huf Haus show home's located) we fell in love with the Huf bathroom concept. That particular bathroom had lightish grey, washed effect tiles, so why would we want anything different? Well, we didn't as the photo above shows. We discussed a variety of options during our trip to Hartenfels, including bigger oblong-shaped tiles, and tiles with fancier surfaces, real stone tiles, etc etc. But in the end we realised that we'd be perfectly happy with the standard ceramic tile in the light grey, 'cos it was already a beautiful thing.

One thing to keep an eye on is the grouting colour. Golly, the details yer get dragged into, eh? Yer Huf Haus grout comes in three colours: white, black and grey. We went for grey, but believe me the overall effect of the tiles is surprisingly sensitive to the colour of the grouting, so choose carefully - Wake up at the back! This is important!

Well, that sorted out the bathroom flooring situation; and it didn't cost us one penny extra.

What we didn't need or want, however, were tiled floors in our entrance and kitchen areas. So, went for the delete option and received a 'credit' for them. Needless to say, we also didn't want carpets throughout, so we deleted them and banked the credit to spend on... what we really wanted.

Geographically, Switzerland is somewhere between southern and northern europe. A relevant point, when one is to consider whether we were to 'go parquet' or to floor tile the bloody lot of it to keep cool in the summer. Believe me the majority of this country is somewhat Germanic, and the houses have steep roofs for the snow. The western strip has a fair number of francophones (non-dialect, this being the french language after all), and the southern tip speaks italian and smoke vast quantities of cigarettes. There's a language called romatsch, a sort of degenerate latin (aren't they all, heh heh heh) that's spoken by a minority living somewhere in the alpine wilderness.

So, it doesn't take much imagination to realise that Frau Capucho was gonna want wooden parquet floors throughout, does it?

Now there's more to yer parquet flooring than meets the eye. Literally. What it ain't is a solid lump of whatever wood takes yer fancy. What it is is 3mm to 5mm of solid wood surface bonded to a 7mm to 5mm base of cheaper wood (Perhaps the unused inventory from a bankrupt match factory - looks like it). Anyways, yer parquet piece is about 1cm thick in total, and, depending on poshness, taste and, especially, cost, comes in two sizes: big pieces and small pieces. Dunno the exact measurements, but then you do need at least some scope for your own research.

Bigger pieces need a larger continuous surface of unblemished wood, which is why they cost more. But plenty of people prefer the look of the bigger pieces regardless. Tastes vary. The 5mm thick 'veneer' needs more posh wood material, so costs more... but leaves you the possibility to skim the wood once or twice over the years, as wear and tear, stiletto shoes and pogo sticks take their toll.

We went for the 5mm thick option, and (as luck would have it) preferred the look of the smaller pieces. Yer win some and yer lose some.

Question: would Sir and Madam prefer the more sophisticated finish of oiled parquet, or is your preference to slum it with the slightly cheaper, sealed finish that hardly deserves the removal of hob-nailed boots.

The right answer for us? Sealed parquet loses some of the lusture of the grain when compared to oiled, there's no doubt. But consider this: the sealed parquet is far more likely to survive the odd trampling of, well maybe not hob-nailed boots, but kid's dirty wellies. So we went for sealed, and ignored all elitist advice to the contrary. And saved a few quid to boot. Pun intended.

The next thing to consider is the laying pattern: standard plank (overlapping, like brickwork); herringbone (ziggy-zag, like yer old school's assembly hall); dutch pattern (sort of squared, would suit an old folks home); and finally ship's plank (long planks with dark calking betwixt to keep the sea water out).

Our house being somewhat above sea level, and not liking the other options, we went for the standard plank as the majority of you lot would.

That's all very well, but what about the type of wood?

Well, I'm sorry to say that almost everyone approaches the parquet question with a particular type of wood in mind. I know we did. And almost everyone's in for a rude awakening when they find that their preference is a disasterous idea due to any combination of the points below:

1. Parquet floors must above all be durable.

There's a hardness measure known as the Brinell Scale which is about as misleading as any scale I've ever come across. Cherry is rated at 30, while something like maple comes in at 35. So cherry must be about 85% as durable as maple, right? Pah! A cherry parquet floor will soon look like an ice-rink after a particularly busy weekend, while yer maple will stay fresh for years.

Red cherry was our first choice, by the way.

2. Some woods can be a bit... funny.

I've always loved the look and grain of beech, for example. But did you know that beech is notorious (in yer sophisticated parquet circles, yer understand) for bleaching when exposed to sunlight (think photo negative of a rug, for example) and, even worse, when exposed to heat. Not the sort of material to choose to put on top of underfloor heating elements, eh?

Beech is attractive, hard wearing and cheap cheap cheap, by the way. Buggah.

3. Almost all the nicer, durable parquets are expensive.

Ain't that the truth. It doesn't matter whether your thing is for light, reddish or darker woods, the end result is that almost anything suitable for you will turn out to be towards the upper end of the cost range.

What did we go for? We found an analogue for our first choice, American Red Cherry, in a tropical wood called Doussie. I hadn't heard of it either, but then I work in a bank. It's reddish, darkish (but not too dark!), durable (41 on the Brinell Scale!), and while expensive, it wasn't expensive.

The credits we got from those nice Huf Haus people in return for unwanted tiles and carpets went about half way paying for the Doussie parquet flooring throughout, including bedrooms, but I had to put my hand in the pocket for the rest. About 6,000 quid for the upgrade, and that's for one of the biggest 3-axis houses with, say, 180 square metres of parquet. A 4-axis or 5-axis house would be considerably more.

And then the sting in the tail: yer standard Huf Haus staircase comes in weapon's grade, specially treated beech wood. And each step's a solid block. Now yer know I like beech, but one thing beech ain't is... doussie. Therefore, we had to upgrade the stairs to match the parquet, which came to... another 6,000 quid. Ok, so we doubled up 'cos we have two staircases: one up to the bedrooms; and t'other down to the Keller.

So, 12 thousand quid in total for the doussie parquet upgrade throughout.

Yep, life's an expensive bitch.

Still, it'll be nice when it's done.

Last Friday's visit was specifically to see our new parquet. When we arrived the upstairs had been completed, apart from a few trimmings, and the two Huf Haus people were just beginning the downstairs. They should finish the lot, trimmings and all, this week.

And...?

Well, Claudia and I were simply bowled over with the doussie parquet. It's everything that we'd ever wanted (in the end, 'cos we twisted and turned a few times). As we'd continually reminded ourselves during the process, yer Huf Haus has so much natural daylight coming at yer, that you're not restricted by anything but your personal tastes and depth of pocket when it comes to the colour.

We got what we wanted; and more.

Bathroom tiling and more landscaping

2007-02-11T14:48:00.000+01:00

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!

Progress inside and outside

2007-02-02T13:44:00.000+01:00

Claudia and I've just returned from an ad-hoc trip to see the new house. It's Friday lunchtime, and that's often a good time to have a butchers, as the Huf Haus people have usually wrapped up and returned to Hartenfels for the weekend, so we get the run of the house without feeling like we're, erm, intruding on their patch.

The first thing we noticed when walking down the road is that the bloody big digger has gone. As had the majority of the dirt pile, although a little remains, presumably as raw material for further landscaping. The landscaping people were at lunch, but they'd done some extra work on the driveway, which was looking flatter, wider, and generally more viable. Good. Some extra stone blocks had appeared to shore up the land here and there, plus a few other bits and bobs.

But it was on the 'concealed' side of the house where the majority of the landscaping'd been done, and what a dramatic difference. The nasty blue plastic sheeting that'd protected the hillside throughout the excavations had been gathered up, and the sloping hill that had been underneath generally smoothed, graded, and whatever else. Already a great start. Also the slot through which daylight is supposed to channel its way through to the two Bastelraum windows in the Keller had been shored up and landscaped in. Not perfect, but very very promising. More anon on that.

All in all, great landscaping progress. Remember that buggah all had happened outside the house for two months while we jumped through the various hoops that both the local Gemeinde and the neighbour were continually forcing upon us.

And the house itself?

Well, the interior decorating's finished and looking... perfect. Unblemished. The bathroom tiling's not been started as yet, but all plastered and wooden surfaces have been painted white white white. Looking back, it took about a month for the newly raised house interior to transform from soggy concrete hole to dry unplastered hole. And then just another month has transformed it again into a beautifully painted interior that, flooring and final cleaning aside, is looking... ready. Really a very satisfying feeling. It'll all get another boost once the parkett flooring goes down, and the bits of plastic and cardboard cladding gets ripped off the stairways.

And also great news down in the Keller. After month upon month of uncertainty as to the viability of the Bastelraum due to low light levels, today was a real eye-opener; an overcast day, yet quite some light down there via the newly landscaped slot and hillside outside. I think I'm about to stop worrying about it. Maybe not, but I'll definitely tone it down.

The few outside walls that remain between the long expanses of glass have also been painted nicely.

And what's planned for next week? Well, we expect the main action to take place in the bathrooms: tiling; plumbing; shower in this corner, bath over there. That sort of thing. It may well be that the electrical people get to wire up the various sockets and switches that remain uncovered throughout the house, which would also be a nice boost. The project protocol doesn't have much detail, so I guess it'll all come as a nice surprise.

Today's the end of Week 5 of 2007. Four more weeks to go, and then (drum roll) it'll be the official Huf Haus Handover at the end of Week 9, 2nd March. Only then can our local kitchen supplier be allowed on site to nail in our kitchen (The Leicht brand, plus electronics by Seimens, Mr Salmon), and in parallel, the local bathroom supplier can plumb the decidedly non-Huf sink unit and mirror (all by a Swiss company called 4B, and too bloody expensive) into the main bathroom. And then we're done. By the end of Week 11, March 16th, the house will be ready. Might even be earlier, but one prefers to plan around certainty, not hope.

The Plan is that we move in on Tuesday, 20th March. That'll give us plenty time to clear up our current house, (rented off a world famous opera singer, I kid you not. Sadly, it's true what they say about divas...), redecorate here and there, and have the old house all wrapped up and keys handed back by the end of March. Job done. And likewise, the intention is that we're properly moved into our Huf Haus, and things are tidy and civilised within a week or so. No living out of boxes. The actual move is literally from one side of the Zurich lake to t'other, so it's not like we've got a Really Big Move on our hands. It's just that a family of four, including two wee toddlers, has a surprising amount of stuff and a good proportion of that stuff must be in good working order, otherwise family life will simply go into melt-down.

It's not the end of the project, not quite yet. But we can at least see the finishing wire from here.

Plasterin' 'n' paintin' 'n' stuff

2007-01-28T21:32:00.000+01:00

Having survived last week's brain-frazzling fever, I decided to pop over to the house today to see what could be seen, and what progress had progressed.

It snowed a few days ago while I lay up to my gills in antibiotics and paracetamol, so I was also crazy to see how the house looked under its blanket of snow, especially as today's been one of those crystal clear winter days where yer can see for a million miles. Both Claudia and Rafael (our eldest, 3 years) are now in the midst of their own private fevers, so a roll-call of able bodied hands turned up, erm, myself and Luis (our youngest, 1 year and a bit). So I shoved him into my car, pulled down the various child sun-blinds that the previous owner had had the gumption to have fitted, and orf we jolly well went.

Glorious, glorious day. The Alps were looking sharp enough to cut yer finger on, and the already beautiful landscape was looking fresh and clean under its icing.

Ok, that's enough waxing in the lyrical sense.

Our little cul-de-sac was clear of snow, do I drove down as normal. Parked up, made sure Luis was as soundly asleep as I suspected (he was) and jumped out for a butchers plus a few photos for you lot to pore over...

Well, to be honest the first impression I got wasn't of the house under its cheerful blanket of snow. As I drove up, I couldn't help noticing a bloody big JCB digger, plus the absence of about half of our dirt-pile that had been left over from the excavations. Great great great! And as such a metal beast costs marginally more to rent that a fully-fuelled small twin aircraft, one can only imagine that the rest'll be hoicked out on Monday.

The non-existent progress on the landscaping had been depressing me since the end of November, which was about when the last sod of soddin' earth had been turned over. Also, one should keep in mind that the majority of that dirt pile had been, erm, piled on top of some farmer's meadow. General agreement all round that the farmer had been a damn good egg about the whole thing, so one really would like to see this resolved.

Oh, and another chunk of our view was now unobscured: quite a lot. However, it must be said that the newly revealed 'greater' view was somewhat blotted by the bloody big yellow digger sat bang in the middle of it.

And then inside for a look around at interior progress for week 4:

The entire ground floor ceiling's been plastered and painted to perfection. The photo below gives an idea, but only an idea. Flawless, the lot of it. As the Keller ceiling's been tongue and grooved with whitewashed wood, and we ticked the option to have the tongue and grooving of the first floor ceilings left au natural, i.e. whitewashed but unplastered, then that basically means our ceilings have already reached their final form. A sort of milestone, one supposes.

The plaster-board gaps in the Keller and here and there elsewhere have been nicely skimmed in with plaster in preparation for the coming week's painting fest.

Both the downstairs loo/shower room and the upstairs main bathroom have been plastered and painted to perfection. Again, a sort of milestone, as they're now prepared for the the floor and wall tiling that (one believes) happens this coming week.

Oh, and the fancy metal bars along the gallery chasm have been bolted in. Might come in handy, a few years hence, 'cos I'm sure the kids'll need something strong to attached their bungee cord to.

That Dastardly Bob Salmon's project's also making super progress. Really super pickies up on his Blog, so go and have a look right after you've done here.

We both clearly have very similar build schedules, as he's also got the painters and plasterers in at the mo'. Bob's also stuck his neck out and set a moving in date of 15th March... erm, Claudia and I have just agreed to move on or about the 22nd March. Drat, drat and double drat! It looks like Bob's gonna beat us to the finishing line by a week or so! Although he'll be without mains electricity 'cos his friendly local electric company's buggering him about something rotten. He has my sympathies, he really does, although one cannot help smirking when one imagines Bob's TR6 up on bricks and revving like a demon, while he uses its dynamo to power up his electric drill.

Heh heh heh.

Yet another update on that Parking Situation...

2007-01-28T08:07:00.001+01:00

Yes, it hardly seems possible, but That Parking Situation's raised its ugly head yet again.

Seems that over the last few weeks there've been exchanges going on between the Gemeinde Man (Local Government), Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow tie), and our super-handy landscape gardener (Useful Landscaping Chap). This flared up last Friday, but what with a massive fever that left me gasping for energy, oxygen and braincells, it's has to wait until now for a write up.

Problems? The types of material we could use for the construction of the partition/retaining wall between our driveway and our neighbour's land. Whether the space our drive way entrance will have conforms to whatever minimum standard as defined in so and so Swiss building code. Oh, and whether we should have some form of fence (and type) to stop small children/cars/helicopters/cows falling the 2m or so from our parking area down to the house level.

Claudia organised to meet up with interested parties (yet again) on Wednesday lunch time. Due to the fact that my temperature was around 40 degrees C at the time, I deferred. Well, to be honest, I wasn't asked. This was going to be Claudia's gig this time.

Claudia's feedback as follows, (anglicised for clarity, yer understand):

All very strange with Gemeinde Man. He came team-handed with a small bloke in a yellow vest.

He reinsisted that we must have a fence to stop people, cars and snowploughs from falling down the 2m drop. Yes, we have small children ourselves. And it'd better be done by the time we move in, 'cos they'd know. Yes, we intend to because we have... And if it isn't there by then, they'll suspend snowplough services to our cul-de-sac. Yes, we intend to because we have small...

Next problem!

That partition/retaining wall must clearly deliniate the boundary between the properties. Erm, bloody good idea under the circumstances. And must be easily removable in case the water people (who work for the Gemeinde) need to dig up the main. So, small granite blocks should be ok... And we insist on no concrete. So, small granite blacks should be... And not the usual large granite blocks! So, small granite blocks... In fact, we'll only give you permission to proceed on the understanding that you use small granite blocks.

(sigh)

Lastly, your turning-in circle doesn't conform to paragraph blah blah, section blah blah, chapter blah blah, of the Ladybird Book of Building Regulations (Swiss Edition). As stated: "Turning circles to left and right must be a minimum of 3m in radius. This one doesn't conform".

