ᐅ Hillside House in the Southwest Palatinate – Our Home Construction 2.0
Created on: 9 Sep 2022 18:13
K
kati1337
Good evening everyone
I’m starting a small collection thread here for photos and progress updates on our second building project.
We’ve already moved to the Palatinate region to be closer to the construction site. Now we’re watching eagerly and happily as our (hopefully final) dream home takes shape near family.
One big challenge still ahead of us is the facade design. I really love the Nordic style with brickwork and mullioned windows. That won’t be possible here for two reasons: firstly, no one here can do bricklaying, and secondly, it would stand out too much. We will be going with a rendered facade. How to design the colors of the facade and windows to still create some country house / cottage charm is currently still a work in progress mentally.
Otherwise, I’m sharing our plans here and how it will eventually be built.
The support pillar marked near the kitchen island could be removed for a small extra cost, so that will be gone.
The room for “garden equipment” under the garage will get a partition wall for structural reasons.
It won’t be fully finished living space like in the house, but underfloor heating will be installed, along with a lockable door and a window. It’s meant to store garden tools but also some of the building services equipment, since the utility room (HAR) is quite small, and maybe be used as a party room.
We had three construction companies in the final selection. In the end, we chose the “doer” – a builder recommended to us here by friends and family. No website, no smartphone, but he is on site every day himself working in overalls. He has a very good reputation in this area and now rarely builds single-family homes. We were a bit lucky through personal connections and a very friendly initial phone call to get our foot in the door. So far we are very satisfied with this choice.
I’m starting a small collection thread here for photos and progress updates on our second building project.
We’ve already moved to the Palatinate region to be closer to the construction site. Now we’re watching eagerly and happily as our (hopefully final) dream home takes shape near family.
One big challenge still ahead of us is the facade design. I really love the Nordic style with brickwork and mullioned windows. That won’t be possible here for two reasons: firstly, no one here can do bricklaying, and secondly, it would stand out too much. We will be going with a rendered facade. How to design the colors of the facade and windows to still create some country house / cottage charm is currently still a work in progress mentally.
Otherwise, I’m sharing our plans here and how it will eventually be built.
The support pillar marked near the kitchen island could be removed for a small extra cost, so that will be gone.
The room for “garden equipment” under the garage will get a partition wall for structural reasons.
It won’t be fully finished living space like in the house, but underfloor heating will be installed, along with a lockable door and a window. It’s meant to store garden tools but also some of the building services equipment, since the utility room (HAR) is quite small, and maybe be used as a party room.
We had three construction companies in the final selection. In the end, we chose the “doer” – a builder recommended to us here by friends and family. No website, no smartphone, but he is on site every day himself working in overalls. He has a very good reputation in this area and now rarely builds single-family homes. We were a bit lucky through personal connections and a very friendly initial phone call to get our foot in the door. So far we are very satisfied with this choice.
kati1337 schrieb:
Do you use these XeloTech casters directly on the hardwood flooring?
They look really good and have excellent reviews. Yes, so far directly without any protective mats.
After at least one year of daily use between 1 to 3 hours, no issues have occurred.
PS: As I said, just test your hardwood floor by leaving some liquids on it for several hours or days, then decide if your concerns are justified. Throw some objects on it or hit it with a hammer to get a better impression 🙂
i_b_n_a_n schrieb:
But we’re currently “selling” you a product you’ve probably already decided on – right?Good question. It still depends a bit on the price. I’m not exactly sure where my limit is, but I know I don’t want to spend thousands of euros extra on flooring.
Our builder said he last installed the parquet flooring in a whole house a few months ago, and the additional cost for the homeowners was about 4€ per m² (4$ per sq ft). So it’s quite manageable. It’s not just about the material cost. He said he calculates the whole house as tiled, and installing parquet or vinyl is less complex and therefore less expensive, so he factors the savings in labor into the extra cost for our flooring. However, the interior construction person said he can’t give a current price for the materials offhand; the only thing he can say is that it has gotten more expensive.
