Been so busy with the house haven’t had time to put anything here for a while.

Quite a bit happened in the last couple of weeks though and is still going on…

1. All the interior walls are up
2. Fireplace/chimney are finished
3. Attic stairs are in place
4. Filled the hole in the floor “technical” room and gib-stopped, painted the area where the heatpump and water tank will go
5. Gib-stopped and painted the storage room completely and now moving stuff there (skirting boards still to do)
6. Gib-stopped the work room ready for painting
7. Installation of the heatpump is going on now
8. All the flashing on the roof and around the windows/bottom of the doors is done now
9. All the remaining work around the outside of the house by the house company is done
10. Cabling channels in the brick walls are being cut now
11. Lea and Risto visited during the weekend and helped clean everything up and generally did lots of other work including helping to repair the roofing around the chimney ready for the flashing.

So much happened that I have probably forgotten something as well, but anyway, some pictures from the last two weeks.

Sanding the storage room, the carport being lined, the technical room floor, window and door frames going up, the new chimney.

The bathroom walls finished, Risto fixing the tiles around the chimney, repaired tiles, getting a bit dusty in the work room.

View from up top last Saturday.

Just realised that I haven’t taken any pictures of the finished exterior. Have to do something about that soon!

Triple “grrrrrr” day today!

“Grrr” number 1. The ceiling in the laundry has been covered with gibboard (gyproc) already, but the plumbing/heating guy came back from holiday end of last week and told us today that there are still ventilation pipes to go in the ceiling and it should have a false, lower, ceiling like the bathroom and sauna. Not that anyone mentioned that to us, especially since we don’t have a copy of the ventilation plans.

“Grrr” number 2. The bricks that we have been waiting on for a week and a half still hadn’t arrived on Saturday. We haven’t had to deal directly with the place that usually delivers the building materials, but Pia managed to find their number and called them today. They said that even though a couple of weeks ago they had been asked about availability, no-one had actually ordered anything!!! And then we found out that their delivery fee is 130 EUR! The amount of bricks we need is barely more than that!

“Grrr” number 3. Included with the bricks was supposed to be a bag of premixed quick setting cement so that we could fill in the hole around the drain where the heat pump will sit. We wasted an entire week waiting for the bag to turn up with the bricks when we could have gone to the shop and picked it up ourselves!

Needless to say the blood pressure levels were a bit high today. I’m sure someone will get a few choice words sometime soon…

But anyway, number 2 and 3 are taken care of. Pia arranged delivery of the bricks from a nearby hardware store and at the same time we picked up the bag of cement mix. The drain is already filled and according to the label should be set by tomorrow night, or at worst Wednesday.

On a slightly less aggravating subject we have started to gib-stop several of the rooms, especially the storage room and the work room. Next will be to finish sanding the storage room and also do the “technical room” ready for the heat pump to be installed. The floor in both those rooms need painted with concrete paint as well. With any luck both those will be done by the end of the week.

Some recent pictures. Putting the gibboard on the ceiling is much easier with the right tools. Our newly gib-stopped work room, and the set of stairs to get to the attic. The stairs were installed on Saturday already.

Things still going on, if a bit slowly at times. The remaining bricks have been ordered, but have still to arrive (if they aren’t already there today). The rest of the interior walls are close to finished though and some of the ceiling is in place now.

We got a rubbish skip last week, and in preparation for the rest of the landscaping work we tidied up most of the front yard during the weekend and got rid of a lot of the stuff that had piled up. A couple of before and after shots below. There has been so much rain this summer that the ground is pretty soft, so if the contractor doing the landscaping can’t come right away to do that hopefully they can make it in the next week or so to dig the trench for the pipe to the well. The mound of dirt at the back of the house that they created when they dug the foundations has been taken over by wild flowers, so it is probably a bit of a shame when they bulldoze it all flat.

The electricity work is going on still as well. The electrical cabinet in the yard has been moved and the house cabling connected up. I’m not sure if the house is actually live yet, but it can’t be far off.

On a “grrrr” subject it turns out the house company doesn’t do the flashing around the windows. We wondered why they didn’t come and finish the outside work, but after a couple of calls by Pia it turns out they had been there a couple of weeks ago, but when they noticed the flashing wasn’t done they went away again. Of course they didn’t bother to tell us that, or the fact that they can’t finish the exterior walls until that is done. Double grrrrrrrr! That little details seems to be missing from their contract papers as well.

