this week was all about the kitchen. we had the electrician guy set all our cables into the walls and ceiling. i was asked all kinds of questions like “where do you want any additional outlets? do you want to dim your lights? how many bulbs do you want to have?” excuse me? i have no idea! give me a switch and some lights that will work and i’m ok with it. i haven’t thought about light concepts ever and now all these questions. gheez.

and the rest of the week everybody had a task. dad was in the kitchen, martin painted, i unpacked stuff and cleaned up behind the boys…

ground and taped the windows in order to have them painted, made happy faces (i HAVE to because i’m on the verge of going totally nuts)…

decorated the kitchen with the cable plan so the papers won’t get lost, chose metro tiles for the kitchen, took off more tiles from the bathroom, and looked at all the crap that we dragged out of the basement.

i am officially fed up. we’ve been working on this for “only” 4 weeks now and we have 6 more to go and i hope we’ll be all set the day we move.

until now we did all this:

* took off all wallpaper (9 rooms, one more still needs to be done)
* took off all carpets
* took off tiles from kitchen and bathroom (one more room needs to be done)
* prepared the walls for painting
* ground most of the doorframes and painted them
* ground half of the stairrail
* chose kitchen, floors, tiles
* made preparations to suspended the kitchen ceiling
* set all the cables
* cleaned the house from all the crap!

after the kitchen is done (which is definitely the biggest part of all) we can finally paint ALL rooms, set the floors and tiles and work on all the little details that you discover along the way. it’s insanity.

and inbetween all this we’re getting married next week and had to buy dresses, rings, stuff and whatnots. luckily martin and i are not very uncomplicated when it comes to choose things for the wedding so that – at least – was an easy task :-) (YES… there you can see how fuzzy my brain is :-) i meant “complicated”)

let’s see what we can accomplish next week. have a good weekend you lovely followers.

a new edition of 12 pictures of the 12th day of the month. since we’re still working on the future home every day (which is developing slowly but surely) the pictures stand for the whole week.

1. made breakfast for the future husband

2. baked a cake for the best mom and bought some champagne for the best dad

3. watched the future husband paint the walls

4. painted the doors myself

5. watching the rain while discussing who’s going to get us beer

6. lunch (my diet sucks big time these days…)

7. sitting around wondering if we’re ever going the finish…

8. checking the size of a new hole in the old wall….

9. looking around a corner

10. DINNER!! FINALLY!!!

11. grappa time!

12. coming home realizing we definitely have to buy a new shoe cabinet

have an awesome week! xoxoxo

oh boy. it feels like this mess will never end. last week was one of the most intense ones. my dad tore down a wall then we had to remove all the dirt, all bricks, all floors, all the wallpaper from the house and bring it somewhere to have it recycled. we handle big and heavy machines, have to endure loud sounds and tons of dust. after each day we’re covered in dust and it takes ages to get the dirt off of my hair. we finally can call an electrician to handle the cables, order the kitchen, the floors, buy tiles and wall color.

but though it feels like an unbearable journey we do have moments that are so unbelievably surprising it’s almost magical. martin found an old sewing machine and a TURQUOISE type writer in the basement left behind by the old tenants – clearly a sign we bought the right house :-)

we also realized that removing wallpaper is NOTHING compared to removing tiles by hand. my dad removed the majority of the floors with the heavy air hammer (making the house shake) but unfortunately not everything could be removed. so it took a whole day to get rid of the rest with a hammer and a pick. pain in the ass – we can tell!!  and then i managed to hit my thumb with the iron hammer and for 2 hours i tried not to run beserk from the pain. i definitely had to pause for the rest of the day putting cream on my hand hoping nothing is broken and i can continue to help the next day.

so it actually looks like things are getting done. but it’s still a long road to go since we can only work after 6 pm and the weekends. i am so grateful my dad has the skills and the experience of 30 years in building construction. we would be helpless without him. and my sweet mom brought us warm food on sunday so we could pause for a while and just enjoy a littlebit of the day.

counting the days we can finally move in i look forward to our wedding in 3 weeks and the short get-away we make. after that it only takes another 3 weeks until the truck comes to get our stuff and we have to move. wow. writing this down makes me realize that it’s only 7 weeks to go. let’s hope it will all fall into place. i’ll keep you posted on this journey! xoxoxo

hello may. you are definitely my favorite month. not only because we will get married in 24 days. or because we still have a lot of nesting preparations to do. but because the winter is over and because nature is so colorful and the days are mostly sunny and because of all the bank holidys we will have. i like you. every year you’re just marvelous! thank you.

if you’re a fan of may as well you can download the desktop wallpaper to cheer up your desktop. :-) let’s have a wonderful month!

{download all sizes here }

credit: background and paper used from paislee press kit “because”

it’s really happening! we received the key to our new house and one week later – within 72 hours – friday through sunday – we destroyed it!! not really but it’s chaos and dirty and turned upside down. the goal was to remove the white wood-chip-wallpaper from all walls! 7 rooms and a bathroom (who is so dumb to put wallpaper in the bathroom?!?!?)

it all began with a radio in the (soon to be) kitchen and a scraper, loads of water and good motivation. after wetting the wallpaper the bare concrete walls revealed lovely notes from whoever owned the house before, but after  hours, endless hours, hurting arms and hands i was fed up. and tired.

a day later my martin joined me and helped removing the paper. saturday evening the house looked like a ruin, wet paper everywhere, more sore hands and arms.

sunday evening we finished 4 rooms and i was actually happy to return to the office (who knew i’d ever say this). it’s a mess and after 72 hours of hard work motivation is not the same anymore. but knowing it’ll all look fabulous when it’s done is a good reward.

sunday i wore my heart rate monitor just to see what such a day will do to my fitness and the result was cool. 9 hours of renewing a house burn 1015 calories and 64% of fat. no gym session can compete with that. and i actually got some stuff done! :-) i guess in the next 2 months i’ll turn into the fat free self i always wish i was. haha.

that’s what’s going at the moment. beside the 9 hours of office every day. if you want you can follow the journey on instagram, too. i’ll keep you posted on how our nest will turn from a messy place to our dream come true. xoxo