While we were gone

In August, we attended the wedding of our first exchange student, Sandra, in Germany.  The wedding was in  a small town in Bavaria with the reception at a lodge high up in the mountains.  We hiked up to the lodge in sneakers and our wedding clothes.  Despite arriving at the top sweaty and out-of-breath, the hike was worth it--Steve might argue that point.  Although we didn't understand much of the ceremony as it was in German, there were plenty of English speakers there so that we really enjoyed the company.  We had a great time.  It was so nice to see Sandra, Henrik, and their families and friends.  After the wedding we went to Paris for two days before heading home.  We did a two day whirlwind tour of Paris so that Tania got to see most of the major tourist attractions.  I  felt a small amount of concern going so far away  with a house under construction.  But there was no need to worry. We came back to find out that the new house has a roof!  The top photo is what we came back to.

During our trip, we did have internet access on some days and we left an international phone number in case the builder or his subs absolutely needed to get in touch with us.  Although I tried to finalize the plans for the clawfoot tub well in advance, the plumber waited until the day before our leaving for the trip to note that we needed to make the decision in the next few days.  So the plumber and I exchanged messages as Steve, Tania and I travelled from Pittsburgh to Atlanta.  Fortunately we worked out the details before leaving Atlanta for Munich.  In the end, I had the plumber order the tub http://www.americanstandard-us.com/products/productDetail.aspx?id=231.  I might have saved a few hundred dollars ordering it myself, but we decided that by having him fully responsible we wouldn't have to worry about providing the right parts in time.

Work on the house continues at a fast pace--windows and exterior doors are in and the plumbing is well under-way.  Interior stairs have also been installed.  I met with the builder and the plumber Friday to work out some changes as a result of site work changing the elevation of the garage.  The garage is two feet lower than the rest of the first floor so steps needed to be added.  But where to add steps so that they won't interfere with the cars?  The result was to relocate the entrance into the laundry room to a different wall so that stairs could be added to the available space in another part of the garage.  It looks like this change will actually result in better use of the space in the laundry room.

As we enter a long holiday weekend, I hope to use some of this time to get our current home ready to list.  I've watched way too much HGTV so I know we have to box up all our clutter so that people will look at our house and not our stuff.  Time to get to it!