"Bollocks! Course it does!", cry Herr Arkitekt and Useful Landscaping Chap together. Doesn't! Does! Doesn't! DOES! OH NO IT BLOODY DOESN'T!"

And then a "No, it looks ok", comes from, believe it or not, Gemeinde Man's back-up, known to myself only as nice small bloke in a yellow hazard vest who's looking carefully at the latest plans (Version 127 revision C). Unexpected ally! Kiss that man! "Plain as day in these plans it's 3m radius uphill, and 3.4m downhill." (pause) Kiss that man again!

And that was that. Gemeinde Man promised a rubber stamp approval for what we'd all shaked hands by the end of next week. We'll see. One can only hope that this particular vampire has been well and truly killed now, as we're running short on stakes and crucifixes.

Another meeting with that nice Huf Haus Blokey

2007-01-16T17:20:00.000+01:00

Claudia and I popped up to the house today, as that nice Huf Haus Blokey was in Switzerland on one of his regular rounds.

There are two other Huf Haus projects underway in Switzerland at the moment. He'd just arrived huffing and puffing having driven up from a place near Chur (think Alpine paradise) where there's the most precipitous Huf Haus project I've seen yet. They've literally chopped a step into the hillside, or should that be mountain side. Anyways, one feels the owners will need crampons to do their gardening. T'other project's on t'other side of the Zurich lake, in one of the outlying Zurich feeder villages.

All three projects, including ours, are three-axis white Huf Haus's, so we're at least fashionable.

Where was I? Aha, the meeting...

There was an old chap with tattoos working hard in the Bastelraum when we arrived. As it's little more than a standard cellar room in drag, it's important that it gets fully tanked out for moisture, heating and insulation. Good to see plenty of work done, including nice tongue and grooving ceiling wood, white-washed to match the similar ceilings on the upstairs bedroom floor. Very civilised, and brings lots of light into what we already know will be a light compromised room. Might even stop moaning about the extra expense of the bloody soddin' Bastelraum if it comes out as good as I think it will.

Might. Might not. So there.

Nice Huf Haus Blokey arrived, so upstairs for the first item on the agenda: We agreed that the boxy thing in the bathroom above which we need to put a mirror can be chopped down to a more reasonable 105cm height. If you remember it'd been boxed in at 130cm high, which means any mirror flat on the wall behind it would only be suitable for giraffes with a vanity problem. The old chap with tattoos and a hard hat reckoned 100cm would be better, which we took seriously as he'd be the one who'll be doing the woodwork. Nice Huf Haus Blokey reckoned 110cm. Claudia and I shrugged, and compromised at 105cm, which I reckon keeps everyone happy.

Tramp tramp tramp downsairs again, where I point out that someone's knocked a corner off the front door. Whoops, it'd cut right through the cardboard cladding and everything. Old chap to the rescue: he reckoned he could fix it good as new. We'll see, but if it ain't as good as new then we'll be wanting a new as new door.

We asked nice Huf Haus Blokey whether the heating delays had delayed the overall schedule. He looked genuinely surprised at the question; of course not. Erm, I mumbled, thought not. Good-o. Right. So the project over-run seems put to bed. There ain't one.

Then a brief inspection of the heating system. We discussed whether the 22 degrees C setting was high enough. Yep, but higher would be better. How high? Very high. So we cranked it right up to the heady maximum of 26 degrees C. Full power! My preferred approach to drying out the house, I must say. Damn the bloody torpedoes.

And that was it. Handshakes all round, and then off we go, back to the office for the rest of the working day in sedentary paradise.

The heating's on and... erm, that's it

2007-01-11T15:23:00.000+01:00

Well, my first post in 2007, so I wish you and your loved ones a Happy New Year.

Apart from the odd curiosity trip to show off the house to family and friends (I've got a key, dontcha know) not much happened over the Christmas and New Year period that you don't already know about. The Huf Haus people's two week vacation shut-down ended last Monday 8th, so we'd hoped that a hoard of super-efficient German workers would descend on us this week, and progress commence.

However, it hasn't worked out that way.

The heating didn't go on until earlier this week, so the arrival of the Huf Haus people is delayed until next Monday... one hopes. As the next phase involves a lot of plastering and painting, then it's essential that the house is 'warm' and dry. 'Warm' means 'not cold', in this context, yer understand. So that missed heating switch-on deadline before Christmas has extended the schedule as one feared.

Now you should understand that I've spent the majority of the last ten years sweating it out as an IT project manager, so I'm well aware of the fact that there's no miracle in the world that'll allow a slipped project to return to its original schedule. The concept of a project catch up is a fallacy. Well, there are a few tricks evil project managers ('evil' means 'successful') can use, such as cutting out large swathes of scope, reducing quality to a laughable minimum, and, erm, swearing blind that "as you must certainly recall, the original schedule was totally provisional, so I'm pleased to be able to announce the definitive project schedule... blah blah blah".

So are we delayed one week? Two weeks? Three? Well we simply don't know yet, but should have the answers sometime next week when we'll be meeting that nice Huf Haus blokey again. Frau Claudia's going to ask him to bring along the new schedule, and (ahem) an explanation as to what exactly happened during those two weeks before Christmas that caused the delay. Not such a big deal, and we're not interesting in the pointing of fingers, the wringing of hands, nor the distibution of white feathers and pistols; but we'd like to... well, we'd like to know, that's all.

And the weather situation? A bloody warm snap. Again. No skiing worth talking about 'cos the Alps are free of snow. Half the plants in our garden are budding, and we have new dandelions sprouting in the lawn. Even worse, I reckon our landscapers could have finished the terra-forming after all 'cos the ground never did freeze up.

Looks like winter's been cancelled this year, which is fair enough because the last two summers were also cancelled. Bloody global warming, innit. Seems we're slipping into a two season climate: a long, wet spring followed by a long, dry autumn. Hmm, one could live with that if it wasn't for the lack of skiing.

Floor plans

2006-12-27T14:43:00.001+01:00

Well I've been meaning to get our floor plans scanned in for some time, but with one thing or another, plus the fact that we haven't figured out how to scan on our all-in-one printer gizmo, well, it's sort of dragged on a little longer than one would have hoped.

Still, we're there now as one of my nice team members has done the scanning for me. Almost worth popping into the office for during the Christmas break. Almost...

So, without any further ado, let me introduce yer to the inner gubbins of our Huf Haus...

As stated a couple of times in previous posts, our house is a mildly modified 3.09.30, which loosely translates as a 3-axis house, each axis 30cm wide, and it's the model number 09. Now most of the mods are on the ground floor layout, so it's just as well that it's the logical place to start with.

Just to the left of that table and chair combination you'd normally find what's known as an Erker in German, but you and I'd know it better as a bay window. But not one of those 1930s semi-circular bay windows. It's a sort of oblong extension three of those segments long, and about a segment wide. Well, to cut a long story short, said bay window thingy would have pushed our living area too close to the external boundary on that side of the house, so it had been wiped off the floor plan before we took over the project. Oh, and we got a credit for the saved material cost from those lovely Huf Haus peeps.

The next mod was the removal of a few bits of solid and glass interior walling that the standard house has here and there to 'shield' the living room areas from the horrors of the main entrance. Can't have too much space, we felt, and going by feedback from a few Huf Haus owners, we did the right thing.

The last significant mod is a bit subtle on the surface, but somewhat significant under the hood. The standard kitchen area (marked Kochen on the plan) for this house has two parallel solid walls running three segment steps in. This leaves yer a fairly narrow kitchen, which plenty of owners struggle to make some kind of sense of. When Claudia and I visited Hartenfels, we naturally took a big interest in the 3.09.30 show house that would be a close analogue to what we would be building... only mirror reversed and sans Erker. It's the grey 3-axis house, and if you'd been there you'd likely remember it. Anyways, that house had been modified so that the parallel walls only ran two segments into the house. This liberates some space betwixt kitchen and the gallery area, which is a nifty place for a cooking island. However, it also means that one of the main cross beams that holds up the entire house on a windy day has to be moved one segment step towards the entrance side of the house. A major modification behind the scenes which would normally require much sucking of pencils to implement. The great thing is that all we had to do is to ask the nice Huf Haus people to copy 'n' paste the show house solution, which they did at no extra cost... and of course all the structural due diligence had already been done. Or so one assumes, as the show house didn't show any signs of toppling over.

Oh and we replaced the usual lounge exterior door with a whopping big 3m sliding door. As, inevitably, does everyone else, so leave some budget aside for this.

That's it for the ground floor, so upstairs we go...

...where we find an almost standard floor layout.

One of the balconies has been deleted due to its proximity to the outside parking area. The official reason was that it would have cut out daylight. However, I well remember my own childhood, and therefore cannot imagine my wee lads resisting the temptation to leap from balcony to parking area and vice versa. Nah, it had to go.

The open gallery is slightly smaller due to the deletion of the Erker down below, but believe me it's still a soddin' big gaping maw that might give the vertigious amongst us something to think about when pausing for breath at the top of the stairs. One would consider a safety net, if one wasn't sure that the lads would use it as a trampoline.

Up above the landing we have a couple of skylights cut into the very top of the roof. One last minute change was to ensure that these could be electrically opened and shut from down down down below. A bit pricy, but essential for anyone without an extra long pogo stick. Or jet pack.

Lastly, (and contrary to the floor plan) we reversed the sense of the door to the little cubby hole next to the stairs so that it opens outwards not inwards. More storage space that way, right.

And that's all folks, so down to the Keller...

...via the 'optional' Keller stairs. Believe it or not, the continuation of the main stairs down to the Keller are not standard. One imagines that many a Huf Haus client goes bananas when they first find this out, but we (like yourself now, so no excuse) had been prewarned and therefore took it better than most. Cannot remember the exact cost, but it's lots and lots. Seems some owners would prefer to use a ladder or parachute or that jet pack to descend/ascend to their wine cellar... well, to be honest I cannot see an earthly reason why such an essential component of any Huf Haus could be optional. Nuff said on the matter.

Ignore the various waste water pipes on the floor plan. They'll be happily channelling away waste water safely out of eye and mind for many decades to come.

The standard cellar doors are metal horrors, by the way, so we replaced all with something more attractive.

We tinkered about with this and that wall until we ended up with four separate rooms: the laundry/heating room; the main storage cellar; the highly important and super secret wine cellar; and last, but not least, the bloody bloody bloody Bastelraum, aka The Bloody Office.

Sigh.

The two exterior windows to that The Bloody Office are decidedly non-standard, and have an exterior 'cut' into the garden to channel at least a wee bit of daylight to the pale sedentary slave below. Also non-standard is its 'civilised' heated floor and neatly plastered walls that extend to the stairs area. Also the extra electrickery wot yer need; phones, internet, TV, lights, camera, action. All in all, The Office has easily been the most contentious part of the interior, eclipsed solely by the parking area land grab for time, expense and general pain in the arseness. Consider this: our above land Huf Haus is already vast at 220 square metres and offers two rooms surplus to our immediate requirements; a coin toss could have decided which would be the spare room for visitors, leaving the loser (winner) as a perfectly functional office. But oh no, we decided to use some of the 'wasted' cellar area as the office instead. A 35 square metre area that's literally bigger than my first apartment. Hmm, one recalls a story about a baboon with its hand stuck in a hole in a tree because it refused to unclasp the fistful of nuts it had discovered there. Well, The Bloody Office is that fistful of nuts. It's an extra cost of somewhere in the region of CHF 50,000 or GBP 20,000 for an extra room we didn't need. Madness!

Still, it'll be nice when it's finished.

That's me for 2006, so wishing you and your loved ones a very happy New Year. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Status on Christmas Eve

2006-12-24T12:30:00.000+01:00

I popped over to the house for a wee look at lunchtime. All was quiet in the village and at the house. The temperature was down to -3 degrees C, so the ground was frozen, but little more than a slight dusting of snow about the place. Nice to be able to walk all around the house without muddy feet as the icy mud crust easily supported my weight.

I tested our new key and it worked perfectly. The key was a special arrangement with the Huf Haus people. Normally they avoid giving the owner a key too early due to (one supposes) safety reasons. If you really really want one, then really really ask for one and you'll really really get one.

As the floor hadn't had more than a couple of days to begin drying I just stood outside and looked in. The new floor looks... flat. Erm, not much more to add other than the fact that it looks a lot better than, if not as interesting as, the expanse of snaking heating pipes that were there before. When I later circled around outside of the house looking at this and that, I looked into the Keller windows and gazed down into the upstairs floor from the parking area, and was rewarded with visual proof that all interior floors were now nice and flatly cemented. Done. Good.

So where are we now?

Well, looking back on this blog I see that the first sod of turf was moved on the 19th September, and it's now the 24th December. So, just three months have passed in which our untouched green alpine meadow has been transformed into our dream Huf Haus, albeit one still awaiting a few necessities before we can move in.

The ground has been made safe from subsidence or slippage. The cellar has been built, and the small matter of a whopping big Huf Haus shoved on top of it. The first stage of landscaping completed so we have some steps to our house and the paving stones to get us to our front door. The electrics and water are in and functional, as are the interior and exterior drainage pipes. The wooden covers for various nooks and crannies that channel cables and pipes within the house are all safely nailed/bolted/glued on. The heating system and maze of underfloor heating pipes are present and correct, functional, but not to be switched on just yet. The flooring has been cemented in.

So what has still to be done in the next couple of months?

Well, the kitchen is not much more than a few pipes and wires hanging out of the wall, as are both the downstairs and upstairs bathrooms. The bath itself is on the balcony for now, as are two loo-sized boxes. The parquet floor has to be laid, and the bathroom floors tiled. The cellar walls need to be prepared, whatever that means, and the part of the cellar that we decided to have 'civilised' into a spare room/office needs plastering. Then every wall needs to be painted. One imagines that all white wooden surfaces need to be painted, but I'm really not sure if the wooden bits come prepainted from the factory, or undercoated. Whatever. Oh, and then the whole lot needs cleaning cleaning and then cleaning again. And then we're still awaiting the next phases of the landscaping to sort out the garden and parking area as the exterior looks like the aftermath of some bunker busting cruise missile.

Yep, a lot more to do, but believe me, our cups are half full. We really couldn't be happier with the progress of the last three months.

Small delay to the flooring

2006-12-22T11:42:00.000+01:00

We received a call from Herr Arkitekt (he of the bowtie) regarding the flooring situation. Seems that there's been a week or so delay in the Huf Haus people getting the flooring put on top of the floor heating pipes. And this delay will have a knock on effect on the overall schedule.

Some background...

The Dastardly Bob Salmon refers to something called screed which might be what all this is about, but one feels it's tacky to learn such vulgar blue collar construction words. However, what I do know is that some stone chip-type stuff gets put on top and all around the floor heating pipes, and then when it's all looking nice and level, cement (or it may be concrete) gets poured over the lot.

Yer then got to wait a week until this sets enough to bear the weight of the Swiss heating engineer and Huf Haus something or other engineer wot have to clump clump clump across said floor, descend down to the Keller area, walk across some more newly laid floor, and then switch on the bloody heating system. Heating system then hums for another week or so, thereby completing the two week floor drying exercise.

Now Huf Haus have a Christmas shut down period of two weeks. Very civilised way of doing business, one feels, that many companies around the world should think about implementing. The idea was to take advantage of this shutdown period by ensuring the bloody heating system is on before everyone ups tools and buggahs off to their traditional German christmas haggis dinners. As the floor needs a week to set before the heating goes on, that meant the floor had to have been down by last Friday 15th December.

Unfortunately, we've just heard the floor went down yesterday.

So, to truncate an already longish story, we have to figure out a way to coax out the local Swiss heating engineer sometime during the Christmas break. Possible, but perhaps unpopular as the company is located in an entirely different Kanton.

Even worse, we have to persuade the equivalent Huf Haus engineer to climb into his BMW, drive the 800km or so down to our house, even though his fellow German workers are all tucked up in their highland crofts watching telly. Even worse that worse, one feels that the Huf Haus engineer has only a bit of switch flicking to do, which is hardly an inspiring reason to make a 1,600km round trip. However, engineers being engineers, one can quite imagine that said job must only be done by a qualified Huf Haus engineer with a black-belt in switch flicking, and it'd be an unheard of precedent for him to give the instructions over the phone to someone a little closer to the ground.

