New house build - Luxembourg
Discussion
Having cancelled on us twice in 2 weeks, the kitchen fitters measured up this morning to check vs. the plans, and that all the services are in the correct place. They also needed to confirm the reinforced area of the suspended ceiling for the island hood installation was correct. Thankfully it was. It was also very useful that my daughters are on their Summer holidays as they did the translation to/from German for Mrs.5Pot. 
Oh, and new couch was ordered on Sat too.
Oh, and new couch was ordered on Sat too.
We have the keys to the "1970s" rental house and have started to move stuff there that we don't need to unpack. It's a massive place, but just old and rather unloved having been rented out for 18 years. The landlord's easy going, so that's good for us - to a degree.
The central heating boiler and oil tanks int his rental were replaced last week (at great cost!) and there's still ~500l. of oil in the tanks, which is GREAT, because I don't want to buy any more.
The central heating boiler and oil tanks int his rental were replaced last week (at great cost!) and there's still ~500l. of oil in the tanks, which is GREAT, because I don't want to buy any more.
Nothing to update on the new build; very slow progress in the last couple of weeks, which was kind of expected, but I thought the decorators would have taken advantage of a quiet site and cracked on. They didn't. 
Moved in to the 1970s house until the new build's done. Sooooo much space - living rooms 11m x 5m, garage below it is the same size!
We've 220m2 living space and the same again of 'basement' storage/rooms!
This place has soooo much potential I'm wondering if the owner may sell it to us and we could renovate and sell on for a profit. I wonder if I could get another mortgage from BIL to pay for that?
Moved in to the 1970s house until the new build's done. Sooooo much space - living rooms 11m x 5m, garage below it is the same size!
We've 220m2 living space and the same again of 'basement' storage/rooms!
This place has soooo much potential I'm wondering if the owner may sell it to us and we could renovate and sell on for a profit. I wonder if I could get another mortgage from BIL to pay for that?
I received a call from the kitchen suppliers, Moebel Martin, Konz, Germany, yesterday. Now they have the measurements from the fitting contractor, there was an issue with the granite worktop/upstand/sill. Where the worktop has a 4cm granite upstand against the wall behind the sink, and we wanted a matching granite sill, too, there was an infill needed that was only 1.2cm high, but 2cm thick. It was going to prove tricky.
We resolved it today by whizzing quickly to Germany, and agreed to raise the planned work top level to cover the difference, so the sill sits directly on top of the worktop. It means the base unit plinths will be 12cm high instead of 10cm originally planned.
Oh, the kitchen won't be ready to fit until the last full week of October, rather later than we'd planned or hoped for.
Bummer.
We resolved it today by whizzing quickly to Germany, and agreed to raise the planned work top level to cover the difference, so the sill sits directly on top of the worktop. It means the base unit plinths will be 12cm high instead of 10cm originally planned.
Oh, the kitchen won't be ready to fit until the last full week of October, rather later than we'd planned or hoped for.
Bummer.
Monkey: Konz is only 30 miles away. Nowhere is far from Luxembourg. I can be in either Belgium, France or Germany in 20 minutes from where we live. 
Pvapour: yeah, the summer holidays, although the decorators could have carried on working, meant they haven't. I was shocked the kitchen would take so long to be delivered and fitted, but there's nothing we can do about that.
I may have stretched the car's legs on the way home.... For a big vehicle, it gets to 240km/h quite quickly. Surprised a Scirocco R driver when I whooshed past him.
Pvapour: yeah, the summer holidays, although the decorators could have carried on working, meant they haven't. I was shocked the kitchen would take so long to be delivered and fitted, but there's nothing we can do about that.
I may have stretched the car's legs on the way home.... For a big vehicle, it gets to 240km/h quite quickly. Surprised a Scirocco R driver when I whooshed past him.
Well the site's been reopened for 2 weeks. What's happened to my house in that time?
Fook all.
I emailed the contractor last night and he's responded this morning that the decorators are on holiday now (FFS! They didn't do anything whilst the builders were off, but could have!), but they're starting on our house on Monday.
Keys handover, I'm now told, will be towards the end of November, maybe early December. I'm rather disappointed, to be honest, given how much has been done before the Summer holidays and now the EASY bits are left it'll still take, they reckon, another 3 months!
Checking my calendar this will cause all sorts of problems. We can't have the kitchen fitted until we have the keys; the kitchen's ready to go in at the end of October - the keys, for the moment, only a month after that.
Gutted. I shall pursue this further.....
Fook all.
I emailed the contractor last night and he's responded this morning that the decorators are on holiday now (FFS! They didn't do anything whilst the builders were off, but could have!), but they're starting on our house on Monday.
Keys handover, I'm now told, will be towards the end of November, maybe early December. I'm rather disappointed, to be honest, given how much has been done before the Summer holidays and now the EASY bits are left it'll still take, they reckon, another 3 months!
Checking my calendar this will cause all sorts of problems. We can't have the kitchen fitted until we have the keys; the kitchen's ready to go in at the end of October - the keys, for the moment, only a month after that.
Gutted. I shall pursue this further.....
The final instalment of the construction cost is payable when the keys are handed over. Officially, by the contract, the house isn't really "mine" until then.
There are contractual clauses for not permitting sub-contractors on site until the keys are handed over, but, there's a precedent case with the house at the other end of the row of 4, so I'm pushing on that basis now. That house is set up as a ground floor apartment with a duplex above (same family), but the kichens were fitted whilst the decoration was still being finished, so I'm playing on that now.
