packing packing no time to write...but we are almost there!!!

How to handle frustration...and enlightenment

First conversation this morning: One of my electricians..and guess what: He's not only the provider of light in houses, he also has the secret trade of enlightening people ; )

 He tells me to stop worrying, he says-"you know what Livia, It's ok to worry but why put so much energy on it prior to having seen the results? If we do get done by the time we promised, and you know what? I actually think that Fredrik will, you will have wasted a lot of your energy on things that really weren't worth your while to begin with. Not only enlightening advise but energy consumption advisor as well. Fantastic!
My new provider of new thinking patterns:"The electrician"

Step 2 on handling frustration:
Went through the bills last night...
Dropped it....
returned to them today again...
This time with a glass of whine in my hand...
And without sounding like a drunk...it does help; )
The only way to handle frustration? Probably not but since we are snowed in as well and I can't do jack shit about the fact that we still are far from the goal line, hey a glass of nice red Italian does smooth things out.

There is one more light in the tunnel:
...Friends and family!  The people that does make me believe that angels exist!

I cannot beleive this...

Kitchen
The fridge is too close to the kitchen island and all of a sudden a kitchen of 50 square meters is too small. The space between the counter and the fridge is too narrow. If I open the door I can't pass by the fridge. Well, then why don't I move it? Because water and electricity has already been prepared so if I want to change place now I have to change the pipes, the electricity, which are currently placed underneath the new floor which would mean ..yada yada, yada. AARRGH! I feel and look like an angry cartoon character. How on earth could I make a mistake like that? It looked so good on the drawings... SHIT SHIT SHIT...and even worse...nobody else to blame but me.

The handles arrived, finally smaller than I anticipated, and 5 missing. Great...Yet another call to get things in the right direction.

Electricity..no they are not done yet and yes I know that we have passed Saturday.

The bathroom is still not finalized, last news is that it will get done today...whatever...

It's just been one of those days when nothing goes according to plan and everything seems to cost me an arm and a leg. I guess that those days had to come sooner or later. Now I can't wait to move in whether we're done or not!

Friday...

...night and not a drop of whine in the house. The former owner who was to check how to handle my new "house guests" with his insurance company was to call me today. Needless to say no news there ; )
I have only spoken to Fredrik twice today and that makes me nervous, is he giving up? am I getting too calm? are they in line, on line,  any line? I don't know, what I do know is that tomorrow morning I am getting into the car to check the status.

Before I leave...
This is what I am to expect tomorrow according to promises made:
Bathroom in place, tiles and cement walls, sink and floor, only thing missing should be the taps.
Bedroom section finalized and painted.
Lighting in place in all rooms.

On Sunday the floorguy is booked, it will be interesting to see how the painters get along with the dustcreating  floor guy ; )

Looking through some old pictures I have to admit, we are moving in the right direction!

Things are happening...and there will be light!!!

When in comes to project managing there are many things I would have liked to see handled in a different way but I guess I will just have to go with the flow at this stage...Maybe I am a bit naive,  but things are starting to move in a really nice direction.

The painters (3 guys) are busy getting the bedroom section ready.
The fridge and fan have arrived...and I think that I have  cracked the communication code with the electricity guys, or they have cracked mine...either way:

how to avoid misunderstandings when planning electricity ; ) 

The electricians are really back in gear. I am sort of sad that I had to get so angry to get things back in gear, but we are moving and now they have promised to be done by Saturday.

Happy list of things that have gone wrong:
The bathroom shower area is looking more like an icy lake on a stormy day, not really what I was hoping for.
The walls are great, but miss spots of cement here and there.
The wholes for the shampoo bottles and toilet-paper (another on the go idea) are completely uneven and rugged.
The tub is placed more or less where I wanted it to be but not entirely as the drainage was a bit misplaced...due to misunderstandings
Oh well, let's face it the house is not excatly new, which leaves almost no straight angels. ; ) and as a consequence it is almost impossible to get in a a flat line..

Hopefully all these things will be possible to fix, tonight I think, I hope...

Other fun things
Apparently I already have house guests, nice invisible little buggers that are eating the bearings of the floors, hence the living room floor had to be lifted and remade so that I would not come falling down into the basement. That however will be a case for the insurance company...I hope! Will this delay the project? Of course it will but Fredrik keeps saying don't worry we'll make it. If he does he is a magician!

the blame game is on...

Received an angry phone call from one of the electricians....(yes they were two when the offer was made, but only one of them has been in place or not in place...) until now.

Apparently he read my blog, and whether it is their ability not to show up... or my contractors planning skills that are delaying things was still left in the open. One thing was very clear though....It was mostly my own fault that nothing had been delivered.