In summary: we're delayed at least a week. And wot with that Dastardly Bob Salmon hitting a purple patch, one fears the tide has turned against us in the race to the finish.

Terra-forming II

2006-12-13T21:58:00.000+01:00

Quick lunch time trip to the house today, just to see what's what. Well, actually to see what state our grinds are in now that the landscaping chappy and his merry band of diggers have very likely packed up until spring.

Sooooo, instead of my usual wordy blog, I thought I'd do a photo intensive post today. Ok with you lot? Then I'll begin...

Here's the view of the Zurich lake we get when taking the autobahn towards the village where we're building our Huf Haus. Please note the blue waters, radiant blue skies, sun drenched houses, and then dismiss the lot entirely. This is December 13th, so the weather is simply a continuation of the fluke Autumn we've been lucky enough to have this year. Normally December through to February are three months of continuous grey skies, with the odd, and I mean odd sunny day to relieve the monotony. And delay the suicides.

Which is why the Zurich residents escape to the mountains at the drop of a hat. It just so happens that the Autobahn trip to our new home also gives yer a dynamite Alp view.

Oh, the hardship.

Then, after a meandering road through the moraine lands above the lake we get our first glimpse of the village, and, if you look very carefully, our house.

Hmm, now's the time to give the snowline an anxious look. Ooerr, looks to be about 850m. Another couple of degrees off the average temperature, plus a snowy day, and we're up to our necks in it.

And then we arrive. Here's the rather tight and steep cul-de-sac down to our house. One will soon be able to report just how passable this is going to be during the winter months. Ooerr again.

So, here's where the landscaping chappies got to before dropping tools. We have a nice flight of main steps, plus the paving stones are down. Great stuff.

So down the steps for a closer butchers...

...still plenty of view from here...

...ahh, they left a decent gap of earth betwix paving stones and wall. Hmm, wot d'yer reckon? Ferns or moss? Or both? Let's see it from the other side...

...ok, I'm happy.

Hang on? The door's locked and nobody home. Where are the Huf Haus peeps? Probably at lunch somewhere eh? Or back in Germany? Ah well, we're talking about Huf Haus, so I don't have to police the hairy-arsed workers like those poor unfortunates that choose not to build a Huf Haus.

Ok, I'll wipe that smirk off my face. Sorry.

So it's external photos only today, which I suppose is what I popped up here for anyways.

So out again to see the rest of the land around the house. Now we intend to use wooden decking for the rest of the 'paved' areas, plus judicious applications of pebbles for that mock japanese look. One imagines that some time in the future, the mock-japanese look will be just as scorned as the mock-tudor dross that's blighted the Blighty suburbia. Until then, we intend to make hay while the sun shines.

So I climb on a pile of concrete blocks that someone helpfully left here so I can get a view from what will be the westernmost corner of our garden. Not the biggest piece of land, but it does run alongside a whopping big field of grass, which'll visually extend the greenery.

The intention is to leave the boundary between the garden and pasture land as undefined as possible. It'll work well in winter as many Swiss mountain villages up their fences so that the wires don't garotte a passing cross-country skier. However, during the summer months there be moo moo cows in them thar Alps, and they'll be after me begonias they will. Actually, I have a theory that the farmer'll put up one of those electric fences anyway, although one wonders how many times my wee lads'll get zapped before they learn to eat the grass, soil and worms on our side of the fence. Oh the joys of parenthood.

And here's the view from t'other corner. Note the big sliding door in the middle of the house. Oh and the standard Huf Haus balcony, plus the dangly chains which act as drainpipes. I watched water cascade down these a couple of weeks back. Really really neat.

And then we have our twilight zone. This is the north-eastern side of the house, and I think the sunlight situation here is obvious. The gap between house, roof and slope is bigger than the photo gives it credit for, but whatever we do here, it'll be a bit compromised. The landscapers will close most of the hole up leaving a 2m by 3m slot to give some light to those Bastelraum windows yer can see down there. The rest will be more or less level. One supposes that once the plastic wrap's been removed, some sort of stepped terracing cut into the slope, and ground fixing plants put down, we'll have something nice to look at.

Claudia fancies getting plenty of pebbles and stones put into this area, and bamboos and various big grasses. Could be yet more japanification, but only if the grasses can put up with the lower levels of light that we'll have here. Shall do some research on the matter.

And here's the view from the carport area back towards the cul-de-sac. The ground was frosted enough for me not to disappear into the mud. All seems wide enough... in fact the drive way's sooooo wide that I reckon we can remove some of the upper stones from our climbing wall. Shall talk to landscaping chappy when I next see him.

And then a look back towards the carport to confirm we've enough space to drive our cars in. Yep.

I hate to finish a blog post with a photo of a mud bath without the ladies, so I thought this last image would leave a better impression on you. And me.

Second visit from the Huf Haus blokey

2006-12-08T15:41:00.001+01:00

So we had the second official appointment with the nice Huf Haus rep chap, who had come down from Hartenfels especially to review progress thus far.

Claudia and I arrived separately, so I rather rushed in with little time to simply look at the progress. By the time I'd caught up with the party, the discussion had just about reached the Bastelraum... the hobby room that we'd arranged to be built into the Keller with a couple of extra windows down there for natural daylight. Good thing too, because in my mitts were samples of the floor laminate that I'm going to be putting down myself into about a third of the Keller area (that's the Bastelraum plus the bottom of the stairs area. Seems impossible at first, but the thin laminate board plus a sort of skinny underlay rubber stuff adds up to about 1cm in total. And thus the Huf Haus work of putting down the underfloor heating pipes, plus the stuff they put down on top of that, has to be exactly 1cm short of the final desired height.

Obvious stuff, but yer'd be amazed how many people stuff this up.

Anyways, said laminate passed the Huf Haus inspection, and I left it down there in case the rest of the Huf Haus people needed a further scratch and sniff session. It's that sort of whitewashed wood grain stuff, expertly chosen by Claudia (heh heh) to bring yet more light in and look clean and smart. Should look good, even if the bloke wot's gonna shove it down has little idea what he's doing as he works in a bank. Hmm, must be careful not to lay it down over anything bumpy, like one of the kids.

One thing that I couldn't help noticing were the snaky floor heating pipes that were, well, snaking their way all over the place. The shapes they made were interesting to look at (for a few minutes, anyway) and as always you could see the love that went into laying them down. I took a few photos for the rest of the world to peer at, so one hopes the images do the snakes some justice. Note I sneeked in a photo of the gorgeous, pouting Claudia 'cos she's far more photogenic than me. Ditto the hairy-arses doing the hard work.

As we ascended to the ground floor, and later the upstairs, it became clear that the floor heating work's been fully completed throughout... and it looked like a lot of work indeed. One believes they'll be laying some sort of gravelly stuff on top of that to fill in the spaces, before it all gets coated in a nice flat surface of (I suppose) concrete. Or is it cement? Oh lordy, I have no idea.

There was another pause in the bathroom, where we committed to have the wooden box thing that covers the sink pipes trimmed down to standard Huf Haus height. Not sure what happened, but it may be that the drawings for the non-Huf Haus sink unit that we've chosen (From some fancy bathroom company calling itself 4B. Really, 4B. Bloody pretentious name, unless yer a pencil) had an example wall box shown on it, and this was taken literally by the ever helpful Huf Haus people. They increased the height of the wall box on the assumption that's what we wanted, so it's now too high to allow us to place a mirror against the remaining wall above it. Well, maybe a mirror for giraffes would work.

Anyways, it'll be cut back down to size when the carpenter people descend on us sometime in the new year. Case (almost) closed.

There was something else I thought I'd share with you lot. Somehow the underfloor heating pipes, even if not exactly what we'll be seeing when we move it, still gave us a visual sense of scale of the interior for the first time. By golly, this is going to be a bloody big house. Yes yes yes, I'm well aware that all houses look bigger when empty of furniture, especially those with large open plan spaces, but this was on a bigger scale again. The photo above gives a sense of what I mean, but you've really got to be there, as they say. We might have to set up a semaphore system for communication. And carry mobile phones with us. And a flask of hot tea in case we get isolated from the group.

Simply huge.

Oh, and some progress in the grinds. Wassa grinds? It's a posh word for gardens, innit? Anyways, the main house steps are built and as my fingers pitter-patter on this keyboard, the last of the outside floor tiles should be going down. Some daft sod forgot to take some outside photos, didn't he. Anyway, trust me; they're down. Just in the nick of time, as the forecast's somewhat bleak as the dreaded snows descend upon us this weekend. Ooer, down to 500m and probably lower. To interpret: a sprinkling of snow happens at 500m, snows worth sweeping away at 600m, and snows worth italicising at 700m. And we're at 726m. This simply means it's highly unlikely we're going to get our parking area paved until the thaw in March.

Buggah buggah buggah.

Incidentally, yer might have heard that Switzerland's a somewhat mountainous place, and thus its weather forecasts are three dimensional. Really. "Snow down to 500m" and "Freezing above 1,000m" being familar weather items to digest and talk about over a beer or three. Makes the forecasts a tad complicated to get yer head around, but it seems to work. And as there are plenty of people in this country that really do live at altitudes higher than Ben Nevis, it's a necessity.

Update to the update on the parking situation

2006-12-05T13:31:00.000+01:00

Email back from nice neighbour regarding the parking situation. It turns out that he's not all that fussed on retaining his secondary parking space after all, so if it's alright with us, we can forget the whole thing.

Erm, ok.

Seems he wants to use this area of his land more for pretty flowers than as a bit of extra parking, and that I think we can all empathise with. It's just a shame we didn't know a month or so earlier, as all the discussions and compromising that's been going on's pretty much delayed construction of our parking area by a couple of weeks at the very least. The landscaper chappie's dubious if he can now get this this bit finished before the winter snows inevitably descend upon us. Buggah it. But then we might be very lucky, who knows.

On a brighter note, landscaping chappie commences with the construction of our final final final main steps solution, and also with the external floor tiling around our house entrance. That means that by the end of the week we can safely get in and out of the house without crossing ankle deep patches of raw mud. That'll be a real morale boost for all concerned.

Update on that Dastardly Bob Salmon's blog: his house is up, and as usual with these Huf Haus people, nicely on time. Looks very nice too. We'll wait for him to confirm which model number it actually is, but to my untrained eye, it looks like a standardish 3.06.30. Very handsome indeed. We'll let him confirm or deny, eh?

Tomorrow we have the second of our regular meets with the Huf Haus representative. Will try to listen more carefully to what he has to say, but to be honest it's hard not to get distracted gazing at stuff when yer get a wee chance to have a sniff about inside. One's been led to believe we'll be getting our own key tomorrow, so we can make our own raids at the weekend, rather than pressing our noses to cold glass windows. Good-oh.

Update on the parking situation

2006-12-04T14:33:00.000+01:00

Regular visitors will recall that sometime in the past the original owners of my neighbours' house had 'conquered' a long triangular strip of land from the land parcel that was ultimately to be bought by ourselves. The triangle had been used to widen the neighbour's driveway to his secondary parking space (his primary parking area and garage was to the front of his house)... all this had been done using land that we'll be needing for our own driveway, ta very muchly.

Now the current owner seems to be a nice chap. All this 'liberating' had been done years before he arrived on the scene, so hardly his fault. So we'd agreed in principle that the two driveway entrance areas should be more or less at the same level, so that if his car or our car happened to put a tyre on t'other side of the boundary while negotiating the turn in (or turn out) then that would all come out in the wash. His entrance would be tricker than ours, but then ours wouldn't be easy-peasy either.

Still with me? Good...

So t'other week the Gemeinde (equivalent to a small village goverment) had turned up team-handed to review the parking area situation for both houses. They'd informed us that the main water pipe for the whole bloody village was somewhere down under our neighbour's triangle bit, and it's mandatory that at least 1.5m of earth remains over it, or it'll freeze solid during the colder winter nights. Oo-err. Other than that, they said do what you need to do but make sure you get a handshake from the neighbour. One suspects that the land grab of yesteryear was a sore point with the Gemeinde, 'cos it had happened under their noses. And this isn't exactly the largest village in Switzerland.

Anyways, by the end of last week, the heavy landscaping had resulted in a driveway-shaped terrace above our nice new retaining mega-wall, and this terrace had been widened until it had reclaimed the errant triangle. Have a butchers yerself at the photo above. You could get an aquamarine JCB digger through that gap, no problem mate. Yep, when seen in the flesh, our driveway will now be ok with or without a helpful bit of our neighbour's driveway to negotiate the corner. We're alright, Jack.

So last Saturday, with all this in mind, we meet up with said neighbour (and the landscape chappie) to discuss how we could help him with his driveway problem. Only it all went a bit strange. Read on...

He very clearly stated that whatever wall we put up between our properties to shore up his land should be a high as necessary so that his land would remain level right up to his boundary. Yes, he was very clear about this. Ok, that's his right, even if this increases our material costs dramatically. Are we clear on that? Because he'll not agree to any other solution. Erm, yes we're clear. Very. Yep. Gulp.

Next point: there's a bit of our land remaining behind our carport that seems to be unallocated on the plan. Erm, yes that's right. Could we please build this up so that it's level with his land? Erm... He would offer to plant this with some nice bushes and trees and stuff. Erm, we'll think about this... erm... erm...

Oh, and he proposes that he returns his remaining triangle of driveway back to its natural garden state. He could then plant it with nice flowers and bushes and stuff. He could then access his parking space by driving over our new driveway. Ok? Erm, erm, erm...

Well, he left us to it, and we continued our discussions with the landscaper chappie who was also looking a bit shaken. We turned our discussion to the main steps from our parking area down to our house. This has always been a contentious subject, and the steps had changed position three times since planning began. There's a 3 metres height difference betwix house and parking, so the material content of the steps was something to worry about, nevermind the practicality during those wintry months. So we moved the bloody steps once more, this time to the side of the house facing the small cul-de-sac road. Only about 1.2m elevation difference, and less of a horror when icy.

Done and dusted decision, and we're happier chappies for it.

One day in the nearish future, I'll construct two wooden staircases up either side of our mega-wall which can be used during the summer. Convenient and cheap. Might also stop our lads from scaling the 3m wall for kicks... ahh forget it, nothing can stop that.

Back to the parking area...

Just this morning we sent an email to said neighbour. No question that we'll meet his wishes with regards to the retaining wall between our properties. Damn the expense. We don't agree to his proposal to use our driveway to access his parking space, as this goes against the original idea of equal levelled entrances to ease entry/exit, (i.e. it's a bit rich to suggest to rip up yer own driveway and use ours instead). Let us know if you still want to reduce the level of your driveway entrance to match ours.

Email straight back: never that fussed about this secondary parking area anyway. Might be happier to reuse the driveway for garden, and forget the whole thing. Will get back to yer with a decision as soon as poss.

One feels this isn't the end of the subject.

A visit from the Huf Haus blokey

2006-11-29T15:22:00.001+01:00

Huf Haus sent us a letter inviting us to meet their construction representative at the site, scheduled for today. So Claudia and I skipped a couple of hours of work and then got there about 20 minutes late. Whoops, sorry. And Bozo the Clown (that's me) forgot the camera, so no pickies until our next visit later this week. Sorry world.

Walking down the road to the house we could see that the earth-moving around our new driveway area had begun in earnest. For all the past discussion, contention and worry, it's now easier to see how it'll be in the flesh... and it'll be just fine. The landscaping chap's digger was clamping and moving whopping big chunks of granite to shore up the hill. One felt a wee bit concerned about the intrepid chap on the ground who was balancing on recently placed stones, and pointing out to the digger driver where the next should go. Erm, just how firmly can that digger clamp a 400kg lump of rock? Well, I surreptitiously checked the brave fellow and concluded that hadn't been flattened in the past, so I guess he probably knew what he was doing. Or perhaps he's new to a job that's the landscaping equivalent of a Lancaster Bomber rear-gunner, i.e. the other landscapers don't bother getting to know him too well... his boots'll be all that's left of him one day.

Yikes! Touch wood, nothing like that'll happen to him or anyone else!

