Waiting

Waiting makes me nervous.

I mailed the plans to the architect late Sunday and posted a question regarding the ground floor walls on a German construction board and haven't heard anything so far. That means I'm done with that stage of planning and all I can do is sit around and wait.

In my previous projects I didn't really have to wait - since we did most things ourselves work pretty much went at my pace. This project involves a lot of professional work, that makes it far more complex and unforeseeable.

In the meantime... some random pictures.

That's what I envision for the bathroom (clean of course):

I want to mix in blue tiles though, maybe a border, and most definitely a clawfoot tub. Re-using the weird free-standing drain is tempting though... we'll see. Most likely it won't happen since most of the crucial parts are missing.

Just plain eye candy: a selection of various vintage light switches and sockets dating from roughly 1890 through 1960.


Fairly old (probably 1950s) electrical meter:

Originally there were two fuses on the board which I'll put back when I ever manage to restore this thing. They were gone when I got it, but the ghosts are still visible on the wood.
It's only good for 10(!) amperes... (modern meters are designed for 40-60 in Europe and 150-400 in the US).

This is the look I want to recreate for the work shop wiring (using modern materials though).

Eye candy

Yesterday in the evening I found some lovely eye candy for you all! Browsing ebay I (re?)discovered a link to a company selling reproduction art deco tiles. Some are just plain white like those I have (and need more of), others are just fantastic like cloudy dark blue, teal, red, as well as incredible patterns, borders and whatever. If I have any cahnce to afford it this will be my bathroom tile of choice. I'm especially in love with the dark blue...
Links don't seem to show, so I have to just make them copy&paste.

http://www.golem-baukeramik.de/eng/index.html
Direct link to my favorite:
http://www.golem-baukeramik.de/eng/art_nouveau_tiles/wall_tiles/art_nouveau_tiles_single-coloured/48/detail-48/index.html

Taking a closer look at the site I even discovered prices... roughly €100 per square m should be possible since I don't need that much tile, just a bunch of white spares and blue accents, maybe a border. Not one of their fancy border tiles though - €10 apiece is way too steep.
Doing the entire bath like that is out of question - around €1500 are just not in the budget. Think of it this way: that would be throwing considerably more than one of my month's salaries into just wall tiles! The entire bathrrom would most likely be around 2 salaries...

Still, a guy can dream...

On the other hand those tiles are chunky... 8mm thick! (modern tiles are half as thick). On the other hand, the matching floor tiles are 20mm... that might justify part of the extra price.

I had to edit this post to make the links visible... seems like in order to go on with this I do have to learn some HTML! *yuck*

Finally

Finally I managed to sort of finish the plans yesterday and mail them to the architect, along with a rough draft of the project description and a set of questions. What a feeling!

Now I have to wait until he reviews them and (most likely) requests a ton of changes... I hope it won't be too bad.

I already found something I most likely have to add... a cross section of the existing structure to show the current dimensions (especially the height, the footprint is already there).

I thought we had found 800-900 roof tiles for free... but alas, they were to far gone to save. The brick had started splintering off in layers like bark, so no way we'd use them for a new roof. Besides, many were broken. We took about 50 for patching since they match the existing tiles on the main house. We also decided against re-using the old tiles of the current pigsty roof. They're only 30something years old, but being buried under rotting walnut leaves and pine needles for all their live has definitely taken its toll on them, they're flat out crumbling. Off to pressed, dyed concrete tiles... oh well. They look reasonably good, but their aggressive color just screms "new" for at least a couple of years.

That's a decision I have to make anyway - do I want to make it look like a new house did in 1910 or do I want to make it look like a 1910 house today, without any modifications? Both ways have their merits - if I wanted it to look new I could easily make peace with shiny new roof tiles and everything. On the other hand, the salvaged floors definitely show their age, the old light switches don't match, the doors will be cobbled together,... so I guess the latter approach is more realistic.

Speaking of doors... I did a quick rummage through my basment and it seems like I can manage to do the entire ground floor with salvaged trim! That'll really free up our basement!

That's the good news.

The bad news: I might have to ditch my dream of salvaged windows. I think the farm house windows my uncle stores are all outwards opening casements and that makes them awful to clean upstairs... besides; I'm worried if I can find enough matching windows. So we might be stuck getting new windows custom made... expensive!

Building & Energy

Since I didn't want to do two posts on one day I saved this one so far...

Last Sunday we attended the Building & Energy Fair, a huge fair mostly aiming at future home owners and renovaters.

We saw a lot of beautiful things (and far more useless or plain ugly things) and got some usefull information.

For example we saw a company the specialises on traditional farm house doors and windows. Their work is absolutely stunning, as is the price. Roughly 800 questions marks for a regular door without frame is intolerable.

The same is most likely true for a carpenter advertising 2"(!) thick wide plank floors... but we couldn't find a representative or any catalogues.

Stairs were mostly ugly beasts without risers... and usually made of either tropical wood or ugly plastic-looking beech. I'm pretty sure I want traditional stairs with white risers and 2" pine treads. If we can afford that...

Perhaps the most interesting tidbits were informations about insulation, mostly wood or other fiber insulation and a couple of very nice folders about green restoration of old houses without destroying them. For example, I found out that all ceilings have to be F30 fire resistant by Lower Austria construction code. That rules out plaster and lath, but Heraklith should be ok.

