And breathe...

Last weekend was hectic. On Friday, I'd taken the day off to prep things for moving, and just as well I did. We hadn't expected to actually move in till Saturday, but our friends clearly thought we'd taken long enough, so Sace, Silja and their three sons came over with a trailer, and we started hauling stuff down the street. Back-breaking. By that night, we had pretty much all of the heavy stuff in, and we spent our first night in the house.

It was nice to wake up looking at half-timbered ceilings for the first time, but Saturday was also going to be hectic. My sister-in-law, popped by in the morning with my nephew, another neighbour couple offered to help carrying and cleaning, and Sace and Silja were back again in the afternoon. The house we'd been living in for most of the four years it's taken us to renovate our own house is now cleaned out, as if we were never there. Well, apart from some brewing equipment still in the Waschküche.

I'm still recovering. The past few months have been pretty hard, physically, and now, after a hard push over the weekend, the adrenalin is wearing off and it's hitting me. I'm wrecked. It's also weird not to be doing construction, apart from minor things, and to be sitting amongst boxes again. It's going to take a long time to find where everything will live, and probably to adjust where everything has been stored in the kitchen so it feels right, but I think it's time to rest a bit and recover. Breathe.

There's still plenty to do, and I'll report on tasks as I tackle them, and I certainly would like to do some retrospective posts, to show how much the house has changed since the day I first took a crowbar to the living room walls.

But here's a few before and afters, with more or less the same view.

The hallway on the second floor.

Our bedroom, the former grain store, on the 2nd floor.

And the living room.

For now, though, it's time to bring a bit of life to the house, and make it truly our own.

One week to go

... at least, when I recorded this last Sunday.

This weekend, we're moving in. The phone line has been moved, we have a bathroom door, and it's about time.

Are we there yet?

Very nearly...

We could move in this weekend, but I'm opting to delay a week, to give us time to finish a lot of detailed works before furniture moves in. But huge progress in the last week!

Have a look at the video update from the night of the 3rd of February.
Highlights are the flooring on the 2nd floor almost complete, not to mention the last of the painting and trims all done. And our son's room! Really cosy-looking now. It was definitely worth that last minute decision to rip down the plaster ceiling after Christmas.

We've been very slow getting doors ordered, so we'll be doorless for quite a while after we move in, not to mention window blinds/shades for privacy. But for now, we're going to pull out all the stops over the next few days to get the place in order, then we can gradually move stuff in and get properly moved in next week. Wish us luck!