We met Herr Huf Haus representative and he pointed out a few things that he reckoned we hadn't quite got straight during the planning, and with our permission he'd sort 'em out. The washing machine would have to go against a different wall in the laundry room - ok? Erm, ok. It's only planned for one upstairs landing light switch, but it'd be better with two - one at each end of the landing - right? Righteo. The sticky-out wall section in the bathroom against which'll be placed the non-Huf Haus sink unit (cough, spit) was far too high - agree? Oh, absolutely. Don't you think you'll need an electrical wall socket in that corner of your kitchen? Quite so, quite so...

You see, we were very distracted by the bangs and crashes as the super-efficient german workers got on with their job. The noise mainly, but also the attention grabbing of this-or-that completed bit. Thankfully, all of the upstairs steel bannisters had been put in place so standing above the gallery and looking down is now far less of an 'exciting' experience. The internal above-the-door sky-lights were in, and even looked passably clean. Numerous electrical plastic channels were stuffed into or out of the walls, yet more of 'em were snaking their way across the floors. The heating system was mounted on a plinth, but clearly some way from becoming operational. Oh and the whole place was dry; the kind of dryness that looked an impossible dream this time last week, when the whole interior was a soggy disaster area that smelled of wet concrete. Now it's a dry disaster area that smells of cut wood. Yes, there was lots of progress.

We asked the Huf Haus chap if (in his experience) he'd spotted any other weird omissions, but he reckoned apart from the above all was as he'd expect.

Good-oh.

Then nice-neighbour-below-us came to say hello. We'd already arranged with our landscape chap that he could have some of the whopping big stone ice-age relics to shore up the corner of his garden, so he was just pointing out which and where to our Bauleiter (site manager). All's well, so he's a happy bunny. And remember this is the chap who had no motorcar access to his own drive-way last week due to the stream of chuffing great Huf Haus trucks bloking the way. Oh, and the landscaping digger managed to crush his post box this morning (think USA-style box on stick, and not UK-style slot in the door) which I have to say he took very well - it'll be replaced super-snappy of course. So we're very glad to grant him a favour; a thoroughly decent bloke, with great potential for future late-night piss-ups, erm, winetasting. Claudia also offered him a tour of the house, so the neighbourly bonding session continued.

He made nice noises, so I think he liked it.

One last thing: The Dastardly Mr Bob Salmon's house build is in progress this week, so if you haven't visited his Blog (see link to the right) then you should go there right now. Hey, why are you still reading this? Go now! Now! NOW!

The storm has passed

2006-11-24T17:01:00.000+01:00

I'm pretty sure 'storm' isn't the right word, but now the external construction's been completed (in four short days) there's that ringing in my ears that you get after a major storm abates (I've sat through a major hurricane in Fiji, so I know what I'm talking about), or perhaps after a particularly loud rock concert ends (I've sat through a particularly loud The Who concert, so I know what I'm talking about).

Anyways, all's quiet on site.

The Huf Haus external construction people have all gone. No trucks blocking up the cul de sac, the crane's gone, just the distant sound of cows bells... and that ringing noise in my ears. The house is complete, locked up, patiently waiting for the next onslaught.

Ok, enough with the esoteric stuff...

The surroundings of the house look like an excerpt from the 2nd Battle of the Somme. Mud? The word 'mud' doesn't do it justice. The parking area's still a hypothetical set of sticks and strings to show what's what, and where what's what goes. The interior of the house is mainly wet concrete floors, ceilings and partitions divided here and there with sections of under-coated white Huf Haus wood. Any surface that isn't wet concrete or wood is called glass... and that's filthy. The heating unit's still plastic-wrapped, and sat on a pallet in the Keller. All the electrical, heating and water channels are devoid of electric wiring, heating- and water-pipes. The two bathrooms are almost indistinguishable from any other concrete hole, 'cos there're no loos, showers, baths, tiles or sinks in 'em. The kitchen... well, we know where it'll be, but the present reality is a long way short from a place where I can cook up a half-decent curry.

In short, we're still a long way short of actually being able to move in. Our cup is half-empty, goddammit. But then I'm a project manager by trade, and they used to pay me a lot of dosh to view solid progress in this way.

(Don't take me too seriously; I'm chuffed to mint balls, really I am...)

On a competitive note: that Dastardly Bob Salmon's house arrives next week, so one'll be reading his blog with great interest, as should you lot. The link's just to the right of yer screen, so no excuses. Bob reckons he may be able to move in by Christmas. Hah! Well, so he might if he's prepared to nest inside a concrete mixer, armed with k-rations and a hurricane lamp. Not only do I come from less hardy stock, but it gets way too bloody cold during a full-on Alpine winter. Nah, Claudia and I'll wait until we have a functioning house before making the big leap. It's hard enough dealing with two wee toddlers without worrying about them chewing on half-finished cabling.

So, that Dastardly Bob Salmon'll very likely win the Move-In-First battle, and good on him. But I'm smugly confident we'll win the Fit-for-Human-Habitation battle hands down. I learned a few things during my 30 odd years masquerading as a Brit, and many are related to the reliability of British tradesmen. One feels it would be inappropriate and ungracious to spell it out, so let me just say that over-zealous punctuality and unduly close attention to detail are not accusations that could be fairly leveled against the British working man.

Ahem.

Next steps on our own Huf Haus project? The landscaping of the parking area should commence next week. Claudia also suspects a squad of highly efficient interior Huf Haus people will arrive on Monday to commence with the, erm, with the whatever they do next. We'll see.

Other than that, what a week.

Pickies to follow later this evening.

Day 4 build - Finito Benito

2006-11-23T20:42:00.000+01:00

Yes, Huf Haus were true to their words: the dark grey tiles had arrived from Germany by lunch time today. In fact, the poor sod who had driven the red tiles down had returned straight to Hartenfels, grabbed a three winks, then driven back down to Switzerland. We're talking about 1,500km round trip. He looked a bit shaky, but smug. Looks like the bar he runs in his truck cab didn't open last night.

I have a new hero.

The chaps had laid out loads of tiles hither and thither on the roof prior to starting the final race to get 'em firmly nailed on before sunset. As ever, the indifference to the yawning chasms left and right of these bods when hopping about the roof left me well impressed... and a tad dizzy.

And then? Well, after the tiles are on, these blokes are done and dusted. Off they jolly well go back to Germany. And then the interior Huf Haus blokes arrive, probably next Monday. Well, that's my assumption, because these people work to their own efficient timetable, and the loikes o' me can only bugger it up.

And the meeting with the Gemeinde bloke? Well, it went very well indeed. The minimum elevation of the drive way is actually dictated by the whopping big water pipe wot irrigates the whole village, and yer wouldn't want to get too close to it, or it'll freeze solid in winter. Ahhh... and we city types prefer our water in liquid form, so I suppose we have a vested interest. After an hour or so in deep discussion (in Swiss German) I gathered that an accord had been reached. Lots of nods, grins and hand-shakes.

So that's probably all right then.

(continues below...)

Post-script
We were right to be optimistic regarding completion by sunset. By close of business Thursday evening, the tiles were on and all construction completed. The Huf Haus worker bees then loaded all their equipment onto their trucks, locked the house up, hid the keys under the metaphorical door mat, and orf they jolly well went back to Deutschland for a well earned rest. One hopes.

Four days, from start to finish.

We all know a Huf Haus is built in only a few days, 'cos that's their reputation, right? But all I can say is that you've really got to be there to see the transformation taking place. It's an amazing experience. I'm shaking my head with wonder as I rattle this keyboard in front of me.

Amazing.

Day 4 build - Good morning world

2006-11-23T09:46:00.000+01:00

Weather gods are still being nice. Fluffy white clouds with blue sky peeping through greeted us (again) this morning. The sun is shining through the window as I type this, and making it a bit hard to read the screen. Not entirely sure when the exterior of the house will be completed and then the house formally sealed from the elements, but if the weather holds up just a few days then I'm pretty it'll be in the bag. We can't expect the snows to be held up indefinitely, not at this altitude.

And the external work around the house?

What with all the excitement over the last few days, it's been easy to forget that there are other elements to building this house than just the construction of the Huf Haus itself. Readers of earlier posts will recall that there's a bit of contention over part of our land that's been 'conquered' to allow our neighbour access to his parking space. No real progress has occurred since that post other than Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow-tie) producing schematics of the land levels that will be necessary to (a) give us access to our carport across our land and (b) still allow our neighbour access to his parking space across our land.

Our land.

In parallel with this, I've had a sneaking suspicion that the local Gemeinde has been keeping an eye on the situation, and perhaps tweaking the planning permission on this area, to ensure that there will be a happy access solution for the neighbour.

Thin white line marks the conquered land
It's (as ever) hard to put in words, but our neighbours parking space and the conquered bit of our land is already half a metre above the remnants of our land allocated for our drive way, i.e. +0.5m. Whoever was behind this did it by building up the conquered land by half a metre, i.e. building it up until it reaches the flat level of our neighbour's land. What we would ideally want to do is to reduce the overall level of our drive way by about a metre (-1.0m) which means that our neighbour's parking space would be +1.5m above our drive way. And remember, he has no possibility whatsoever to access that parking space other than to use part of our drive way. Well, I've never seen a car fitted with crampons, so, in the interests of keeping the peace, we softened and kept level the first half of our driveway. However, this still means that the neighbour's parking space would be +0.5m above that part of our drive way; ergo, he'd have to cut a 0.5m slot into his land. Or buy that helicopter he's always wanted.

Well, the schematics were emailed to the neighbour a couple of weeks ago, but things have gone a bit quiet. O-oh, I smell trouble.

Now consider this: it's our land, our project, our money. Subject to confirmation by a lawyer, it seems highly likely that we have the legal right to build our drive way at any level we wish, within reason. Our parking and drive way will now tower a not inconsiderable 3.0m above the ground level of our house, so that this 'softening' by +1.0m has had an aesthetic and practical impact. And also a cost impact: consider the material difference between a 2m high wall versus a 3m wall needed to prevent our drive way from falling down on our soddin' house. Quite. Furthermore, the Gemeinde chap has recently asked (as is his right, but it's still a bit 'extra') for the usual Swiss sticks to go up to mark the location and size of our proposed car port; these 'sticks' are ubiquitous in Switzerland, and are put up to show all concerned the outline of any new building or significant construction or addition to, thereof... but not a bloody car port.

Sigh.

Well, later today we meet the neighbour and Gemeinde blokey at the site to discuss, agree and resolve. I have a feeling I may have plenty of cause to bite deeply into my tongue. Tis is wee village, and it wouldn't be much fun it the locals sent us to the Swiss equivalent of Coventry over this soddin' drive way business. Oo-err.

Day 3 build - Getting there

2006-11-22T14:42:00.000+01:00

Another lunch-time trip to the site, and another giant leap of progress...

We woke up this morning to fluffy white clouds and the odd bit of blue sky, so it looks like the weather gods have decided to be nice to us again (touch wood). Very kind of them, as it's now borderline winter. We hoped for this, as last night the snow line came down another 100m or so, i.e. the white stuff now starts at about 900 metres. Our house foolishly remained at 726m so the snow-line's fast gaining on us. Gulp! The temperature has noticeably dipped, and in fact was just under 3 degrees C at the site.

View to the south

As I hoped, the upper floor is now complete, and the roof beams are in place. In fact, they were just putting the finishing touches to the inner guts and insulation of the roof when we arrived. A few more taps of the hammer here and there, a site clear up of a few bits and pieces of equipment, and then the roof tiles can go on....

Zzzzzzzrrrrrrrrppppppp!

(For the younger readers amongst us, that's the sound a record player needle makes as it gouges a deep scratch right across yer shiny new LP record)

As I passed the big truck bearing the roof tiles, I noticed they were bright red. Or to put it more precisely, the roof tiles upon the truck were not anthracite. Or to spell it out even more, they weren't the dark grey roof tiles wot we'd successfully negotiated for months with the local Gemeinde for permission to have. Yep, there'd been a wee hiccup in the colour department. Disaster! Oh no! Much wailing and gnashing of teeth! Boo hoo hoo hoo! Oh why oh why oh why oh! Sob, sniff.

Stop stop stop all this, nothing can be allowed to spoil the day... within a hour or so the wondrous Huf Haus people had straightened it all out to the satisfaction of all concerned. No big deal, really. The dark grey tiles will arrive tomorrow lunch-time, so all's well that ends well.

A big thank you to the Huf Haus people.

But isn't there a major lesson to be learned in all this? Well, it's not that hiccups such as these can happen, not when yer consider just how many bits and pieces make up a whopping big house. No, the lesson here isn't whether Huf Haus can stop the inevitable like some real estate version of King Canute. Going by the horror stories I've heard from colleagues and friends, they're head and shoulders above every other bugger out there when it comes to minimising hiccups. Nope, it's how a company behaves after a hiccup that's the Big Lesson here, and Huf Haus passed with flying colours. Make that flying colours and a fly-past. There was no finger pointing. No "but don't you think the red tiles would be nice anyway?". No "But this will delay the whole project by weeks!" No "But but but...". No, there was none of that. They just quietly and professionally put the train back onto the track at minimal inconvenience and delay to the passengers.

Think about that.

I'll say it again: a big thank you to the wonderful Huf Haus for sorting it out so quickly.

Brave blokes

Onwards...

For the last couple of days Claudia and I had been loathe to ask the construction people for a look inside the house; best not to put 'em in the embarrassing position to either say "No, are you crazy!" or give us a grudging consent while looking over their shoulders in case a passing insurance rep rumbles us. However, today we thought the house looked intact enough for a look around without something or other falling down and killing us: "Can we have a butchers?", we asked. "Course yer can!", they answered.

It's hard to describe how we felt, but I'll give it a go.

The interior of the house was utterly familiar. Er, wot? Yes we had surprises here and there with regards to just how much light and space there will be (loads loads loads) or how the addition or subtraction of this or that wall or window has added to or subtracted from whatever. But various visits to show houses (especially the near analogue at Hartenfels), plus what must have been a dozen or more hours staring at our own ground plans, plus numerous oh so numerous conversations; all of this had helped form a very strong visual image of what would come to pass. Yes, we pretty much knew how it would be; clearly, because we literally recognised our house. I'll say that again, we literally recognised our new home.

But blow me, it was a wonderful amazing experience actually standing in there and looking around. Rather like seeing a world famous movie or pop star standing right in front of yer; utterly familiar, but a lot more real and vivid an experience than watching them on the telly. Right?

What was not familiar were the views out of the windows. Now we'd spent a lot of time and energy finding and securing a plot of land with a half decent view...

What am I saying "a lot of time and energy"? Anyone who's read this Blog from the beginning knows full well that the bloody land literally fell out of the sky onto our laps and with planning permission for a Huf Haus and on only our second weekend of looking. Ok, I'll concede that.

Room with a View

Ahem, people less lucky than wot we were spend a hell of a lot of time and energy finding and securing a plot of land with a half decent view. So it stands to reason that Claudia were itching to see how the view would pan out from inside the house; we'd seen it enough from outside. Well, the vista from inside is just great. The downstairs windows give us an amazing 120 degree view of the rolling moraine hilltops that are a local souvenier left by the glaciers that passed through these parts during the last ice-age - or a reminder of what's to come when the next ice-age arrives prematurely as a result of global warming. Anyways, the view's looking just great. And from upstairs the views from the two vista-facing bedrooms are just wonderful... really really amazing. But one of those bedrooms has a slightly better look-see than t'other, so guess which one's got Mama and Papa's first dibs on it. Heh heh heh.

Day 2 build - Cats & dogs II

2006-11-21T14:06:00.000+01:00

...Well, to be honest the rains had subsided by the time Claudia and I got up to the building site. Ground was a bit soggy and sticky, so my office shoes are a horror. Shall have to hide them under the desk for the rest of the day; and bash away on this Blog.

View to the west

So... the concrete 'roof' of the ground floor is in place, as is most of the upper floor's structure, including the main inverted Vs to mark the general shape of the roof. Just missing the roof beams themselves. As ever, the windows are already installed in the upper floor and (where they open) are fully functioning. They've even installed a temporary stairs, which was nice of them.

