Plasterin' 'n' paintin' 'n' stuff

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...

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

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

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.