So we have to see what comes out of it / where we end up. Intuitively, I’d really like to have the floor.
How do people with parquet handle re-oiling? We were told you have to do it every few years when the floor becomes dull. Do you move all the furniture for that, or do you work around it?
We have a set of very heavy wooden furniture, which makes me a bit nervous.
So, we have hardwood flooring almost everywhere; relatively high-quality oak flooring, oiled.
1. Use high-quality oil. There are huge differences. The oil we have (applied by our home builder on the flooring; we only realized afterward how great it is) is expensive but really very high quality. We recommended it to our carpenter, who did our kitchen and other built-ins, and he was totally amazed and has only used that oil since. Unfortunately, I’m sitting in the office today and can’t check the name directly. It’s a two-component oil, and a good flooring installer usually has a machine to apply the oil. It looks like an old-fashioned polishing machine. I believe it was Rubio MonoCoat Oil Plus 2C Mix in natural/clear. We’ve been living in the house for over three years now, and I can’t see any reason to re-oil...
2. I’m not light either, and I have hardwood flooring in my home office combined with the Markus office chair from Ikea. I basically work from home every day (except today...) and even after more than two years, I can’t see any marks on the wood. In the basement, we have our second office with spruce flooring, and there we use a protective mat.
3. We also have hardwood flooring in the kitchen and would do it the same way again. Sure, you see one or two stains, but overall oak is very stain-tolerant. The tannins in the oak naturally lighten most stains over time (even cat poop stains—we tested that...). Once my husband spilled a bottle of olive oil, and after a few days, you couldn’t see it anymore. The wood at that spot was just oiled again *ahem*. Overall, we can live with a few signs that the house is lived in. In return, we have a floor that feels really homely.
4. Cleaning: with hardwood flooring, less is more. We have a robot vacuum that runs through the ground floor every other day. We mop every few months, and that’s enough! Maybe people mop more often if they have small children, but it’s never dirty here. For “wet” cleaning, we use the Bissell, add VERY little cleaner, and it works very well.
Tiles: I would never use dark tiles in the entrance area; you can see every footprint on them. We actually like slate and initially wanted slate slabs, but after realizing how sensitive they are, we decided on tile with a slate-like appearance. We have that on the bathroom floor. We like it, but I would never do that in the entrance area—you’d clean yourself to death. There we now have concrete-colored/beige tiles. Sounds boring, but it’s a neutral AND above all easy-to-clean tile. That would be crucial for me in the entrance, regardless of the style. Especially with nearly two small children!
Don’t use too many different floor coverings. We have light tiles in the entrance and guest toilet, otherwise oak flooring, and the darker tiles upstairs in the bathroom. In the basement, somewhat cheaper brushed spruce flooring. Also nice, but we were too stingy for oak. We would do it the same way again. By the way, our hardwood flooring is not glued down despite underfloor heating.
Overall, I would try to keep the flooring as neutral as possible and not create a specific style with it. That way, in the future, if tastes change, you always have the option to furnish differently without having a floor that absolutely doesn’t match. That was our general guiding principle for fixed elements that stay longer: neutral, not defining a style. This applies to floors, bathroom tiles, and windows.
1. Use high-quality oil. There are huge differences. The oil we have (applied by our home builder on the flooring; we only realized afterward how great it is) is expensive but really very high quality. We recommended it to our carpenter, who did our kitchen and other built-ins, and he was totally amazed and has only used that oil since. Unfortunately, I’m sitting in the office today and can’t check the name directly. It’s a two-component oil, and a good flooring installer usually has a machine to apply the oil. It looks like an old-fashioned polishing machine. I believe it was Rubio MonoCoat Oil Plus 2C Mix in natural/clear. We’ve been living in the house for over three years now, and I can’t see any reason to re-oil...
2. I’m not light either, and I have hardwood flooring in my home office combined with the Markus office chair from Ikea. I basically work from home every day (except today...) and even after more than two years, I can’t see any marks on the wood. In the basement, we have our second office with spruce flooring, and there we use a protective mat.
