Gardening work (???)

We are becoming impatient !

Well, a lots of people are active building our house, and we're here just watching (which is already wonderful) but not really able to "put our hands in dirt" (which may be better ;-)

But as we are active people, and wanting to take part into the construction of our world, we decided to ... do something.

Well, why not to strengthen the wall of earth along the railroad to avoid that the rains of this month and the future ones (we are in the Grand North ! ;-) turn it into a vague and muddy earth-blob dripping and spilling itself on the territory of the AKN?

To an innocent question, an easy decision: we will install these concretes "bins" that hold flowers and from which small walls are made of (no idea how it's called, we were never interested in such things before!. ..).

A passage to the local "thing" (?) store, followed by the delivery of ... 150 "things", 45 kg each, on 12 pallets and a half!

Your bloggers are smiling a little less brightly  ...

But the show must go on !

We hired our son (he had not the choice !…), grabed the shovels and elbow grease cans, spit in our hands, and let's go for a mere 25-meter of hearth-wall to strengthen, with 3 "things" per meter on two rows high.

We discovered that ... it is not easy for us office-rats (ouch!), but despite everything, we survived our first 10 meters of "things"!

It's simple: we "just" have to clear the brambles, to cut (thread after thread ...) the old fence that is completely blocked by roots, to shovel the earth aside (fortunately, it is really "light"!) to make room for the "things", to bring these "things" as heavy as anvils, to position and level them carefully, and to fill them with the earth we just shoveled away.

We cannot resist the joy and pride to show you our first "thing" in place (isn't he proud, our lil'boy, eh?)

... our first pallet emptied of its 12 "things":

... and the uncertain result of two days of intense fighting against muscular pain and threatening lumbago, definitely not spectacular (the result, not the back pain!), but nevertheless the sweet fruit of the sweat (per liter) from our foreheads:

The Great Wall of China? No, just our little personnel anti-landslide device!

We still have to plant bamboos (no flowers in these planters: we cannot do ANYTHING like everyone else, as usual!), But this will come later ...

For now, we shall position the remaining "things" during the next weekend, and probably the one after that ...

Still a good fifteen meters to go !

Counting time

Looking back quickly on this past period, we would just do a quick count (not really fair, but these figures are a pleasure to be displayed !...) of the total time of assembling the structure of our house (walls, roof, floor, and we are even counting the containers in):

- Positioning of the containers: 2 hours

- Assembly of the ground floor walls and floor: 8:00

- Assembly of the first floor walls: 4:00

- Installation of roof boxes and beams: 4:00.

Ok, to round off: three days, and here is a house that has walls and a roof.

3 days!

We said "not really fair" ... 

There is still a LOT of work, of finishing details ...

This "pile of wood", even if it gives us a fairly accurate idea of the volumes of our future homes, is nonetheless ... a (nice) wood pile!

But we were promised that we could move-in late October.

Two more good month to transform the pile of wood into a comfortable "Home, Sweet Home".

Will the planning be kept?

We are hoping so.

A roof over our house

After missing the assembly of the walls on the first floor, I planned to take Friday off for the installation of the roof. 

But ... 

The rain having invited itself during this week (August rains of tropical kind ... after the heatwave of July!), Wolfgang, our engineer from Renken, choose to move this step forward to Thursday, in order to protect the wooden structure as quickly as possible from this celestial water, so good for snails and frogs, these two pillars of gastronomy for we Frenchies (kidding!), but not really recommended for our wood walls and floors ... 

So the roof was done, between showers, without our presence. 

No film, no photos, this blog now starts to be of no interest ... ;-D  

Ok, here you do not really see it, but above these walls have been raised the big boxes which were stored in front of the house, and above it a whole set of beams that are still waiting to receive the waterproof membrane ( no tiles ... we really do not make things like everyone!) 

Viewed from inside, after a climb via our Grand Staircase (the ladder, which is graciously made available by yet another wonderful neighbor, so that we can visit our house when the carpenters are home with their tools and ladders !) 

The celing is quite high here, with a slope downward toward the container. 