Depending on their response to my email now, and if I have to, I'll offer to pay more to get another 2 decorators in and they can 'HTFU' so the 2nd fix can crack on.
There are contractual clauses for not permitting sub-contractors on site until the keys are handed over, but, there's a precedent case with the house at the other end of the row of 4, so I'm pushing on that basis now. That house is set up as a ground floor apartment with a duplex above (same family), but the kichens were fitted whilst the decoration was still being finished, so I'm playing on that now.
Depending on their response to my email now, and if I have to, I'll offer to pay more to get another 2 decorators in and they can 'HTFU' so the 2nd fix can crack on.
ffs, it undoes all the good speedy work they did early on, how frustrating! paying for different P&d sounds a good shout if they'll go for it just be sure (as I'm sure you would) that you see some of their work before they ruin things.
scarily close to Crimbo without any margin for error, fingers x for you mate.
scarily close to Crimbo without any margin for error, fingers x for you mate.
Thanks, Nick.
Yes, it's frustrating to be oh so close, then still apparently 3 months away. The main contractor hasn't responded to my 2nd email sent on Friday. I commented there about decorators wasting 3 weeks doing nothing, so if they hire more...etc. Let's see.
I've a few long haul business trips coming up in October/November, each for 1 week, so I'd planned, as much as I could, to be home and off work to move house around those trips. My wife and daughters did loads in readiness for our move to the rental as I was travelling for work then too. We really don't want to be moving over Christmas and I don't want to be in the rental then either.
After a Summer holiday 'break' from business travel, I'm in Dublin tomorrow, then to Laaandon early on Tuesday for the day.
Yes, it's frustrating to be oh so close, then still apparently 3 months away. The main contractor hasn't responded to my 2nd email sent on Friday. I commented there about decorators wasting 3 weeks doing nothing, so if they hire more...etc. Let's see.
I've a few long haul business trips coming up in October/November, each for 1 week, so I'd planned, as much as I could, to be home and off work to move house around those trips. My wife and daughters did loads in readiness for our move to the rental as I was travelling for work then too. We really don't want to be moving over Christmas and I don't want to be in the rental then either.
After a Summer holiday 'break' from business travel, I'm in Dublin tomorrow, then to Laaandon early on Tuesday for the day.
Thanks, Muncher.
To be fair, the builders have cracked on, but the last bits are rather time consuming, and to me it just seemed like the end was oh so close....then so very far away. They want to be sure that once the blower/smoke test is completed, they have NO issues to fix before they officially hand over the keys. They have to be sure they deliver a house that matches the A rated EPC that's in our contract.
Our rental's close by to the new house, and whilst it's a huge place, not having all our stuff unpacked kind of feels odd.
The interior decoration's started and should be about another 2 weeks to complete. There's a kind of lining paper covering all the walls on the ground floor, and also in the 'master suite' so far. As the entire house is "eco" (we won't go into how much travelling, transportation and general non-eco friendly practices have been involved in the making of.... ) the lining paper is made of recycled materials. It's really quite tough to simply grab a piece of the lining paper and tear it. This stuff was recommended, at a supplementary cost, of course (!), as a 'flat finish' alternative to the usual and free spec glassfibre wall coverings used here. The previous house (also a new build) simply had emulsioned plastered walls, but we always had very small cracks appearing in the plasterwork. This lining paper will stop those from showing.
There's a small wooden 'fillet' that goes at the top of the wall as the joint with the ceilings, instead of coving/architrave, which we don't personally like.
The whole lot will be painted, in eco friendly paint - naturally - in a single colour for the entire house, a kind of very light grey/off white tone on all the walls, and brilliant white, matt ceilings. We can decide on final colours in the coming years.
(Previous place was cream/beige from top to bottom - so we want to avoid having the same again!)
I'll post up some pics to bore you with in the coming days....
To be fair, the builders have cracked on, but the last bits are rather time consuming, and to me it just seemed like the end was oh so close....then so very far away. They want to be sure that once the blower/smoke test is completed, they have NO issues to fix before they officially hand over the keys. They have to be sure they deliver a house that matches the A rated EPC that's in our contract.
Our rental's close by to the new house, and whilst it's a huge place, not having all our stuff unpacked kind of feels odd.
The interior decoration's started and should be about another 2 weeks to complete. There's a kind of lining paper covering all the walls on the ground floor, and also in the 'master suite' so far. As the entire house is "eco" (we won't go into how much travelling, transportation and general non-eco friendly practices have been involved in the making of....
) the lining paper is made of recycled materials. It's really quite tough to simply grab a piece of the lining paper and tear it. This stuff was recommended, at a supplementary cost, of course (!), as a 'flat finish' alternative to the usual and free spec glassfibre wall coverings used here. The previous house (also a new build) simply had emulsioned plastered walls, but we always had very small cracks appearing in the plasterwork. This lining paper will stop those from showing.There's a small wooden 'fillet' that goes at the top of the wall as the joint with the ceilings, instead of coving/architrave, which we don't personally like.
The whole lot will be painted, in eco friendly paint - naturally
- in a single colour for the entire house, a kind of very light grey/off white tone on all the walls, and brilliant white, matt ceilings. We can decide on final colours in the coming years.(Previous place was cream/beige from top to bottom - so we want to avoid having the same again!)
I'll post up some pics to bore you with in the coming days....
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