Watching the workmen drilling holes, bolting bolts and nailing nails, I could see that the upper structure is a far more complicated beast than the ground floor. Just about everything's pre-cut at a slopey angle to take into account the slopey roof. So installing even one lickle piece up there seems to be a matter of adjust adjust adjust until everything lines up, followed by yet another round of adjustments. Still impressive, but not the massive seven league boots sort of progress of yesterday which was literally a drag 'n' drop 'n' bolt-it-together process.

View to the south

Yes, the roof is still missing, but what do yer want after only a day and a half of construction. Even the largest villageful of Amish would have trouble raising a barn so quickly. Not sure what'll be the status by the end of day, but upper structure plus roof beams complete looks very feasible. Imagine tomorrow's more a day of roof tiling. To be quite honest, today's rains were messy, and very possibly inconvenient, but snow would be a show-stopper. And the snow-line looked to be down to about 1,000 metres... and the house is at 726m. Oo-err.

View to the north

And how did we feel? Well, yesterday was exciting because we saw a lot of tangible progress. However, it's hard to empathise with a building consisting of a few walls and open to fresh air above. Today we saw the general shape and form of our new house, and how it's going to fit into the surroundings. And that was truly a moment to cherish. Reality arrived softly, and I can now almost smell our new life together in that house. That's what this is all about; a safe, beautiful nest to bring up our two wee boys.

Mindblowing stuff.

Day 2 build - Raining cats and dogs

2006-11-21T09:10:00.000+01:00

Woke up this morning to torrential rain.

Claudia and I will be popping back up to the site at lunch time, but one fears for today's progress. We've been so damn lucky with the weather throughout the project so far, that we've started to take clear blue skies for granted. It's simply been the most beautiful Autumn I've ever known, which begins to make up for the grotty August we had to put up with. Still, one imagines there's enough water falling down today to faze a fish. Hope those construction workers have been allocated scuba-diving equipment.

On the bright side, we can assume those super-duper Huf Haus people made some more hay whilst the sun shone yesterday afternoon. Not sure how much more structure they could have added by sunset, but going on what they accomplished by 1pm (when those photos were taken) I'm tempted to expect a hell of a lot.

Shall report back later.

Day 1 build - It's started

2006-11-20T19:56:00.000+01:00

So, we finally got there. The day arrived when the wonderous Huf Haus people were scheduled to arrive and start the construction of our house. What with one thing or another it simply hasn't been feasible to take any time off work this week. But Claudia and I arranged to meet up at the site this lunch time.

An amazing tranformation greeted us...

View to the west

...as the ground floor was just being finalised. They were bolting the last ground floor wall unit to the other bits. For all the famed Huf Haus reputation for precision, we noted that a large muscle-bound German worker was busily twatting the top of the wall unit with a whopping great rubber mallet. Dunno what he was trying to accomplish, but after a few dozen thwacks, his colleague inserted a couple of bolts and then we were done. Brave lad, those blokes, 'cos they were comfortably stood on the top of the wall units with nowt more than bugger all to catch them if they fell.

View to the south

Two window units remained on the truck, and we tried to figure out where they were destined... but all became clear when I moved to t'other side for a south-facing photo. The crane swung one of the Keller windows over, and (after some fitting) then t'other. So I guess everything below upper floor height was pretty much in place. If you look very carefully, you'll see even the window glass came pre-installed. And the whopping big sliding glass door we ordered for the lounge area was fully functioning. Must have been 'cos the German body-builder opened it up to move some stuff about.

View to the north

We introduced ourselves to a couple of blokes that didn't seem to be doing anything. "Aha!", thinks I, "so there is such a thing as a German layabout." But when we talked to them, it turned out they were the drivers of the first two Huf Haus trucks. That's right, the whole ground floor (and two Keller windows) came on the back of just two trucks. Amazing. Even more amazing, these lads had spent the weekend living in a nearby Swiss layby so they would be present and correct on-site at 7am Monday morning, as stated on Page 44, Sub-section 6, Paragraph 2 of the Huf Haus Code of Honour manual. However, I was tipped off that there had been some sort of hiccup with the crane (it sank about a metre into the soft ground!) which had set 'em back two hours.

Two hours! Them Huf Haus people must have been contemplating handing out white feathers and pistols.

I asked one of the blokeys whether they'd at least found a half decent bar near their truck stop. "The bar in mein truck ist always open!", quoth he with a laugh. Man after me own heart.

Anticipation...

2006-11-14T16:53:00.000+01:00

Received a call from Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow-tie) to clarify just when in Week 47 the house arrives, and it'll be Monday 20th November. Hang on, that's next Monday! Great!

He also warned us that our neighbours might need a bit of soothing, 'cos the Huf Haus truck will literally block car access to the entire cul-de-sac for a week. Yes that's right, our neighbours won't be able to park on their own property for a week. The good news is that this is all legal and above board here In Der Schweiz. The bad news is that disgruntled neighbours can pay yer back in kind in a zillion ways. Ergo, always a bright idea to bang on their doors to grovel for forgiveness up front.

Claudia suggested a bottle of bubbles. I immediately escalated to two bottles. No wait! Make it a case of red wine! Damn the expense! Erm, how many neightbours does this impact? So, we're awaiting a tally of potential disgruntlees before we commit to a bottle count. Might be a small bottle of beer each, if there're too many of 'em.

So, this puts us about a week ahead of The Dastardly Bob Salmon and his Rival Huf Haus Blog (see link on the right of this page). He observed that we're neck and neck, and I think that's true. A week's nowt. Once the house goes up, there's an awful lot of interior work to do by the wonderous Huf Haus people, plus various local suppliers banging together the kitchen and part of the bathroom, plus the landscaping (currently more of a moonscape). Lord Knows who gets to the finishing line first, but, when it comes to house building, no one's the hare. Except the bank.

What may be interesting is to contrast our experiences in a sort of UK versus Switzerland battle of the local suppliers with regards to quality and timeliness.

Hmm, one feels smugly confident of a good result for the Swiss-based Blogger. I root for the UK underdog on most occasions, but I've had a life-time of dealing with British electricians, plumbers and likewise...

10 Easy Tips to help make your Huf Haus Dreams come true!

2006-11-08T11:29:00.001+01:00

1. Do visit one of the Huf Haus show homes before you plan anything. These are located at various locations around Europe, including (and especially) the famous and wonderful Hartenfels, in Germany. You'll be spending a lot of money building your Huf Haus, so you might want to get up close and personal with the object of your desires.

2. Do pre-book at least an hour with a Huf Haus show home representative. The Huf Haus representatives are very helpful and very informed, but very very busy. Don't just turn up out of the blue hoping they'll be free, because they won't be.

(continued below)

3. Do buy one of the Huf Haus product catalogues. These are those big fat binders full of marketing materials, pretty photos, standard floor plans, standard prices, and lots and lots of superb information. There are two catalogues: one for the 3-axis/4-axis houses; and the other for the 5-axis/6-axis houses.

4. Do be realistic as to the depth of your pocket. Don't leave the show home with a 5-axis/6-axis product catalogue under your arm if you know deep down you'll never be able to afford it, because it'll only distance you further from your dream. A 3-axis or 4-axis Huf Haus is already as beautiful and spacious any most of us could ever aspire to. But hell, if you can afford it, then why not, eh?

5. Let the lie of the land select the Huf Haus size and shape. Far too many people select the size and shape of their Huf Haus out of the catalogue, and then spend month after month looking for the same shaped piece of land to put under it. Don't let early ideas close down the list of candidate plots before you even begin your search. Within reason, the wonderful flexibility of the Huf Haus system almost guarantees that a dream house of some shape and size can be built on almost any plot.

6. Find the land! Buy the land! Spend as much time as you can looking for that plot of land. Consider the obvious factors, such as the commute, general locale, the view, local services, schools, supermarkets. Don't be afraid to compromise, as the perfect piece of land doesn't exist. But don't over-compromise either, because a small island on the Outer Hebrides is not for all of us. It could take a year or more before you find the land, but don't give up. And when you find it? Well don't sit on the decision to secure that piece of land just because you don't have a 100% guarantee of planning permission or bank financing. The seller will simply succumb to the temptation of selling it to someone else who's less risk averse than you are. If you've done your homework, you'll already know if planning permission's available 'in principle', or if your finances generally fit into the green zone from the bank's point of view. Possession is power. Hah hah hah hah hah!

7. Select the architect with great care. Preferably one that's built a Huf Haus before. You'll need an architect who's communicative, can act as a project manager during the construction, and above all, one that you feel comfortable with. As ever, a few references from an existing Huf Haus owner or two will help greatly. You can take the professionalism and diligence of the Huf Haus people for granted (a few language hiccups aside) so your architect will become a very important person to you during the planning and construction phase.

8. Do prepare the overall project budget. The cost of the land's a known because you've bought it. Right? The architect can give you guidance as to how much you should budget for the digging and any other non-Huf activities. So that just leaves the cost for the Huf Haus and options list, which is down to your own aspirations and (believe me) self discipline. Once you get over the shock of seeing the first budget total, you should revisit everything again and again and again. Remember the size of the budget is usually down to your own needs and aspirations, and not simply due to the greed of your suppliers. Well not always.

9. Keep the list of suppliers to a minimum. What with the people for digging, the good Huf Haus folks themselves, the landscapers, the kitchen people, the heating engineers, electricians for the lights, and quite possibly flooring and bathroom people; pretty soon it starts getting busy in there. And your official list of suppliers starts getting quite long. Well, in this case the more the unmerrier, because the scheduling of all those suppliers can easily start to conflict, and remember that any slippage by one supplier will knock on to the next. One advantage of working with the Huf Haus people is that you're dealing with a reputable company that's done all this before, and, give or take a week or two, shouldn't hit you with any surprises. So there's a lot to be said to giving as much of the work as possible to Huf, even if this or that work or unit could be done a little cheaper by a local supplier.

...and finally...

10. Do live your Huf Haus dream; don't just dream it! Read this last one a few more times; it's the most important tip of them all.

All comments and emails regarding these '10 Easy Tips to help make your Huf Haus Dreams come true!', whether complimentary or critical, are very welcome. I'll continue to fine-hone these tips, as they're intended to help us all to realise our own Huf Haus dreams.

One week delay

2006-11-08T09:23:00.000+01:00

Just heard from Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow-tie) that the delivery of our house will be delayed by a week, so we can expect it the week after next, i.e. week 47. He was very surprised we'd not been informed about this by Huf Haus. Very surprised.

Hmm.

The jury's still out whether this one week delay was something agreed ages ago by Herr Arkitekt and those nice people at Huf Haus, or whether this is indeed a last minute delay due to scheduling problems at the factory. Furthermore, one wonders whether the 'informing' was something that Huf Haus should have done, or something that Herr Arkitekt was supposed to have done. Oh, what the hell. I'm pretty sure it's not worth the energy to find out.

I guess most building projects are subject to slippages of a month or three, so an extra week won't kill us. We'll just have to keep the champagne on ice just that little bit longer.

A little more progress

2006-11-06T09:21:00.000+01:00

A little more progress to report. About two thirds of the great big heap of earth and stones left over from the original excavations has now been placed into the gaps around the Keller walls. Obviously the water management system had been completed, and the concrete had cured enough, so back in it went.

Claudia and I could finally stand safely on the roof of our Keller and get some sort of realistic feeling for how the view from our Huf Haus will be. Previous attempts had been foiled by (a) the whopping big slag heap smack in the middle of our view and (b) mild attacks of vertigo, as the holes around the Keller walls really were quite deep.

(continued below...)

And the view? None too shabby at all. And in fact it can only get better as the left over dirt pile's still a bit in the way towards the right of the view. Oh, and the roof of the Keller is still a little lower than what will be the true ground floor level of the interior of our house. By the time heating pipes and wooden parquet floor's been put down we should be a bit higher. The jury's still out on just how much higher it'll be. Probably there in black and white on some plan or other, so I'll try and find time to look it up and report back.

We were also quite impressed at the size and quantity of whopping big rocks that they dug out of our land. As stated previously, some rather impressive glaciers wandered through this area during the last ice-age, and said rocks and earth were dumped during the thawing. Some of the rocks have already been promised to nice-neighbour-in-small-house to help shore up the corner of his garden, but we'll put the rest of 'em to good use shoring up ours.

Our house arrives next week, so until then we're a bit in limbo. Shall probably think of some other aspect of Huf Haus design to wax lyrical about to keep my hand in this Blogging business.

Choosing our Huf Haus

2006-11-02T09:30:00.000+01:00

As predicted, little further progress to report.

The Keller is likely drier than last week, which is a rather intangible form of progress methinks. Last weekend, Claudia and I spotted that a lot of the rain water management had been installed into the gaps around the Keller walls. Wot's rainwater management? (ahem) It's a network of what looks like plastic drainpipes with holes drilled in 'em, laid underground, and all pointing towards the lowest corner of the land. One supposes the idea is that all sogginess as a result of rain or melting snow (and/or ice-caps), will be channelled in the general direction of downhill, from whence it becomes somebody else's problem, i.e. until it ends up in some German's house during the next large scale flooding caused by excess run-off water from Switzerland.

So, somewhat drier concrete and some plastic drainpipes.

(continues below)

So, while we await the excitement of the arrival of the house (the week after next) I thought I'd describe our experiences with regards to choosing and modifying a Huf Haus design. Now I'm going to assume the gentle reader's reasonably au fait with the general concept of a Huf Haus, and furthermore knows wot au fait means. But bear with me if I spell it all out in a little too much detail. Not everyone's armed with one of the Huf Haus marketing packs.

As told previously, the general size and shape of our Huf Haus was pretty much dictated by (a) the size and shape of our land and (b) the wishes of the previous owners and (c) the Baubewilligung - planning permission - that came with the land.

(a), (b) and (c) above had pretty much committed us to what's known as a 3.09.30 before we even had a chance to peep at the view.

A recap: the 3.**.** means it's a three-axis house. The *.09.** means it's standard design number 09 in the three-axis book, which roughly translates to 12.81 metres long, with a bay window sticking out of the side, u-bend stairs, and a gallery above the dining area to give yer vertigo. And the *.**.30 just means that each axis is 3 metres wide. Ergo, the general ground floor area (not counting the bay window) is 9m times 12.81m which equals about 115 square metres.

Still with me?

Well, the Baubewilligung we had didn't allow for the bay window, because it would have stuck out about 1.5m, and therefore the living space would have 'encroached' too close to the boundary, a no no in Swiss planning circles. So delete the bay window (and the bay window-shaped extension to the Keller underneath it) ending up with a oblong house. This was easy-peasy with the magical Huf Haus system, and in fact we even got a credit from those lovely people at Hartenfels.

Next, the Baubewilligung also stated that the standard 9m width of the house would be 10cm too wide for the land (really, Swiss planning rules go to this level of detail) so not only would the bay window have to go, but the whole sodding house would have to go on a diet. So, our central 3m axis is actually 2.9m. Again, a few click-clicks on the computer by the good folk at Hartenfels, and those 10cms were shaved off. No credit this time, but then again no extra cost. Try that with someone else's system house.

And that's the basic outline that we inherited: 8.9m by 12.81m.

Ok, so we bought the land, took over the Baubewilligung, and then spent days, weeks, months poring over the internal ground plans of the previous project which differed significantly from the standard 3.09.30 (mentally minus bay window, and a tad slimmer). The upstairs bathroom had been moved to the back of the house, diagonally opposite from the kitchen. The kitchen itself had walls and windows which didn't seem to make sense to us (the whole kitchen story to follow in a subsequent post). Some of the internal walls had been glassed, and other external walls unglassed.

And then there was the Options List, which I've decided to capitalise because it's one of those words like Baubewilligung, Bastelraum and Keller, that's come to rule our life during this project. The previous owners had an Options List that ran to about 60 pages, and somewhere in the region of an additional 50% to the cost for the standard 3.09.30 Huf Haus with Keller. Now that was a shocker. Especially as the Options List's in perfect German, and even worse, technical German so yer german-speaking wife can't help much in the translations 'cos she doesn't know what the words mean in any language. The full Options List Story'll have to wait for another post...

So, we had someone else's Baubewilligung, someone else's floor plans, and someone else's Options List. We'll concede the Baubewilligung, as the size and layout of the house was pretty much dictated by the lay of the land, and I'm sure we'd have ended up with the same if we'd started from scratch. But the floor plans and Options List? We had to some some way of making this bloody house our own, didn't we?

