I planned to write much more about how the house building has gone but I have not had as much time as I would have liked. It is nearly 2 years since we visited the factory in Oberstetten to see how our house would be made, and it is amazing progress has been made. We have been living in the house now for nearly a year, but this doesn’t mean all is finished - far from it!
After our visit to the factory last year the next stage was for us to finalise the plans with our architect and then to finalise the contract with Schwörer. This took a while to complete as we were advised that we could reduce the costs if our cellar was built by another company. After four months of research and quotes from other suppliers we frustratingly discovered that it was not true and ended up going with Schwörer for our cellar too.
An early computer generated image from our architect of how our house would eventually look. - 27th April 2012
With the contract signed we had only one more step and that was to return to Oberstetten and make all the detail decisions about colours and materials. This was an intensive two days of decisions on everything from the floorings to the bathroom furniture, window frames to roof tiles etc. The two days were exhausting but at the end of it every single small decision had been made.
An example of the decisions we needed to make - all the materials and colours that would be used in our bathroom. Wall tiles, floor tiles, shower floor tiles, surrounding for bath, shelf wood and even the grouting colour. This we had to do for every room in addition to the outside walls, roof etc, it was exhausting! - 26th November 2012
After we had left Oberstetten we received a 248 page document with all of the details of our house. This was like a specification for a computer system and went into all the details needed for every room in the house. It took us a while to sign off all the details and some mistakes had to be changed before it was all ready. This final sign off process took us until the middle of January 2013 in the end.
Whilst we were finalising the details we needed to get the earth moved on the site so that the foundations for the cellar could be laid, this happened in early December 2012.
Work finally begins on our plot - 11th December 2012
The foundations are compacted - 12th December 2012
Footings for the concrete base of the house are poured - 13th December 2012
The concrete base (Bodenplatte) is laid for the house, ready for the cellar walls - 14th December 2012
Later in December just before we left for Christmas in the UK the cellar was quickly assembled in a single morning. The whole of the assembly happened so fast and it was fascinating to watch the team work of the 3 guys who built he cellar. They had clearly done it so many times before, they hardly had to speak to each other, they just kept referring to the plans that laid in one corner and it all just happened very quickly.
First wall is arranged in place - 11:34 18th December 2012
Cellar walls are progressing - 12:02 18th December 2012
Final inner wall is laid - 13:26 18th December 2012
The concrete pouring is almost complete on the ceiling roof - 18:55 18th December 2012
In January 2013 after we had signed off on all the details the house finally went into production at the factory. We were then given a date at the start of March that the house would be delivered and assembled on site, barely 6 weeks after we had signed it off would our house be built!
I shall follow up with another post on the assembly process as it is a lot to include in a single post.