Final Decisions Met for our Dream House

Today was the last day that we can change anything about our house. It was a very stressful day. We need to have final decisions so everything will come into place.

Early in the morning, we got a call from ProHaus. Since there were some unexpected costs that was not clear to us during our Bemusterungstermin, our decision making was harder than expected. We set a budget to spend in building our dream house. We would like to hold on it. We do not want to build a house and then we are eating dry bread everyday. We would also like to go on vacation. We would like to reach our dream in reality. That means, we do not want to build a house that we cannot afford. That is why, we were trying our very best to stay on budget. If it means, compromising some wants to needs, then, let it be.

Our dream house is simple. It is a place where my husband, I and our two boys, will have a comfortable living. It is not extravagant, but for me, it is elegant ;) I cannot wait to make more memories with my family here.

I have been on the computer and the telephone for most of the time today, to do research, to clear-up things and to update Prohaus of our last changes for our house. We decided to stay on the color of our Klinker - Neo Barock (which has an additional Price), to have our stairs made of wood from basement until the second floor (with partly additional Price), we made the side part of our house door to be wider (additional Price), we made the door of our living room from the hallway to be also wider (this part is of no additional Price), and we changed the type and color of the roof from Braas Rubin 11V to Braas Frankfurter Pfanne Protegon Matt in granit. We also decided to do on our own, the exterior basement insulation. That will help us to minimize the costs.

After giving our last change to ProHaus, I received a call from Gussek & Wolts Kellerbau. They are the sister company of ProHaus who's in-charge of building the basement. They ask for a schedule to visit the property. It will be next week. They mentioned that if we already have an Engineering company who will do the earthworks excavation, it would be best, if we will all meet on the property.

It looks like everything is going good. BUT... we are still waiting for our bank loan approval and building permit. As soon as we received all that, then... it is a green... GO!

Meeting Decisions - Almost there and yet still Far

It has been four working days, and still no progress with the result of our Bemusterungstermin. We were trying to contact our Sales Person Mr. K. as well as the person who guided us during Bemusterungstermin Mr. N, but to no avail. No answer, no e-mail reply. It is very frustrating.

I am now losing my patience with issues like this regarding the house. We wish and hope to build our dream house, period. We are not yet even starting, and here are the issues that makes me mentally exhausted. We already calculated the accounting part of it, and we would like to stay on the budget. But without the assistance of the people working in ProHaus, we will not reach our goal.

Patience is a virtue.

If it will happen, it is for us. If not, then it is not meant to be.

Sampling the Materials for our House ~ Bemusterungstermin

Yesterday we had what they call here as Bemusterungstermin. It is the day when we visit the ProHaus Main Office and check, decide or choose the different samples of roofs, types of windows, types of doors, stairways, and all the materials we need to finish and build our house. It do not only mean choosing the colors and design, but.... it is more about the technical part of the house such as the heating system, the type of roof, the insulation panels, conditioning or ventilating units, chimney and many more. And since we are building a house with basement, the list of things is longer.

Building a house in a tropical area, where I grew up, do not need a lot of things that of the house here in Europe. Here, there are a lot of things to consider, as mentioned above, there is heating system, insulation panels, conditioning or ventilating units, chimney, the basement should be properly insulated, you should follow the law regarding house building in your area and many more.

We arrived in the city of Nordhorn the day before our schedule. We had an overnight in a nice hotel. We started at 9am of the next day and ended up at 6pm. I know... it was a long day! We had a lunch break in between though. The conversation started from discussing the things/materials that we need, but is not yet part of our contract. Ouch... meaning more costs :( On the other hand, we made some changes that lessened the costs, but did not help with saving. To make the story short, we ended up having more costs than expected. There are some things that we would like to clear up with our Sales Person, Mr. K. We hope that this will give us a positive result.

It was tough to decide on a lot of things about the house in just few hours... specially that there are a lot of options and choices. But atleast, at this point, I would say, I am contended on how I am picturing our dream house in my mind. We are on the theme, simple is more ;)

Oh and by the way, after lunch, we received the first big bill that we need to pay :((

Quotations...

Today we received by e-mail the quotations we asked for the windows in the Keller. It costs around 1,400€. We asked for these quotations for comparison.

We also received by post the quotation from E-on, the company incharge for electricity and gas. It also includes the telephone quotation from T-com. All-in-all, it costs around 3,800€

Building Application

Today we received our building application filled-out by the Architect / CAD of Prohaus. We checked if all the informations were correct, including the house plan and then we signed it.

In the afternoon, we sent out the Building Application to the City's Construction Office, as well as the documents intended for the City Engineer's Office. Unfortunately, the person-in-charge for processing the Building Application is on vacation. He will be back after 14-days. That means our paper will be sleeping for 2 weeks... *sigh*

The head of the Engineer's Office is also on vacation, and will be back on the 29th. Whew! All we can do is wait wait wait.

Architectural Drawing

Today before lunch, we sent-out our GO signal that we are done with all the floor plans of our house. The friendly and nice CAD Frau K. of Gussek, confirmed that she will start the Building Application (Bauantrag) on the next day. I hope it will not take too long before we will receive it.

We are looking forward to our overnight stay in Nordhorn, though we are presently having issues about it, due to our two lil boys. It would be perfect if we will just stay in Centerparcs with their grandparents. And then hubby and I will drive to Nordhorn on the day of the Bemusterung.

In the meantime, we are now getting all possible quotations for the heating system, flooring, materials for the bath and WC, wallpaper, doors and many more. We would like to compare the prices of ProHaus and the ones that we will get locally. This is important for us, since we will be working the inside part of the house.

Second Preliminary Draft and Updates

Yesterday, after changing some minor mistakes and adding our new wishes, we received the second preliminary draft of our dreamhouse. Hubby and I were happy about it. We are now working on some minor changes and then hopefully we are done.

This morning, I called Frau K. our CAD from ProHaus/Gussek, who is friendly and nice, and she changed the minor mistakes that we saw and she is now just waiting for our final go.

We are still thinking about changing the Basement floor plan.

We also received a call yesterday from ProHaus to set our Austatungstermin (the date when we are going to visit ProHaus Nordhorn, and choose all the materials for our dream house. For example, the type of roof tiles, the color of our klinker etc). That means shopping!!! We have it at the end of the month. That is not too long from now, so we have a lot of things to accomplish. I still need to get quotations from different companies regarding heating installation, electric installation and plan and many more.

Normally, we will received this invitation after we have signed the Final Draft of our house. But since, the person in charge is already searching for families who would like to set the date, and our final draft will *hopefully* be finished and finalized this week, then it is also good that we will have our date for that.

Lastly, we are working on documents regarding our loan. Hopefully the interest rates will go down down down until we will have our loan approved.