Clearly, the floor plans were to be the starting point:

We returned the upstairs bathroom to the front of the house, on the premise that the nice view from the back of the house would be better appreciated from two bedrooms, not just the one. It also which simplified the water, drainage, and gurgling noise situation. Kitchen, downstairs loo, and upstairs bathroom would now all be at the same side of the house, geddit?

We unglassed those interior walls (privacy) and reglassed those exterior walls (sod privacy). We also removed the glass partition and door that comes standard between the open living area and the entrance area. This was on the good advice of the nice lady at Huf Haus Switzerland, who's now living in her third Huf Haus. Seems that those glass doors remain permanently open anyway ("every does it"). Oh, and the wonderful Huf Haus people gave us a credit for them. Heh heh heh.

There were a few other details, but by the time we'd finished, the floor plans were truly our own, oh yes. So much our own that they looked like, erm... they looked just like the standard floor plans for the 3.09.30. Yes, it's true. Each decision we made seemed to naturally undo all the tinkering that had previously been done, and the design was pretty much back to where it had started.

How could that be?

Well, those standardised floor plans in the marketing packs aren't just throw away ideas. They're in fact beautifully thought out designs, both aesthetically pleasing and practical. They've been envisaged and executed by clever Huf Haus architects, and then fully debugged by 10,000 somewhat detail-oriented German Huf Haus owners. In short, there's far more to those standardised designs than meets the eye at first glance. In fact, Claudia and I truly believe that's what's at the heart of the Huf Haus success story: it's not just a beautiful design concept, with plenty of space and light; it's the deep thought that's gone in to making these houses practical. The flexibility is still there for those that want it, or for the planning authorities that insist on it. But if I were you, I'd leave the messing about with the internal layout of yer Huf Haus to those wot know: them clever Huf Haus people. Redesign's still an option, but make sure it's done by someone who really knows what's what with a Huf Haus, and not as the result of some fickle brainwave by you and yer partner that came to yer at 2am in the morning.

A couple of observations, meant kindly:

First, the en suite bathroom situation. Now the upstairs of yer classic three-axis and four-axis Huf Haus is dominated by the sloping roof on either side, right? And you usually get a central landing upstairs with a suicide gallery on one side, and a rather elegant u-bend staircase on t'other. And then that leaves one equal-sized room per corner, 'cos that's where the light comes in. And one of those rooms is the family bathroom. All very nice, but this doesn't leave much option for the en suite bathroom for the master bedroom. Well, it could do, but then yer master bedroom would be the smallest bedroom, 'cos there's nowhere logical to slip in the en suite other than by losing the gallery, which would be a real shame.

Ergo, this sloping roof business is not en suite bathroom friendly. We've done without the en suite, but mitigated this by adding the optional shower to the downstair loo ("everyone does it") so we've at least got a second bathroom somewhere in the house.

(continues below)

Secondly, the kitchen situation: yer three-axis and four-axis Huf Haus is incredibly spacious and 'open' on the ground floor, but a combination of the few remaining internal walls (essential for holding the bloody house up) and the regular posts and beams (ditto) leave you with a narrower space for your kitchen than you'd like. Think about it, a three-axis house gives you a 3 metre wide kitchen (2.78m actually, but let's not get picky) and once you've shoved in those standard 60cm deep base units either side, you're left with 1.58m of kitchen floor (whoops, I got picky after all). Not a lot considering the outrageous spaciousness of the rest of yer gaffe.

Ergo, the Huf Haus concept naturally pushes you towards a long but narrow space for your kitchen.

Most Huf Haus owners spend a looooooong time struggling with this, and you will too. Forget (at this stage) which kitchen company you'll choose, which units, and whether or not you can live a single minute without a combination oven/steamer; the first priority is getting that space that you're going to need as a blank canvas. There are many options I've seen and heard about, including moving the front door of the house to one side and making it a two axis kitchen, moving walls about, or indeed moving the whole damn kitchen, and various other concepts. Prepare yerself, 'cos this is going to take a lot of your time and attention, and very likely many rethinks.

What did we do? Well, during our trip to Hartenfels we walked into the grey three-axis show house there, which is basically a mirror-reversed 3.09.30. Very similar to our house, although it does have that bay window. It's impossible for me to explain adequately, but the bottom line is that the beam that runs across the house in the kitchen area's been moved a step back towards the front door so that that it opens up the option for a whopping big cooking island in front of the usual kitchen area. Not sure who that vagrant is, but the image further up shows it.

So we copied it; nuff said.

Welcome to the new blog location

2006-10-30T13:59:00.000+01:00

I finally cottoned on that the Google adverts and various formating problems on the old blog hosting website had become a little too much for both you and me. So I've moved the blog location to here.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused, as they say.

Roof tiles

2006-10-26T13:18:00.000+02:00

Quick update: yesterday we finally got the confirmation from the local planning authorities that it'll be ok to use the usual Huf Haus darkish grey roof tiles.

Great stuff.

A big relief this, as many alpine local governments (Berg-Gemeinde) insist on bright and cheerful red roofs for new builds, so they fit in better with the existing village's sea of bright and cheerful red roofs. A worry, 'cos a Huf Haus with a red roof looks wrong, to my eyes. A bit like a Rolls Royce painted yellow, or a Ferrari painted anything but red. Right? Right.

Anyways, Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow-tie) will be informing those good folks at Huf Haus of the colour confirmation. And in good time too, 'cos the latest possible deadline for ordering the tiles is, erm, today.

Huf Haus windows - downstairs

2006-10-25T13:16:00.000+02:00

While we're waiting for our Keller to dry, there's not going to be much tangible progress to report for the next couple of weeks, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts regarding Huf Haus windows.

The following Huf Haus marketing picture serves as a good example...

(continued below)

Now everyone knows well that Huf Haus is famous for house designs that incorporate lots and lots of glass. And such glasswork offers plenty of natural light, and almost unlimited views of your garden and, well, the view.

The most impressive pieces of glass are of course those uninterrupted floor to ceiling sheets on the ground floor. These are further enhanced by the small over-lights (Oberleicht in German) that fill the gap between the top of the window joists and the bottom surface of the upper floor. If you have a butchers at the image above, you'll see plenty of examples. Keep in mind that such floor-to-ceiling windows are standard, as are the over-lights. (If we're being picky, the whopping big window on the right of the image is actually a full-size sliding door, but we're not being picky, are we.)

On the ground floor, the Huf Haus peeps allow yer to switch between solid wall, floor-to-ceiling window, glass top/solid bottom, and split windows. Yer split window is top and bottom glass, but has a wooden bar running horizontally through the middle of it. You can also switch between solid wall and window in the over-lights area.

And all this switching between wall and window is at no extra cost.

Yes, you read that right, which is why I italicised it. Huf Haus (God bless 'em) don't charge you more or less for switching from glass to solid exterior walls, or vice versa. Presumably, it costs much the same to them, so it costs the same to us. Little wonder that most people take advantage of this, and build themselves crystal goldfish bowls, erm, palaces.

There are some caveats though.

Firstly, some of those solid walls on yer plan aren't just there to spare yer modesty when using the downstairs loo. They actually help to hold the bloody house up. Statics, dear reader, statics. There's a minimum of wall needed for this, and yer Huf Haus happy chappie'll inform you what's needed and what ain't. But if you're building a variation of one of the standardised Huf Haus designs, (as we are, a 3.09.30 variant), you can see the essential minimum solid wall on those nice floor plans in the Huf Haus marketing literature. You'll also notice that some of those solid 'static' walls are internal, but that's another story.

Second caveat is that not every room is suited to being a glass bubble offered openly for full external scrutiny. We've already mentioned the downstairs loo, for which the coy solution is a solid wall, with a glass over-light. But then there's the kitchen. Do you really want to see the unpainted backs of those fancy Bulthaup kitchen units when yer watering yer garden? That's where the solid bottom/glass top option comes in. Right? And if you want to run a convenient shelf along a window? Aah, then you can use the split window and nail yer shelf to the horizontal wooden bar running through the middle.

There's a lot to be said for shoving in a glass over-light regardless of the wall or glass type below. We almost missed to check the plans for the over-light areas of our kitchen, but spotted the missed chance, and then managed to switch from solid to glass at the very last moment. Phew.

There's a third caveat, and this is more subtle. All the above gives you good and logical reasons why this or that wall can't be floor-to-ceiling glass. But even then, you'll still be left with plenty of uninterrupted stretches of glass wall. In our case, the windows start (almost) in one corner, and continue to the next corner of the house, round that, and onwards up to the next corner. Our early plans also added two more window sections to extend it still further around even that third corner.

So why did we revert those last two sections to solid walls?

Well, the trip to Hartenfels showed us why it's very important to have an emotional grounding to your house. Hard to explain what I mean by 'emotional grounding', but I'll give it a go. Your peripheral vision can be so overwhelmed by all that glass that you feel, well, threatened. Now most blokes know this feeling when they sit at a restaurant table; they'll invariably prefer to choose a nice corner where they can keep watch on the entire area, just in case of bandits, masked assassins, the Salvation Army, or whatever. Sit at a table with your back to the room and you feel somehow uncomfortable. Well, that's how Claudia and I felt in one of two of the Hartenfels show homes: far too much glass stretching left and right of our peripheral vision.

Yep, too much of a good thing.

So the bottom line is that yer've got to have some sort of solid wall to shove yer shoulder against, or you'll have nowhere to ground yerself emotionally. See what I mean? Oh Lordy, if you don't, then just imagine that we all have at least a mild case of agoraphobia, and too many windows will just aggravate yer agoraphobia.

Think about it anyway.

And what about the windows upstairs? Ahh, that subject deserves a different blog post entirely...

The Huf Haus Keller arrives...

2006-10-20T13:13:00.000+02:00

The Huf Haus Keller has arrived! Calloo-callay, Oh frabjous day! He chortled to his joy.

Yes indeedy, the Keller (cellar) to our new home's arrived and already been installed into The Hole. And boy, is it a whopper, which goes a long way to explaining why The Hole was such a Bloody Big Hole. A work colleague and myself popped up to the land this lunch time (Friday) for a wee butchers at the progress. And a fine day for it, it was. We were greeted by silence ('cos the chain gang were probably in a local cafe scoffing sausages) and the whopping big concrete structure shown below.

(continued below)

After a brief stint snapping a few pickies with my mate's fancy phone camera, I did the obvious: I traversed a shaky looking plank to the top, and had a wee peep at the likely view we're going to get from our house, once it's up and standing.

None too shabby, was the prognosis. Although it'll be somewhat improved once the big heap of soil and stones that stands in the way's moved to its final resting place.

Well, The View's been a bit of a concern ever since we saw the depth of The Hole. Claudia was worried that the ground floor of the house would end up in some sort of a pan, and it's hard to see much of a view when yer house's underground. And I have to say I was a wee bit worried meself, especially when I saw the concrete plinth last week. Add yer 2.7 metres to that, and it'd still be a metre lower than I'd reckoned on. Well, worry we not, 'cos those keller walls are very high indeed (or is it deep? One is always confused when one discusses cellars). The picky below shows my mate stood next to t'keller wall, and although he's not the biggest bloke in Switzerland, he's also not a friend of Snow White's. I'd say they're over 3.5 metres high (deep!) in total, which explains why my head went a bit whoozy during the view inspection trip.

(continued below)

Both pickies show the two windows to the Bastelraum (That room) which will get their light via a slot which will be cut into the ground down to just below the bottom lips of the windows. We had a look through them, and I have to say there was a surprising amount of light in the concrete bunker within, and the room really did look bigger than I'd imagined.

What the pictures don't show very well is the extra insulation that's been applied to the outside of the Keller walls. This looks to me like black styrofoam, i.e. the same stuff as used for disposable coffee cups in the 1970s. Why the insulation? Well, wait until you see the pictures of the snow when winter finally descends upon us. It's probably obvious by now from the various pictures, but this really is yer bona fide alpine village, and the ground floor of our house will be (as I look around at the plans on my office wall) exactly 726.8 metres above sea level.

726.8 metre's about 2,385 feet, in old money. So we'd better wrap up warm then. In fact, that's why we're wrapping up the whole house as warm as we can.

What was also exciting to see was the vast expanse of area on the top of the Keller, which will ultimately be our ground floor. Cwikey, this is going to be a big house, and the open plan downstairs is going to look very open plan indeed. Nice problem to have, methinks, but could result in a spot of agoraphobia. Still, I'll be able to play indoor boule with our boys when Claudia's out and can't catch us.

Hmm, hope she doesn't read that.

Another Blogger...

2006-10-18T13:06:00.000+02:00

Before I forget, here's a link to another Huf Haus blogger (Mr Bob Salmon of Sussex) who's UK-based project's only a couple of weeks behind mine...

http://bobshufhaus.blogspot.com

Should be interesting to compare notes.

Budget crisis!

2006-10-17T13:05:00.000+02:00

So, the crisis of the month is upon us. We finally (finally finally, bloody finally) received a quote from the happy chappy who's going to be doing the landscaping. A trifle late, considering the bloody construction's under way, but then that's also a lesson learned; it's no skin off anyone's nose 'cept yer own if they quote late, 'cos yer still got to pay, right? And the later the quote, the more committed you are to that particular supplier.

Bugger.

Anyways, the finalised landscaping quote came in at CHF 105,000... (about 45,000 quid) and that's CHF 40,000 more than the preliminary quote we received from the same fellow a few months ago. And as the overall project was already CHF 90,000 over budget, yer can imagine how our hearts sank. We now had a CHF 130,000 mountain in front of us. Oo-er.

Anyways, while I updated the cost spreadsheet (tap tap tap, panic panic panic) Claudia hit the 'phone to inform Herr Landscaper, in her coy Swiss winsome way, that both the lateness and size of the quote was unacceptable, and he'd better think again, or else, or else, or else, erm... or else she'd be very very disappointed! Oh yes.

And it worked, to my surprise.

The following day we had an emergency meeting with Herr Arkitekt (he of the bow tie) and Herr Landscaper, both of which were looking somewhat contrite. Turns out the massive increase was due to the scope-creep of the 15 metre wide wall that'll be supporting our parking area (see various graphics below). This has grown (on paper) from being about 1.5 metres high, up and up and up, until it peaked at 3.3 metres high. What had been a good sensible wall that we could cover with virginia creeper and whatnot, had become a veritable cliff face. We'd need a funicular railway just to get to the sodding cars.

And the net result according to the pair of 'em? Well, the material for a bloody big wall like that costs money, and lots of it. And the foundations under it costs money, and plenty more. And all of it involves lots of work, which is still more dosh. Smaller wall equals smaller foundations equals less work equals smaller quote. Oh, and they have an idea which would look better anyway. Come see! Yes, from the top of a smaller wall the land could slope upwards to the parking area, and yer can grow pretty plants and stuff there. Aesthetically, it'll be a real boost, says them. And yer have the chance to relocate the steps to the side which'll look much much better. In fact, creatively speaking, they're really very enthusiastic about the ambience that the new solution'll bring to that immediate area. A real lift. Oh yes, a real boost.

"Sod all that ambience stuff", quoth I, "how much cheaper?"

"Dunno", sez them, "we need to cost it."

Figures.

Sooooo, Claudia and I left the meeting feeling a little better. But we decided we'd better do something radical to bring this CHF 130,000 budget over-run under some sort of control.

We reckoned we could could count on about CHF 25,000 from the Smaller Wall Solution, which would be a start. We can also stall the car port (CHF 20,000) until the following autumn 'cos the snows'll have melted by the time we move in (and possibly the soddin' ice-caps). And we decided to reduce the fancy plastering work in the infamous Bastelraum (yep that room) which should save us another CHF 15,000. So that comes to (counts on fingers) a total save of CHF 60,000, which means we're 'only' CHF 70,000 over budget. How to cover that? Well, we've already put my BMW X5 up for sale (wanna buy it?) to realise the capital, which is half way there. Oh, the sacrifices one has to make... erm, actually yer shouldn't feel too sorry for me, 'cos another newer X5, leased, arrived last week. And this one's got Sat-Nav, Heh heh heh.