3. We also have hardwood flooring in the kitchen and would do it the same way again. Sure, you see one or two stains, but overall oak is very stain-tolerant. The tannins in the oak naturally lighten most stains over time (even cat poop stains—we tested that...). Once my husband spilled a bottle of olive oil, and after a few days, you couldn’t see it anymore. The wood at that spot was just oiled again *ahem*. Overall, we can live with a few signs that the house is lived in. In return, we have a floor that feels really homely.
4. Cleaning: with hardwood flooring, less is more. We have a robot vacuum that runs through the ground floor every other day. We mop every few months, and that’s enough! Maybe people mop more often if they have small children, but it’s never dirty here. For “wet” cleaning, we use the Bissell, add VERY little cleaner, and it works very well.
Tiles: I would never use dark tiles in the entrance area; you can see every footprint on them. We actually like slate and initially wanted slate slabs, but after realizing how sensitive they are, we decided on tile with a slate-like appearance. We have that on the bathroom floor. We like it, but I would never do that in the entrance area—you’d clean yourself to death. There we now have concrete-colored/beige tiles. Sounds boring, but it’s a neutral AND above all easy-to-clean tile. That would be crucial for me in the entrance, regardless of the style. Especially with nearly two small children!
Don’t use too many different floor coverings. We have light tiles in the entrance and guest toilet, otherwise oak flooring, and the darker tiles upstairs in the bathroom. In the basement, somewhat cheaper brushed spruce flooring. Also nice, but we were too stingy for oak. We would do it the same way again. By the way, our hardwood flooring is not glued down despite underfloor heating.
Overall, I would try to keep the flooring as neutral as possible and not create a specific style with it. That way, in the future, if tastes change, you always have the option to furnish differently without having a floor that absolutely doesn’t match. That was our general guiding principle for fixed elements that stay longer: neutral, not defining a style. This applies to floors, bathroom tiles, and windows.
Climbee schrieb:
So, we have parquet flooring almost everywhere....Thank you very much, great post with a lot of helpful information. We also plan to use parquet flooring throughout nearly the entire house, including the hallways, if the budget allows. The utility rooms will get natural stone-look tiles measuring 60cm x 60cm (24in x 24in), the bathrooms will have Oak Park Chalete tiles from Villeroy & Boch, and that’s about it. For the entrance area, we are still considering decorative tiles. They’re not entirely dark and have a brushed appearance with a vintage style, which probably helps hide crumbs well due to the many color variations and grayish wash effects. I will definitely keep your parquet care tips in mind. Especially when it comes to mopping, I’ve heard several times that it doesn’t need to be done very often. Most of the time, you just spot-clean immediately when needed, which shouldn’t cause any issues. I guess the traditional “mop the floors on Saturdays” routine isn’t very common anymore either. It’s better to have a good vacuum cleaner running regularly, as you mentioned. Generally, we vacuum frequently and as needed, but mop less often. We also usually don’t walk around inside with outdoor shoes, so that should help (?).
We will have hardwood flooring (oak) almost everywhere, but it will be installed as a floating floor.
Tiles will only be used in the bathrooms and the entrance hallway. I wanted tiles there because of the expected dirt. Unfortunately, travertine was rejected :-( but I have now chosen a stone-look tile (Silver Grain in Beige) from Italgraniti, and for the upper bathroom, two walls will be covered with white rhombus tiles from Equipe. Otherwise, if we tile the walls at all, we will use the same tiles as on the floor. I simply didn’t like any other wall tiles. Choosing tiles was really difficult for me because almost nothing appealed to me.
Tiles will only be used in the bathrooms and the entrance hallway. I wanted tiles there because of the expected dirt. Unfortunately, travertine was rejected :-( but I have now chosen a stone-look tile (Silver Grain in Beige) from Italgraniti, and for the upper bathroom, two walls will be covered with white rhombus tiles from Equipe. Otherwise, if we tile the walls at all, we will use the same tiles as on the floor. I simply didn’t like any other wall tiles. Choosing tiles was really difficult for me because almost nothing appealed to me.
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