Or for example, if you insulate the exterior of a building it might protrude over the property line. In our case the house sits smack dab on the property line facing the street. Of course there are regulations taking care of that... Vienna limits to 7,5cm while Niederösterreich (Lower Austria) allows 10cm... thanks heaven I want exactly 10cm insulation!

We also talked to a clay plaster contractor. He said he could do the entire house in a few days and if we provided helpers we'd get discounts on the labor costs.

When I asked him about the ground floor walls he recommended putting up reed insulation prior to plastering.

I'm not sure if that's a good idea... first I have no idea how reed reacts to the ammonia and whatever else might lurk in those walls. Second I'm nowhere near sure we'll get those walls perfectly dry. While reed is said to withstand some moisture I don't want to have a rotting wall underneath my plaster. Last but not least I've always been warned not to put any insultaion on the inside of a wall unless it's completely covered with a moisture barrier. Not sure how bad that is in this case.

Yesterday I spent about an hour in front of the computer after I realized the cross section and elevation drawings were all crooked and didn't match each other... on some the house was 10m floor to roof ridge, on others 10,7... yuck!

Now it should work and I even improved proportions of the front elevation!

This week is incredibly busy... Yesterday I went to a dance (the only sports I currently do), I have to finish the plans, clean up my room, get rid of some old stuff (which means getting it to the church flea market). On Saturday I attend an excursion to the local railway work shop, then I want to have a look at the flea market, in the afternoon we have my girlfriend's parents over,... go figure.

Money money...

Yesterday I did something I had neglected so far...

With the plans close to being final I did a first cost estimate, just based on the necessary brickwork and almost fainted...

Based on the plans we need close to 20000(!) bricks, that equals roughly 50 pallets. Given a price of 40 Cents each that would be around 7500 Euros... not counting mortar, labor or even plaster.

Roof tiles for roughly 2500 are cheap in comparison ;-)

A huge factor will be wood. The roof framing is inevitable, the roof needs to be replaced or it'll most likely collapse within the next few years, which leaves the two ceilings. I calculated 10 5m long 4x10" beams for each ceiling, that's going to be a lot of wood! Add 35 m2 OSB for each floor and go on... I think 20mm OSB is about 6 Euros/ m2, so that would be roughly 400 Euro, harmless compared to the price of the load bearing timbers...

To give you and idea, the neighbor replaced his roof 10 years ago, and was quoted 400 000 Schilling for the wood alone. He ended up buying it across the border for 100 000. By today's price level that would be something like 40 000/10 000 Euro. So I guess for our small roof + 2 ceilings we can factor another 7,5k.
I just got some figures from lumber stores online, and it seems like I was even too high - something like 3500 worst case for both ceilings seems to be more realistic.

After all, my high figure is 30k for the entire house worst case.

My dad wasn't that shocked after all... so the project might fly.

We briefly considered brick ceilings, but installation seems to be fairly complex and the price difference negligible (one supplier was even slightly cheaper on the wood ceilings).

Another serious downside of brick: no cavity space to install wires. All wires have to be put in conduit before the screed on the floor above is poured, installing wiring after the fact would be pretty tough.

Once I manage to get the plans to the architect we hope for something closer to an estimate rather than a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess).

Sick of AutoCad

I'm officially sick of seeing white-on-black ACAD screens... I just want to be done with the planning!

So many details to be taken care of... I even need to get some more measurements to determine how far the ground on the street side actually rises above floor level, which will in turn determine the size and position of the bathroom window and porch/deck stairs.

Besides, I noticed I had forgotten adding a WC window all the time... and I absolutely hate WCs without a window! Of course it will have frosted glass, but a window is a necessity.

I added the window to the footprint and managed to get the elevation drawings more or less done (minus said window and a few details).

The cross-sections is there too, just needs some more tweaking. I hope to get the plans far enough to mail them to the architect today. Then we'll see what needs to be changed.

They can't be finalized until I get all the measurements, but we might be able to have the township guys look over the preliminary version to see if they would approve something like this at all.

Pictures

I finally gathered the time to upload some long overdue pictures...

First, the famous hole in the ceiling... I guess you understand why the ceiling needs to be replaced. Since I took the picture the hole about doubled in size... even though we fixed the leak, the wood is rotted and keeps crumbling down.



The plaster on the walls is crumbling too... probably both moisture and pig pee.



Last summer was dedicated to a large project too... the wood shed had a leaky roof, the walls were crumbling... it was shot. Besides, the garden between pigsty and wood shed sloped dramatically, so it was pretty much unuseable and mowing the grass was a major PITA. The haphazard steps made of granite blocks (some of which already toppled over) weren't any help.





And yes, you could pull out the loose looking section of brickwork...

The roof framing was undersized, rotted and had apparently seen a fire at some point.



In the background you can see the current attic access of the pigsty. No door, maybe 1,5m tall, no stairs.


Long story short, we had the wood shed fixed up (some masonry work, new roof, new stucco), a retaining wall and stairs built to even out the garden and dug along the pigsty down to the foundations to insulate.

The result looks almost Greek and my mom requested everything (including the pigsty) be whitewashed with blue windows and doors.
After pictures are on my dads computer, don't ask me when I'll be able to get them...

Yesterday in the Evening I got some more fine tuning of the plans done, like hatching the walls, straightening crooked lines and drawing the second elevation drawing. 2 done, 2 to go!

I'll try to take a screenshot and post it later tonight.
Right now Blogger is a nightmare... I have no idea why it is sooooo painfully slow... sort of reminds me of my old Mac Classic but still far slower.