Ahhhh, everything back under budgetary control (And a new car for your trulys, to boot).

And then last night (Stop press!) we had the first budgetary nice surprise of the project: the new quote for the Smaller Wall Solution arrived. The rethink had reduced the quote from the 'final' CHF 105,000 to the final final CHF 70,000. (It had better be) That's about CHF 10,000 better than we'd hoped, so we're down to a 'mere' CHF 60,000 budget over-run.

Phew.

So we now have to decide whether to reprieve the Bastelraum plastering or the car port. Or do we go for the fancy CHF 15,000 wooden decking for our garden terrasse? Or do we do the lot? Hmm, can't imagine how people get into such a mess with their budgeting...

And progress since last week? Well, the concrete base that the Keller'll slot onto has been plonked into the Big Hole... and the Keller itself should arrive later this week from the Huf factory in Hartenfels. In theory we'll have our Keller installed by the end of this week. Wow.

The Hole

2006-10-11T13:01:00.000+02:00

Well, at the end of the previous week there was a sizable hole on our land, but that's nothing in comparision with the state of play at the end of yesterday.

Have a butchers...

(continued below...)

...erm, see what I mean? The hole has become THE HOLE, or The Hole to its friends.

Yes, our land is now composed mainly of air and shadows, 'cos the earth that formerly occupied the spot is now heaped on the farmer's field (God bless him). The walls of The Hole have been lined with concrete except for a three metre (10 foot) strip along the top which is still bare earth covered in plastic sheeting to keep it nice and dry. You'll see from the photo that the bottom of The Hole's also concrete lined. Not sure why, 'cos the Keller floor will be about 2-3 metres higher than the base of The Hole, so I imagine rather a lot of that earth needs to go back in, once the concrete's nice and dry.

Hmm, I think you'll agree that the technicalities of this operation are somewhat beyond me.

The digger's gone, which worries me a little. Could it be entombed beneath all that concrete? Or did the farmer nick it? Your guess is as good as mine.

A brief update...

2006-10-06T12:57:00.000+02:00

Both of our internal design crises have been solved.

We've moved the windows in the Keller to t'other side of the house entirely. Yes, that does mean we don't have a view of the Swiss fjords from that Keller room, and the windows will be more of a light-channel than anything; the Keller windows will be located under the side of the house that already has solid walls (no glass above 'em) so problemo solved. However, there are two knock-on effects that we're really rather pleased with: the two floor-to-ceiling windows that had been placed on the risk register have now been deemed by the Huf people as being okey-dokey; and the general look of the house has improved, 'cos now it'll look more like yer classical Huf Haus. Good-o. And we'll now have room for two of those chain-like drain pipe thingies with round thingies on the ground to soak up the run-off rain water, so that's three knock-on effects. Dunno what they're called in German, English or Swahili but I know wot I mean.

Hmm, I should really revisit the previous paragraph, but to be frank I really can't be arsed.

Anyways, the picture below shows yer what I mean...

(continued below)

Where was I?

And the bathroom mirror? Well, we've cleverly solved that by, erm, not having one for now. We'll easily see what sort of mirror unit we'll need to fill the mirror unit sized hole, once the house is up and the bathroom nailed in.

And progress?

Well, the Keller arrives the week after next (eek! wow! gasp! cough!). The Huf Haus people definitely said (in writing, so it must be trooooooo) it'll come in week 42. A tap tap tappity tap on my Palm Pilot confirms that the Americans believe week 42 to be the week after next. But I have a nagging feeling that them Germans use the metric week numbering system (50 weeks in a year) so it might be the week after that. Daft, I know, but I hardly dare ask.

The weather's been a bit on/off this week, with plenty of raindrops on Sunday and Monday, and a few more yesterday. A glance out of the window just now confirms that the Zurich outlook is dry for at least the next day or so. Phew.

A little more information regarding our parking area: Herr Arkitekt's updated the ground leveling plans to incorporate his ideas for wot our neighbour should do to be able to continue to park his car on his land (via our sodding land). Looks reasonable to me, but maybe not to Herr Neighbour. He'll have to cut a half metre slot into the land under and around his parking area so that it'll be on a similar level to our parking area. Either that or buy a Hummer. No feedback yet, but I don't see him having much of a choice. I really hope he'll be satisfied anyway, 'cos it'll be better for all and sundry if he's a happy bunny.

Capucho on holes

2006-10-01T12:54:00.000+02:00

There's a bloody big hole in our land, and it feels good.

We hadn't been in a position to visit our building plot since the previous Friday due to work, kids, and the normal routine that barely leaves us with enough time to breathe, never mind visit a building site. So the first clue that some serious digging had (finally) commenced was when Herr Arkitekt, he of the bow-tie, called us to strongly advise us to talk to our neighbours. Seems that two out of three of the immediate neighbours had waylaid him to discuss/observe/harangue on this detail or that. We were especially to talk to Big-House-Above-Us, because they had an axe to grind over something or other, and clearly needed some reassurance on whatever it was. Lord knows what, 'cos their house is high enough above us to minimise any loss of view. Still, people can be tricky.

"Hello", finks I, "something tangible must have happened to trigger these chats".

So, Claudia (God bless her) looked up the phone numbers of our new neighbours, called them one at a time, and arranged for a series of friendly chats on the Saturday afternoon (yesterday).

So, come the Saturday lunchtime, we piled kids into car, drove up to the site. And found this...

(continues below)

...which looked like pretty tangible progress to me.

Apart from a small strip of grass along one of the boundaries, just about every square metre of land had been replaced with hole. And lots of it. Kids were asleep in the car, so we had time to have a proper butchers. Well, we looked at our hole, pointed out certain hole features, especially in those areas where the hole looked deeper, and admired the plastic sheeting that (we figured) was something to do with protecting the slopey bits from the inevitable torrential rains. Most British holes are shaped more like Somme trenches 'cos I don't think brits build cellars these days, but yer Swiss hole needs to be Keller-shaped, and generally, this hole was. Some more hole-making was clearly needed, but the essence of the hole was certainly there.

Sooooo, after taking a few snaps for posterity, we banged on the first neighbour's door; the Small-House-Below-Us. Yer can see it in the photo above, behind the car.

Synopsis of the conversation with the nice late-forties chap we met: It's building land, and he knew it would be built on one day. We shouldn't worry about the noise, 'cos he's out at work all day anyway. Oh, and could he have the big stones wot the digger had come across, and piled up, 'cos they'd look a treat in his garden. Course yer can, chum. First neighbourly relationship starts as well as anyone could ever wish. Seriously, first impressions are that's he's a top bloke.

Next neighbour, the Bigger-House-Behind-Us... well, this conversation deserves more than a synopsis.

We'd been wondering how well this neighbour was going to take the fact that a bloody big Huf Haus was about to hide about 50% of his view. In fact, it was this neighbour that we were expecting some controversy from. In short, here be trouble, and we were only half prepared for it. But boy, what we heard wasn't quite what we expected.

Older bloke with teenage son greets us, and whisks us to their terrasse area, offering wonderful views of our new hole, and soon to be 50% obscured rolling pasture land. Oo-er. Coffee? Ooh, thank's awfully. Sugar? Milk? No thanks, take it black. Excited about your new project? Oh, yes we are. Very. How old are the kids? etc etc etc.

And then the bomb-shell: unknown to us, but possibly/probably known to Herr Arkitekt, a significant slice of our land had been used a few years ago to widen our neighbour's drive way. Er wot? Yep, a loooooong wedge of our land had been 'conquered' by our neighbour to widen his drive way to make his parking access feasible. Imagine a loooooong equilateral triangle of about 24 metres by 2.5 metres, where the 2.5 metre bit is at his entrance, and yer'll get the gist. Yer can see the line of it in the photo above, where that green warning tape runs along the side of the hole. And without a doubt, no nicked triangle would have meant no access to parking.

Hmmmmm.

Now call me old-fashioned, but we'd just spent a fortune on 660 square metres of grassy building land, and approximately 30 square metres of that had someone else's drive way on it. Why, that's erm erm, yeah that's about 5% of our land. Wow.

Hmmmmm, why do we find out about this now?

Hmmmmm.

It's then we realised that these people had been worrying about this, and for quite some time. It turns out that their predecessors had done the land grabbing, and hadn't informed, well, anybody. Honest, guv. The present owners had found out during a land survey a couple of years previously, and had then waited until today to starts discussions for an amicable and pragmatic solution. Which is what they'll get. At least that's our intention, 'cos Claudia and I are nice people with nice kids, and want to be on nice terms with our nice neighbours in this 'ere nice village.

We agreed to meet up on a further occasion with Herr Arkitekt to discuss something like a solution that would allow us both to share a wider, common entrance; good for them, and good for us. Not quite job done, but definitely in the right direction.

But why, oh why, did I have the feeling that we'd been 'handled', as in "leave it to me, I'll handle them"? And this feel intensified when (just as we were about to leave) his wife turned up, and 'greeted' us with a frosty look, and that 'correct' sort of handshake that diplomats use when negotiating the terms of an armistice to a war that had cost their nations millions of lives. In short, 'correct', but most certainly not friendly.

One has the feeling that this sub-plot is going to develop into quite a story.

And Big-House-Above-Us? They weren't in. Thank God.

Crisis One and Two

2006-09-26T12:44:00.000+02:00

We (finally) got a response from Herr Hufhaus via Herr Arkitekt with regards to (a) expanding the window area of the bit of Keller that peeps out from under the house and (b) the bathroom sink(s) unit. Buggeration, the both of 'em.

Crisis One - Keller Windows.

Ok, Keller background. Keller equals cellar. Got that? Now our house will have a gross floor area of 110 square metres per level, which is plenty above ground, and more than plenty below. So we decided to use some of the Keller space for a hobby room - Bastelraum in German. Remember the word, because I have a feeling it'll be coming up time and time again over the next few months.

Anyways, we decided that about a third of our Keller area would be civilised, with underfloor heating, laminate flooring, plastered walls, paint, etc etc. But one thing is for sure: civilised rooms have windows and plenty of light. Any room lacking daylight simply doesn't get used, or only used reluctantly by torture victims. Soooooooo, we used a combination of the slope of the land, plus a couple of extra windows in the side of the Keller to create that daylight.

The picture below shows what I mean (one hopes).

(continues below...)

Anyways, it turns out that the Keller has a load bearing limitation which means that if yer want winders, then yer can't have floor to ceiling windows on the ground floor above it. Buggah buggah buggah. What Herr Hufhaus says is that the clear window above needs to be replaced with a window unit that's horizontally split in the middle, which offers more rigidity... and a big chunk out of the view. And as we have two Keller windows, and two clear glass units above 'em, that means two new window units with 'orrible splits in 'em.

Why oh why oh why do we find this out just now? When the Keller windows have been discussed for four months? Because Herr Arkitekt and Herr Hufhaus seem to be reluctant to talk to each other.

Lesson One - Make sure yer architect talks to the Huf Haus people on a regular basis, and if they don't, sit on one or t'other desk until they do.

Crisis Two - Bathroom Sinks

Next problem: we decided that the standard Hufhaus bathrooms are bloody marvellous: spacious, elegant, modern, cool, and generally thoughtfully designed... with the exception of the side-by-sinks, which looked like an afterthought. Many people agree, going by the fact that the vast majority of bathrooms have a custom sink unit inserted. Well, we made the same choice: standard(ish) bathroom, and our own sink units.

So, we spent rather a long time looking at various concepts/designs/materials, and, inevitably, costs. We landed on a design with a base unit for storage, with an elongated sink on top of it. One mega-sink, one plug-hole, but two taps either side for his and hers toothpasting sessions. We also wanted a fullish width mirror cabinet above for extra storage.

Anyways, it seems there may or may not be enough room for the mirror cabinet. Or there is, but it'll stick out. Or it won't stick out, but it'll not be right. Or something is wrong, anyway. Look, the bottom line is that's there's a problem with where we want the mirror cabinet to go, and we don't know what it is, "but it's very obvious once you see it".

Great.

Sooooo, that leads us to the next lesson learnt...

(ahem)

Lesson Two - Get accurate floor and (if necessary) wall plans, with measurements, for all interior spaces where you'll be using a non-Huf solution. That obviously includes the bathroom, but then there's the downstair loo, the kitchen area, you name it.

(continues below...)

And how's the digging going? Well, we popped up to see it on Friday evening, and not much to report other that a few holes where the utilities are located. There's a smallish hole with what looks like a standpipe coming out, complete with a tap on the top which wouldn't look out of place in the middle of a third world village. There's another hole with what looks like a pipe full of wires in it, and yet another (bigger) hole with a sodding big pipe in it. Methinks the latter's the sewer, but thankfully it hasn't been broken into quite yet.

The remaining grass looked green, with a few meadow flowers popping up. Rafael (our eldest) asked if we could keep the digger.

Finding the land

2006-09-20T12:43:00.000+02:00

So, while we're all waiting for some photos of the digging, I thought I'd fill you in on how we found our land.

A couple of years ago, Claudia told me about the Huf Haus concept, and how a former colleague of hers had built one for himself. Sort of rang a bell, but couldn't place it. December last year, we happened to drive past a cluster of show houses near Zurich (a place called Kindhausen) and Claudia pointed out the Huf Haus there. "Aha", says I, "I read about these donkey's ago in an inflight magazine. Cool..."

Anyways, one thing led to another, then we, like many people, visited the Huf Haus show-house, walked around cooing, and sat and chatted with a nice lady about the various options. This was a most pleasurable two hours in total, and really the birth of our dream of building our own home. At least a dream with intent.

As we left the show house, bulky catalogue under one arm, I asked the nice lady (Frau Meyer) one last question: "How many people like us actually end up building their own Huf Haus". The answer was a wake up call; she meets about 200 'serious' couples per year, but sells less than 10 houses. "Erm, why do you think that is?" Cos decent land's like hens teeth. And then planning permission (Baubewilligung in German, and a very important word...) takes another year, minimum... people just give up and buy the Swiss equivalent of the Barratt home.

Ouch.

Well, we went through the catalogue, pointing out this house, and that house. Deciding how we'd change the ground plans, adjust the cellar (Keller), lay out the kitchen, and position our garage. In fact we pretty much built our castle way up there in the air. Conclusion was that we wanted the model known as a 3.7.30, which translates as a three axis house (That's the 3.*.** bit), three metres per axis (*.*.30), and lord knows what the 7 means, but it's one of the longer houses (not the longest) with a sticky-out window thingy on one side. Cool, so all we had to do is to find a 3.7.30-shaped piece of land to shove it on.

Soooooooooo, the following weekend we went to visit every available scrap of land west of Zurich. And didn't like one of them. Too industrial; too far out; too far from a train station; too steep; wrong shape for anything but an L-shaped house; nice, but not for an 3.7.30; wrong side of the hill (lack of sun); wrong side of the tracks, if yer see what I mean... yep, the 5% hit rate started to look realistic.

Dejected, we drove back home.

The next weekend, we went to look at everything to the east. But this time we had a conversation that roughly ran like this:

Me: "We have too many preconceptions; we've got to forget the 3.30.7 house and just find the bloody land".

Claudia: "Why?"

Me: "Cos the chances are that the land for us will need a different shaped house anyway".

Claudia: "That's ok, Huf Haus can make any shape we want".

Me: "Exactly, they've got short fat houses, long thin houses, anything. Let's just find a piece of land we like regardless, and then decide what we can put on it."

Claudia: "Fine".

Me: "And forget all the other requirements, or we'll be rejecting land because it has the wrong sort of grass on it".

Well, we saw a few more pieces of land that day, more promising, but not quite there. We cheered up, because it was on that trip that we realised that our new preconceptionless approach to land hunting would pan out in the end. And on the way home (actually to Claudia's folks house for dinner and drinkies) we stopped by one last piece of land; you know the one that yer keep to the end of the day, 'cos it's a lame duck and hardly worth looking at. The piece of land that yer look at only because it's on the way, and well, what the hell, we should have a butchers just in case. Daft really.

And that was that.

No it wasn't, it gets better... read on...