Interesting, had I known that I had to become an expert on lighting I would not have considered getting anybody in to do it for me...

my swiss chees kitchen roof, and the eloped electrician

The kitchen is almost done, like the baby-blue?  Now it turns out that my electrician has eloped and stopped the whole process. Nothing can be finalized until he finishes the job, but he refuses to be contacted screening all my and Fredrik's calls. GREAT!!!

On the bright side: Before he left he decided to leave his signature which turned out to be more or less 20 15 cm diameter holes in the roof misplaced and in a complete disorder which makes the whole roof look like a swisscheese. I am not amused and everything will now be delayed with at least one week.

The bathroom is starting to look ok, but I am really nervous whether this crazy idea will work.

I am plastering all walls except for the space behind the shower, it will look cool hopefully…

My happy list of things that have gone wrong this week

• Placement of lights in kitchen all wrong, remade-wrong again, kitchen roof full of holes
• Placement of electricity in kitchen behind ovens wrong
• sockets missing 
• Floor to bathroom impossible to set the way I wanted it, tiles too big and not "flat" enough
• Bathtub smaller than anticipated so waterline fall will not be as planned
• size of shower-space had to be made smaller as the space between tub and shower became too narrow
•  Sink to kitchen damaged, had to be changed
• Kitchen board surface damaged had to be reordered

And more not even worth to mention, bathroom and kitchen should have been made by end of December, both are still in the making...and now I am getting a bit frustrated.

Thank God or good friends and Champagne. These are really what a tired me needs.

sinks selected, kitchen getting there...and new decisions

Too tired to write much, but were moving along. My colleague pointed out to me that there were no new pictures or news during Christmas and right she was, I didn't feel that I had to take you through all my discussions and haggling with suppliers of tubs, sinks, tiles, kitchen appliances etc...I actually spent most of my Christmas shopping, excelling my haggling skills to the max ; ). My hopes were that it all would be over and done with by now. But as it turns out, one decision leads me to ten new ones to take. I am going to be an expert decider by the time this project is finished, definitely something to put on my CV ; )

Once the kitchen got set up according to the plans (with correct measures) , the placing of the lighting turned out to be all wrong.

It became quite apparent that the electrician really didn't bother to look at the plan,which completely makes sense in "no sense land! I mean he was just focussing on his part, how could lighting have anything to do with what the carpenter was up to?...More decisions...more frustrations or just plain creative challenges ; ) I'm going with the latter.  AHA,  one more to insert into my CV very skilled in realizing nothing ever goes according to plan; ) And with that expert in problem solving and creativity! Hah!

sinks in the making ... process...process...process

No the plumber is not praying, but he is thanking God for my extremely costly choice ; )

laundry-room and "groventre"

window is getting replaced...

Today they were 4 guys (1 carpenter, 1 electrician, 1 plumber and 1 "tile layer") taking this massive piece of wooden counter for the kitchen into the house. It weighs 250 kilos. I wanted to film it, but realized that it would have meant playing with my own life...Needless to say they weren't very happy with this particular task, but they did look amusing,:GO left, no LEEEFT, go right, STOOOOP, my foot, don't let go...Shit my hand hurts....!"Before getting down to the deed, they did ask me if I wanted to give them a hand, in return I asked them if they thought like I looked as if I could handle it. Sometimes the woman card is a nice one to have ; )

progress? Yes but when will it start to look like it does in my head?

Stepped on to a new floor today, no more free hanging stairway or hole into the basement for that matter. The house was also unusually warm, they got the heat going again, but apparently only in half of the house. It turned out that some of the plumbing needs to be checked, Surprised, not really?

Bathroom roof, had to let go of the free bearings in the ceiling in this room, on the other hand I will get spits there....

shower ? hard to believe ; )

 place for the tub...

future toilet seat with built in shelf for toilet rolls...

Building a special designed bathroom sink required us to take in the walls in, (or do you say out?) a bit further, as we had to strengthen the construction of the walls, I hope it will be worth it. The bathroom has been settled but still no tub, shower, shower walls, sinks or taps ordered. Tiles are decided upon though so I think that a lot of the actual building up part will be made this coming week, I hope...

Kitchen is progressing nicely 

On Monday the kitchen will be delivered, the painters are there today so that Fredrik and his team can get going on Monday on getting the kitchen started. I still have to order fridge, sink and tops for the counters.

kitchen wall in cement

The real paint and floor job will start on January 10, I still wonder how they are planning on being done-but I am not getting worked up  about it ...yet.

In the meantime I think I need to get started in my packing and dismantling of my old life...again..This year is really starting with a bang!