Visited the section yesterday and finished digging around the electricity box in the yard. It is in the wrong place, too close to the house. In the current position it won’t be possible to get a truck around the back to empty the sewage tank. Of course when we installed it we didn’t know exactly where the house went. The electricity should be connected to the house very soon, so it is a good time to move it. Needless to say the digging up the cable and the box wasn’t much fun. The hole was partly filled before winter to stop the box flooding and the clods of grass in the dirt have rotted in the mean time with all the water sitting there. So the ground around the box and in the trench was an interesting sort of mud that had an odour curiously like the wrong end of a cow… Anyway, now that the box is freed of the ground the electrician is going to see if he can move it a bit further away.

On a less smelly topic the brickwork around the sauna is basically finished and the other bathroom is still ongoing, although we need to order more bricks to finish that. We also need some wood for the final interior walls, hopefully we can pick that up tomorrow.

The electrician was back yesterday as well (as seen by the bill that arrived today – I don’t know if they actually send those before they visit…). They have put some fittings in the ceiling to accommodate the halogen lights. The electrical fuse box is in place as well.

The state of the interior on Monday.

From the left, lots of smelly mud, fittings for halogen lights, our new fuse box, the start of the second bathroom.

Been away for a few days, but back again now and been working at the section Friday and today.

Quite a few things being done in the house at the moment. The interior brick walls around the sauna and bathroom are almost completed and the much of the wiring has been done. The wiring includes all the lighting, telephone and computer network. Actually it pretty much looks like an explosion in a spaghetti factory with all the cables hanging everywhere. We found out from the electrician that the halogen lamps in the ceiling are not as easy to install as we thought, or at least the height of the lamp unit is a slight problem. There needs to be about a 10cm gap, which means that they are must be located in the centre of the space between the intersection of the rafters and ceiling batons, where the insulation can be pushed out of the way. That will affect the lighting design we had, especially in the entrance/hallway. Simplest solution is just to reduce the number of lights.

Also discovered last week that the fireplace is not actually completed yet. Part of the chimney is missing still. It was delivered early during the week. We have a location for the mailbox now, unfortunately it is on the other side of the road about 20 metres away where our other neighbours mailboxes are located :-(. Long way to get the paper in the morning…

Materials are running a bit low as well now. We probably have to order more bricks soon, the amount there is not enough to complete the second bathroom. We also need a bit more framing for the remaining interior walls.

Outside we have cleared the last of the trees ready for the landscaping to be completed. The earthmoving guys should be coming back in the next week or so and flattening out the yard and digging the trench to the well. There was one pile of felled trees and a couple of paju (willow) in the way. Twenty minutes with the chainsaw earlier in the week fixed them and a couple of afternoons with the axe and the choppy uppy machine (oksasilppuri) took care of the felled wood and the offcuts.

Outside on Friday, newly cleared area to the very left. The carport is pretty much empty as well, everything moved inside.

The interior on Friday, from the left: Main bedroom marked off (with bathroom wall started), sauna/bathroom brick walls nearly up, bathroom/sauna door, lighting cabling in place, and the heat exchange unit yet to be unpacked.

Were at the section again yesterday, not too much to see, but the fireplace has been finished. Another coat of plaster and all the metalwork in place.

The floor seems to be drying quite well. At least wet patches don’t appear so easily now when something sits on the floor, so hopefully that is a good sign.

The heat exchanger/hot water unit has arrived as well, so probably the installation of that starts soon too. The interior walls are still being done, some more of the lining has gone up and the brickwork should be next. I think the electrician will be back in a week or so as well.

Had a meeting on Monday with our interior planner and went over some colors and materials for the interior. Next thing is to check out what we can afford and were to get it from. We probably should start on finding the appliances as well (fridge, freezer, dishwasher, etc). The oven/range comes with the kitchen and the range hood is part of the ventilation system, but the others we need to get ourselves.

Pictures for the day, the fireplace from front and back and more of the completed lining – by the main entrance. The back of the fireplace is not covered since it sits in the corner and will be hidden by the walls.

Was going to do some work outside on Saturday and clean up the yard some more, but the weather had other ideas. It rained and rained and rained all day.

So that only left the inside to clean up. Not that there was so much of a mess there but the fireplace had been installed late during the week, so that gave something to do.

A couple of pictures, our new fireplace and the rain 🙂

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 🙂

   .  

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.