So the trash container arrived at about 11:30. I was expecting it to be a bit earlier since they said “morning”but it still technically was so ok, whatever…at least it’s here. It actually turned out to be very beneficial for our workers because they were able to put this new one very far back on the property and the estrich (which we found out is called “screed” in English) arrived shortly after so they could dump that very close to the kitchen which means they don’t have quite so far to carry it. Had we not gotten a new container this morning, they would have had to walk about 10 yards further with the stuff which I’m rather sure would have sucked in a big way.
The estrich was dumped onto a tarp in our courtyard from a huge cement truck. It has pretty much the same consistency as concrete although the rock particles are a bit bigger and it has insulation properties. Before they spread that out, they laid down a thick Styrofoam dampener. Things are definitely progressing well in the kitchen. After that is done it will need to set for a while. They still need to lay the water pipes to the other side of the room for the sink, dishwasher, fridge and washing machine. Then they will finish off the walls which basically means they need to primer them (I think) and then they will paint them. We weren’t crazy about the plaster job in the bathroom because there is just too much texture so decided we will go with the bare drywall and can always change it up later if we need to.
The stair guys have pretty much finished sanding the stairs now. They were both working at the same time and it took them about 3 hours to do all the stairs. I wouldn’t have thought it would take so long but since I’ve never done something like that, I really wouldn’t know lol. They look quite nice and I think the final color will be very close to the floors in the other rooms. I am very pleased about that. And when they finished, the guys almost immediately started cleaning up. They have been running the vacuum for about an hour now to get up all the dust which actually coated the floor so well that you really couldn’t tell what color it was originally.
Ok, I actually just looked at the stairs again and it would seem that they didn’t sand the tops of them? I’m confused. Maybe they needed to get the first layer of dirt off the stairs before they could sand the tops since they couldn’t see them anymore…we’ll see how that develops.
From what I can hear, the German lacky is upstairs working on the new bathroom already. I haven’t been up there to see it because the guys have been sanding the stairs but I can hear him up there banging around so I’m thinking something is definitely happening. Depending on when they stop working here today, I may not be privy to that information until tomorrow morning lol.
We are super excited that the windows are coming tomorrow and we will also be picking up the tile for the kitchen, breakthrough room, my soon to be office, upstairs bath & covered patio outside. We figure we will have to make 2 or 3 trips with the Defender and hopefully Macky’s van but then they will at least be able to get started on laying the floor as soon as the walls are painted ( we guess that will be the order). And then we pick up what we hope will be most of the kitchen on Monday from IKEA and order the other pieces that are missing to be delivered in January so we can at least order the counter finally and really get this show on the road.
Things are really moving along quickly now. It’s pretty amazing how quickly it starts to go all of the sudden. When the estrich is in, the kitchen should go quite quickly. They just need to finish the walls, lay the water pipes, lay the tile, build the faux-fachwerk beams in the ceiling, mount the cabinets to the wall and then it will be finished aside from things like the counter top, a few appliances and other smaller things.
From the looks of things, I think the floors should be mostly finished soon as well. I thought they were going to lacquer today but if they get all the stairs sanded instead, that works great for me also. I know they won’t be able to walk on them for a while which will limit the progress they can make on the bathroom so perhaps that has something to do with why the tops aren’t done…I really can’t say
And so for some more hopes and prayers, we are looking forward to getting a phone call that the shower is here and we can then move forward with that not so little task.