The following morning, Frau Capucho calls the contact number for the land, an agent representing the owners. Well, Herr Meyer agrees to come to our house the same evening to discuss. And later, there he is with a twinkle in his eye, almost unable to contain himself. Strange, but ok. We discuss the land, price, terms and conditions. We informed him that we wanted to build a Huf Haus on the land, if he knew what that was. The twinkle in his eye turned into a laugh out of his mouth. Erm, what gives?

Meyer: "I know, you had a long meeting with my wife two weeks ago, and Capucho's an easy name to remember. We're Huf Haus Switzerland".

It's not often that I'm speechless.

Meyer: "And the couple that I represent for the land sale was going to do the same thing: build a Huf Haus. They ran out of money, and asked me to sell the land for them".

(speechless).

Meyer: "Shame for them, because they got the planning permission and everything. Everything was set to start building... but that's life".

(speechless).

Meyer: "Anyway, I think you need to look at their house plans and see if it's what you want, because a fundamentally different house would need a new Baubewilligung. But if you like the old plans, then it'll save you at least a year and about CHF 50,000".

(speechless).

Meyer: "You'll see it's a three axis house, the 3.9.30..."

We spent another hour or so looking at someone else's plans, discussed the scope for changes that wouldn't involve a reapplication for the Baubewilligung. The planning permission was for a slightly bigger house than we had in mind, but generally in that direction. All in all, it was a good evening for Herr Meyer: he not only flogged us a piece of land, but he also sold us a Huf Haus at the same time. A nice double-whammy for a bloke that makes only about ten commission-earning sales per year.

As he climbed into his Porsche 911, I thought to myself "Land and house; no one gets that lucky".

And I was talking about Claudia and myself.

Digging begins...

2006-09-19T12:37:00.000+02:00

Yes, it's troooooooooo. After an unbrief hiatus during which my expectations reset button was pushed several times, we've now arrived at that day; that day when yer actual fact diggin' starts.

The briefest of glances at our cow meadow shows that progress to date has been little more than conceptual. The grass is shorter than last week, 'cos the farmer (God bless him) mowed the grass. In fact, Herr Farmer also agreed to us locating some of the building machinery gubbins on his land, which has saved us a fortune in dosh and worry (God bless him again). The only caveat is that after construction is completed, anything that doesn't look like a cowsh1t-strewn meadow will have to be terraformed back into its former glory.

Fair dos.

Looking out of the window I see rain drops, so one has a concern that the first days' progress will be little more than moving some machinery onsite, and the wiggling of toes in wellington boots. One is unsure what the Swiss word for 'wellies' is, but one is confident that on rainy days yer Swiss construction worker is to be found in a local cafe wiggling his toes in them. In fact, it's been raining torrentially on and off for the last few days. One can imagine that our land is an alpine pond right now, with frogs, newts and carp.

Where was I?

Oh yes. The Keller arrives on the back of a Huf Haus truck during the second week of October (Week 41), and then the house arrives five weeks later, during the second week of November (Week 46). God help us if the Keller-shaped hole isn't ready by then. One can imagine that the Huf Haus truckers'll simply dump the Keller on our land, and then clear off.

See what I mean about expectations?

(continues below...)

Right, onto the serious stuff...

Over the last few weeks, there's been a flurry of activities as we've tried to square off as many of the uncertainties (read 'indecisions') as possible. Herr Hufhaus has been busy finalising the ground plans, but that's a hard thing to do when the Capucho's still haven't committed to a kitchen/bathroom and whether or not we'd be deleting one of the balconies.

The kitchen story finally came to end end last week, just in the nick of time. Bottom line is that a last minute change of heart with regards to the fridge freezer rather chucked a grenade into the budget. We're going to have one of them big fancy american food centre thingies; all stainless steel, with an ice-maker and water cooler built in. Implication is that it'll need plumbing in, 'cos the water and ice don't come out of fresh air. Herr Hufhaus has been alerted (I bloody well hope) by Herr Arkitekt (he of the bowtie).

Needless to say, the bloody kitchen will be the bloody kitchen of our bloody dreams, and I'm now bloody sick of thinking and talking about the bloody thing. Final cost? CHF 38,500, which doesn't sound much better in pounds sterling so I'll not bother to convert it.

Next: the bloody bathroom. Ditto(ish).

Next: the balcony. Now yer might have heard that Switzerland has mountains, and plenty of them. This means that building land is invariably on a slope, and more often than not, a steep slope. (Mental note for yer: those parts of Switzerland that are flat were nicked by other countries centuries ago). Anyways, the lie of our land means that we have to cut a sort of step into the hillside, and means that one end of our house will be sort of sunk down a level. Hard to explain by a bloke like me good self, but easier to visualise if yer imagine that the parking area will be roughly on the same level as what would have been the balcony above the front door. Sooooooooo, after much deliberations, the Capucho's finally took the decision to delete the balcony on that end. Sounds trivial, but as the balcony is supported by what is in effect an extension of two of the longitudinal beams that hold the damn house up, then it's probably important that it's a decisions that's made early, right? Right?

Anyways, we're there now.

With regards to the overall budget. Erm, we're about CHF 75,000 over, and that's before we start. I'll try and give a regular budget update, as and when I have the heart to recalculate it. Needless to say, I'm planning on robbing a bank.

Bacon slicers & kettles: a philosophical view

2006-06-23T12:34:00.001+02:00

A lot of people here Switzerland own small bacon slicers.

They really are just like them soddin' big things that yer find in delicatessens, but, erm, smaller. Yer go to one of the Swiss 'white goods' outlets (Fust AG, which is a sort of alpine Comet) and there's usually rows of the bloody things, of all manner of size, power, thinness, thickness. Some are alloy, some are made of of stainless steel, most come in all sorts of colours, and (inevitably) there's a biege one with a wanky picture of a flower on the side. In fact, one has come to learn that the baby bacon slicer is an essential piece of kitchen apparatus, that no Swiss household could possibly live without.

Unlike the kettle.

No one has kettles in this country, apart from expat Brits and the odd Italian immigrant who bought one by mistake and now use it as a plant pot. When I finally persuaded my Swiss wife (after years of protracted negotiations) that a kettle would be a good idea, there was exactly one model available in the local Fust. One. In black. So we bought it. And then it sort of caught on, 'cos mother-in-law (Hanni Honey), sister-in-law (Sister), wife's-best-friend (Phwor! Slaver! Slaver! Down boy!), you name it, they all bought kettles.

And they're all bloody identical black ones, made by a Swiss company I've never heard of. One can only imagine that the owner of the manufacturing company must have ramped up production all the way up to two a week to meet the frenzied increase in demand.

Now if yer pop into a British outlet (the fore-mentioned Comet would do) then yer'll find just one bacon slicer offered (Black, Made in Switzerland), but row upon row of kettles. And they come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, specifications. They come in alloy, stainless steel, different colours, and also (inevitably) there'll be a beige one with a wanky picture of a flower on the side.

So, clearly we're getting close to identifying an important cultural difference between yer Swiss and yer Brit. Yer Swiss likes to slice stuff at home, and yer Brit likes to boil water. (I have a powerful urge to digress as the culinary reputations that said differences have earned the respective countries, but to be quite frank, I couldn't be arsed). Oh, and a minority, but an important minority of Brits and Swiss, want their kitchen apparatus to come in beige with a wanky picture of a flower on the side.

Hmm.

The thing is that these Swissy people don't use their bacon slicers for slicing bacon at all. (gasps from the audience). That's because yer Swiss buys bacon for one purpose, and one purpose only: for frying in tiny little pieces with onions and garlic to make their potato roesti taste more interesting. And it comes straight off the super-market shelves pre-chopped to save arduous labour in the kitchen. Therefore, buying bacon is not a nice experience for yer Brit abroad, and trying to assemble the little bits to make up a proper bacon sarnie is an experience that few repeat after the first desperate experiment. Bad enough having a slice of bacon fall out of yer bacon butty, imagine what it's like having a whole pile of little bacony bits tumbling out.

What about cooked meats?

Well, even a cursory glance at the deli counter in Switzerland will reveal a line of people explaining in exquisite detail how they want their cooked meats cut by the deli bloke behind the counter. And this being Switzerland, the deli bloke will cut that meat to weapon's grade levels of precision. Yer want 200g of cooked ham? You want it in 6 slices? You'll get 199.998g in 6 identically sized slices, no problemo. Ergo, the Swiss don't use their home bacon slicers for slicing cooked meats, either.

So what do the Swiss use their bacon slicers for?

Well, here's the thing. Yer average Swiss eats far more raclette than fondue. (more gasps) Tis true. Now bear with me, 'cos yer average Brit understands the concept of a fondue pot of melted cheese, but knows buggah all about raclette.

(ahem)

Yer traditional raclette is done as follows: take a whopping big, full raclette cheese (imagine a drum-shaped edam cheese of yer childhood dreams/nightmares) and then chop it in half vertically. Yer left with half a drum with an exposed flat bit, right? Right. The flat bit's the coal seam of the whole operation, if yer catch my drift. Anyways, this goes into a thingummy-jig, which has a grill heating element over the top which melts the flat bit that lies beneath. Yer leave it for a few minutes until it bubbles good and proper, and then skim the few millimetres of melted cheese off the top onto a passing plate. Stuff said cheese back under the thingy, and a few minutes later passing plate number two gets the next splodge.

Yer still with me?

Probably not, but one will soldier on regardless.

Anyways, needless to say the above operation's a serial process, and believe me the owners of plates three through to eight are now bitching like hell because their splodge lucky number hasn't come up. Worse still, the contents of plates one to two were wolfed down in seconds, so not only are the 'lucky ones' still hungry, but they also have to put up with the baleful glares of those still awaiting their grub. And nowt can glare like a glaring Swissy.

So, the Swiss being Swiss, and consensus and harmony being of paramount importance, they invented a sort of communal 'centre of table' raclette grill thingy. Everyone gets a small metal palette, onto which one chucks a sliced piece of raclette cheese. (Aha! Sliced!) And said grill thingy can grill up to eight (yes eight!) small palettes full of cheese in parallel, 'cos everyone gets their own grilly slot to play with. I usually claim Claudia's slot after she's no longer hungry, and keep two on the go. Ok, it's not particularly traditional, but it's a more sociable and equitable experience, resulting in far less forks being stabbed into the backs of people's necks.

Sliced! I said sliced! Aha! (smug) And so how exactly does one slice the cheese, eh?

Well?

Exactly! You've got it! Brilliant, you lot are. You saw it coming, right? Yes indeed, yer got to get up early to fool someone as insightful as yer good self, eh? Yes indeedy; in exactly the same manner as Swiss bacon comes pre-chopped, Swiss raclette cheese (non-traditional method) comes out of the supermarket perfectly pre-sliced, and perfectly pre-sized to slide onto a non-traditional raclette palette with no wasteful gaps around the edges.

So what do the Swiss use their bacon slicers for? I'll be fcuked if I know.

The land is ours

2006-05-02T12:32:00.001+02:00

A shortish progress update... we're now the proud owners of 660m2 of Alpine meadow, with a schoen aufsicht, whatever that means. Seeing as building land's like hen's teeth in Kanton Zurich, it seemed prudent to buy the bloody land sharpish and worry about the building phase as a second step.

(continues below...)

We immediately went to check it out, of course. The land is literally the corner of a large belt of sloping grazing land, and when we went to visit it straight after signing up, we saw that the local farmer had fertilized it along with the rest, cheeky sod, so that the grass will grow up all good and strong for his soddin' cows to chomp on.

Pah!

Still, there's something nice about Swiss cows, 'cos even in this day and age they all wear their dingy-dongy bells, and it's pretty easy for a blind man to know he's in the Swiss countryside 'cos of the dong-dong-dong sounds, and the smell of cowsh1t. And the singing as some do-gooder Heidi skips through the flowery meadows nearby.

Very different in Winter, of course, as the cows hibernate, and the Heidis migrate south to New Zealand, where they work as Black Beauty extras. "What's that, Black Beauty? The bridge's collapsing? Gee, we need a ride, let me get on yer back!"

Suppose that was an advantage of Black Beauty; built in emergency transportation. No point in putting a saddle of Lassie or Skippy, although I imagine Skippy probably had a pouch somewhere.

Hmm, farm animals. Will have to introduce a fence betwixt garden and grazing land when all's up and built. That'll be ok. But it might be a problem during the building phase. Bad enough after they've dug out the foundations to find large pools of water and broken children at the bottom, but a herd of cows could really scupper the schedule.

Will have to instruct the camp guards to shoot all cows on sight. Will keep 'em alert, clear the guns, and serve as a warning to the prisoners...erm, to the construction workers.

Grand Designs

2006-03-31T13:23:00.000+02:00

I never did see that Grand Designs programme, so my expectations might be a tad wrong. One of the good things of leaving yer own country and language behind is that yer TV viewing trails off somewhat, other than the odd baffling session watching weird adverts.

I never for one second fancied the idea of actually getting my own hands dirty, and various horror stories show yer why. No bloody way would I want to learn how to plaster or point or whatever other stuff those blokes in hard hats have to do for a living. Nope, my DIY skills are restricted to opening bottles of wine, dead-heading roses and flushing toilets.

Consider the following schedule that we've just signed up for with them Huf Haus people:

April (could slip to May, but I'll leave you lot to adjust the months below if that happens): diggers arrive to convert the virgin alpine meadow (untouched since the last ice-age) into something that looks more like the Battle of the Somme. Largest crater is to accomodate house and cellar, smaller crater to accomodate foundation for the car port. Smallest crater is to accomodate the machine gun nest from where the site manager ensure that no tea-drinking goes on.

Neighbours finally understand the true horror of living next to a construction site. Tough titty.

May: Concrete poured into craters, and left to set. Swiss workers understandably don't drink tea, camp guard smokes cigarette and looks malevolent. Material for keller delivered, keller built into crater, and then when ready, workers kick the dirt and stuff into the gaps around the keller.

June: House and car-port arrives from Germany in big prefabricated lumps. Said lumps are assembled in a couple of weeks, by yet more workers who refuse to drink tea. German workers these, white gloves and clean boiler suits, so no need to train a machine gun over them. Camp guard looks disappointed. Roof shoved on the top.

July: House sealed from the weather, machine gun unloaded and Swiss workers pause while champagne glasses passed around. Apparently the sealing ceremony is a big thing out here. Expect I'll get a bit p1ssed.

August: Floors and heating system nailed into house. Camp guard departs. Plumbing and bathrooms plumbed and bathed.

September: Electrics and other gizmos put in.

October: Kitchen, painting, minor landscaping, etc.

November: We move in; neighbours sigh with relief, then find out that I'm an Auslander (foreigner). Whoops.

Ahh, the efficiencies of life outside of the UK...

Kit houses

2006-03-30T13:14:00.000+02:00

It's normal here in Switzerland to self-build kit houses. Only millionaires and lunatics build a 100% 'individual' design, and even then the lunatics usually think twice. The millionaires have enough money to just shrug and pay to send some chaps in to knock a few holes into the walls when they realise that their architect (the chap with a bow-tie, remember) forgot to put any doors into his latest blue riband award winning design.

Nah, kit houses are where it's all at, at least in the German speaking world, as they're already fully debugged. No design surprises.

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The available kit houses here are incredibly configurable so no need to take a hacksaw to 'em. The messing about's done on CAD/CAM, and the results pop out of the factory gates like a big meccano set. Bolt holes line up, windows fit perfectly into the window gaps, doors open the right way, the roof's the bit at the top and the cellar's the bit at the bottom, etc etc, no matter what option box yer tick. You want that design, but its mirror image would be better? Click, and Bob's yer uncle. No likee that wallee? Click. More windows, less wall? Click click, slide and click.

Bloody marvellous, really.

However, it's the endless possibilities that sap time and attention. I've always been a fan of a few standardised options, whether I'm in a restaurant, buying a car, or (of late) choosing a kit house. It's a buggahration scratching my head as I scan through page after page of options menu, looking at details half of which I've never heard of. In a foreign language. The funny thing is that when there's an area of land that needs a house shoving on it, then you and the Frau get all particular about this or that detail, and refuse to compromise on just about anything. "Hmm, how many millimetres to the left should we move that door, darling?" But the thing is that if the bloody house had already been built, and was generally what we'd wanted, then we'd have accepted those compromises and a lot bloody more without a thought.

Ah well.