Back from Belgium

At last I return, briefly, to the blogsite. I have returned from Belgium where I spent a little over a week dealing with all things HOUSE. It was one of the shortest trips I have ever made over there and one of the busiest. In fact, I wonder if I could qualify for a Guiness world record on the most amount of building-supply stores visited in a week, ha. (Let's hope that category does not exist.) I went over (alone! i.e. without Robert and more importantly without Evelina, more about that later) especially to make some decisions about materials etc. and to have face to face conversations with the construction team before they start up work again. I will spare you all a full report. In general, all went well. I decided on part of the kitchen, I decided on the organisation of the house, i.e. which bathroom gets a bath, which a shower, and so on, and I divided up the top floor in master bedroom, walk-in closet, and extra room where my dark room will be installed. (ahhhh to have a dark room again in this digital age!) I picked tile for the bathrooms, and colors for the entire house! I spent two sessions of 3 hours with the electrician deciding on lighting, plugs, and switches. And I discussed all the plumbing and heating issues with the plumber. There still are some talks needed between the contractor and the engineer on adding the right supports everywhere and the manner in which this will be done, but hopefully all that wil be straightened out this week (no pun intended.)

So what did I not yet decide on (even though I had planned to): the type of floor for the dining room and kitchen. Wood or not wood, that has been the question. And if not, then what? I also had hoped to have all the bathroom fixtures taken care of but I brought all the catalogues and after Robert and I went over everything together this week, we are making progress and I hope to finalize all that soon as well. See, the plumber needs to know where the faucets will be and what type of faucet they will be. He is the first to start now, along with the general contractor who will be adding steel in the walls so that the our 3rd floor will indeed remain where it is and not merge with the 2nd and 1st. So it seems like a detail, to be chosing this faucet or that when the house is basically reduced to a pile of rubble, but it is quite important. If the plumber can't move on, the electrician has to wait, etc. etc.

So, I have learned many things! One is that everything is very expensive! Ha. I can see now that it would be easy (provided one had the money) to spend hundreds of thousands on a house. Many of the 1st bids I received, I slashed in half by taking out luxurious items. Example: a single switch on a LCD computer-programmed panel that turns on all the lights in the house just as they are programmed while classical (or any other) music comes out of little speakers in every room. Nice, but no thanks. Not with that price-tag. Even after all my slashing and scratching out of items, the house will still be exponentially more convenient and luxurious than we have had here in our bungalow in Austin--where we have lived very happily for the past 14 years.

Another thing I learned is that there is always WAY, WAY more to do than one initially thinks there is to do. Would we have bought this house if we had exactly known all the work that is involved now? Maybe, maybe not. But gosh, it will all be worth it. We are very excited to see the end result. And I am very happy with everyone who is working for us. Everyone made a effort to come meet with me in Antwerp and go over everything in much more detail than normal, all because everyone is aware of our situation in trying to orchestrate this from across the Atlantic.

Together with my parents I kept busy with all this from early in the morning until late at night. After all the businesses were closed, I worked on revising bids and drawing plans. My mom joked that the architect ought to pay me, ha. That's a good one! I barely had time to miss my little girl. But when I did, I missed her much. I had her little PJ's with me and a little clay footprint and we saw each other on sightspeed regularly. She did not miss me much (thank goodness) as she was having fun in Austin with extra attention from her papa, Gramma who was visiting, and her aunt Rebecca who came over to play with her and who got a new puppy! Plus, she seemed to understand that I was on an airplane and went to Belgium.

I came back last Sunday with my mom, who is here now. Wednesday my father arrives for what may be their last trip to Austin while we live here. I keep hoping that everyone will come back when I finally will walk for my PhD graduation... but gosh, when will that be? Evelina is loving all the visits and learning new words every day. I promise I will post plans and photos next time. I just wanted to send out a quick update and apologize to all of you who are reading this and are not getting emails from me. I am keeping very busy.

Greetings from a very hot Texas, with love, vanessa
And PS Belgium still does not have a government! More on that next time too.