Busy nearly every day this week.

Since the house is lockable we emptied out the hut on Monday and gave it a bit of a clean. Everything is now in the house and Pia called the rental place for them to take it away (it disappeared during Wednesday). Tuesday were back there again and finished rearranging the stuff from the hut, cleaned up some of the mess blocking the hut in, and talked with our builder, Tapio.

Today we talked with the water/air conditioning guys about the work coming up and what needs to be done and what taps, etc we need. Then tomorrow the kitchen, laundry fittings and cupboards are going to get their measurements done. So that only leaves Friday free!

The interior walls are coming along as well and all the wood ones are nearly finished, just a couple of small parts to go. The rest of the walls will be brick, mainly around the bathrooms and sauna. The guy doing the fireplace is supposed to arrive there Thursday as well. So if everything is clear for him I guess he starts straight away installing that.

A few pictures during this week. Our empty hut, nice shiny new front door, and inspecting the work 🙂

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The state of the interior on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Took a while to recover from moving all that stuff last weekend, but we seem to be getting there.

Not so much required of us this week, but things are moving on. The new front door arrived today and they took away the old one that was the wrong size. During the week our builder finished lining the inside of most of the main walls and has started on the interior walls. He also finished installing all the doors and locks today. So now we can lock the house. That also means we can get rid of the hut we rented so many months ago and is costing a small fortune each month.

Visited the house today and took a few pictures. A couple of the rooms are marked out and the main entrance framing is partly done. Must say that those rooms are looking a bit small though :-).

Tuesday, cleaning up and the wall lining in place

Thursday, all doors up and the framing started around the main entrance.

The end of another busy weekend.

Saturday the floor was hard already and the builder was there putting in the rest of the wall insulation. First thing was to remove the plastic sheeting off the floor. While we were doing that Olavi arrived and gave us a list of things to do :-(. The main thing was to move all the bricks and fireplace inside. The bricks were on 23 small pallets and the fireplace on three large ones. By about 6.30pm we had managed to move all but three pallets of bricks inside and could hardly bend over.

Seems the section is turning into a real menagerie. So far we have seen – besides all the birds – rabbits, mooses (indirectly :-), frogs, lizards and while moving the bricks Pia found a mouse nest :-). I’m not sure who got the biggest fright, Pia or the mice. We covered it up again and on Sunday the nest was empty, including the babies. So obviously they decided there was somewhere better to live than under a pallet.

Sunday it was more carrying again. We moved the remaining three pallets of bricks and shifted the fireplace inside. I’m sure we will regret that tomorrow though. It was veeeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyy heavy!!!

While we were sweating over that the builder was putting some of the gibboard sheeting on the walls. He also put a couple of the doors in place. We were hoping that all the doors would be in quite soon, but it turns out that the front door is the wrong size. The house plans say 100cm, the packing sheet for the exterior doors says 100cm, but the door they delivered is 90cm… grrrrr.

Thursday or Friday last week the electrician had been there as well, most of the cabling and socket mountings had been fitted to the walls. The rest will have to be done when the interior walls are up, probably later this week or next.

Some pictures from Saturday: Our mouse nest, starting on our brick pile, and the electrical fittings.

Sunday: Finished moving everything, our first door, and our first complete wall.

At long last we have a floor! And a front and back porch as well.

The concrete was poured this morning and it is already firm enough to walk on. It should harden over the next few days and then the work can start on the interior walls. We went there after work today and poured some water on the concrete and covered it in plastic. That stops it drying too fast and cracking. Weather is pretty good for it at the moment too, mild temperatures and occasional rain to keep the humidity up.

Some pictures of the floor today, inside, on the front porch, and covered in plastic.

Another day, more problems.

The guy who was supposed to lay the floor today decided that he didn’t really want to do it after all. Grrrrr. Olavi (our rakennusmestari/building engineer) managed to eventually find someone else who can do it, but they don’t have time until next week. Double grrrrr.

As I mentioned last time, the reinforcing had gone down. That was laid on top of the water pipes, electricity conduits and polystyrene. Just after that the floor heating hoses were put in place and tied to the reinforcing. The rest of the reinforcing has been put in place on the front porch as well and the last of the boxing made. So now it is all just waiting on the concrete floor. Once that goes in the interior walls will be done. Which brings us to another story. Because of the delays the house company didn’t want to complete the interior walls (their builders are busy for summer now), so they wanted us to find our own builder for it. Luckily enough Olavi had found one already and he can do the walls and gibboard. Of course we have just paid the bill for the house (or the bank did), so now the house company owes us some money back.

Looking further ahead, once the floor is done the walls will start to go up within the next two days. Then all the interior measurements are finalised for the kitchen and all other cupboards. And in July the earth moving contractors come back and flatten out the yard and do the trench for the water pipe to the well.

Have been a bit slack for the last few weeks, so here are a whole bunch of pictures starting with a few panoramas. Front yard/driveway, back yard (from north east to west, section continues down the middle), and the floor ready for the concrete.

Floor heating distribution point, reinforcing on the front porch, back wall covered in plastic to stop the concrete splashes, and a visitor we found hiding in the yard.

Some quick news.

The work on the floor has started. The reinforcing is down and the floor should be poured later this week. Busy most of the time, but will be at the section during the weekend to check things out (looks like a hot weekend as well).

Sorted out the electricity installation contract as well and the kitchen, laundry, bathroom fittings selection is done as well.

A hot day and another one coming tomorrow.

Went to the section today and cleaned up some of the branches and offcuts lying around. Used our super choppy uppy machine that we got last week. Remember to get a power cable that fitted it as well. Didn’t make as much noise as I thought it would, but crunched up things very well. We got our very own wheelbarrow as well, in a matching shade of yellow no less.

Hot days work though, about 25 (the car said it was 35, but it was sitting in the sun). Will go out again tomorrow and finish off the bits and pieces left down the back.

Not much happening with the house at the moment. I think we are going to have a bit of a schedule crunch soon. Things have been slipping, what with people not turning up, etc. Hopefully it is sorted out a bit this week. A couple of things were done during the last week, the embedding of the water pipes in the polystyrene and some insulation around the edges of the walls where the concrete floor will cover. Also the steel reinforcing was done for the back patio.

The pictures, from the left two of the now recessed pipes, the insulation foam around the wall and our yet to be assembled wheelbarrow.

Everything has really started to turn sprout now. Compare these to two weeks ago.