The door to the second bathroom is visible, and you still have to imagine that a light wall will be built (at 2/3 of the block) to create the bedroom. 

One can distinguish a few traces of water that still wets the floor. It has resisted the Flood, like the rest, and is now drying slowly, protected from the still falling rain by the gray plastic foil covering the window openings and the large red  tarp (clearly visible from the sky, so that the planes, birds and UFOs can go and land elsewhere!) which was placed over the  brand new beams and roof boxes.

The first floor

In a show of good will and and for your outmost pleasure, we had of course planned to attend the assembly of the first floor and the installation of the roof, and to immortalize the event with a small movie ... but the demands of work and the bad weather are depriving you of it forever ...

I was unable to free myself to be present when the walls of the first floor were delivered and assembled.

But the men of Renken did not need me and my camera to do what they had to do, and to do it quickly and well!

Check  by yourself:

And they took this opportunity to install the scaffoldings !

Now our house is behind the bars ... in jail ?

If you come to visit us soon, expect to have to climb to the brand new first floor with this Grand-style Staircase, waiting for the definitive one, made of natural wood from real tree (!)

Note the beautiful Ionic column, which supports, also temporarily, the "notch" of the stairwell.

A steel tube column (and definitely more design ;-) will replace this thing in due time.

Ground floor: the movie

As for the installation of the containers, we propose you a short film that summarizes the day in 2,35 minutes ! 

As well, you can download an HD version by following this link:

files.me.com/fred.lucas.reportage/zs95j9.mov

Reward, continued

We are still during the same day ...

The walls of the ground-floor are set in place, the carpenters install now the first floor beams, and the day will end with the laying of floor plates OSB. 

View from inside the ground floor, at the end of the day: the bathroom will be in the block, the entry and living room on the right, and the dining room and kitchen toward the wall facing you.

Welcome (half)home !!

... and reward !

So here we are on this Thursday, 7 am, overcast weather, but with a heart full of sunshine: the house (actually, only half of it …) is there on the truck, with the team of highly professional carpenters from Renken ready for a memorable day! 

As usual (!), we first had to overcome the difficulty of entering the truck on the site, but the driver is also  a pro, and this operation was completed without trouble. 

First step: to unload half of the roof (with the walls, they made an optimized load on the trailer), which will be stored temporarily in front of the house. Note the thickness of it, the cavities will be filled later with "cellulose wool". 

Then the walls, six large pieces that were assembled in just two hours! 

Et voilà ! 

Surprise !...

We must admit it, being French building a house in Germany and communicating primarily in English (at least for me, your servant), we should expect a few surprises of interpretation ... 

Surprise? Here is one: while we understood that the wall construction would be around late August, we learned last Wednesday that the walls of the ground floor and half the roof was ready, and that the assembly would be on Thursday! 

That same Wednesday evening, we had to go and visit the Renken factory, somewhere in a small village in the Lüneburg Heide, to see for ourselves the cradle where our house is created. 

These few pictures show the loading of the truck, which will bring our walls on the site the next day. 

Setting the steel reinforcement on the beam of the stairwell.

Here are the beams of the floor. Nice wood !...

Brickwork

After the excitement of last week, construction is progressing slowly but surely.

While the wooden walls, the floors and the roof are prefabricated in the Renken shop, the workers came to build-up the "center block" of masonry.

On this view, the block is mounted up to the first floor and the floor slab was poured.

We distinguish the plates of rigid insulation (polyurethane) placed between the block and the container.

The second floor should be finished by next week end.

We are now able to clearly visualize the volumes of the rooms inside the house !

This block, we remind you, will host the bathrooms and the technical rooms.

It will also play the role of thermal storage, along with the foundation slab, to smooth out temperature variations inside the house.

Indeed, wooden structure buildings, despite the many benefits of wood, usually lack of thermal inertia.

We try to compensate this lack of inertia by including these heavy masses, able to store heat (or freshness in summer!).

The very big patio ...

A neighbor, considering the two containers placed in front of this big slab of foundation, had this thought, winking his eye: 

"You will live in two bizarre small boxes, but at least, you'll enjoy a huge patio! ..."