ᐅ Hillside House in the Southwest Palatinate – Our Home Construction 2.0

Ah, so the son is expected to decide at the age of 10 whether he wants to take over the business in 20 years or not. Otherwise, you would have to train someone in their mid-thirties to become a master craftsman so they can take over the business in 20 years... but they wouldn’t be employed as a master in the meantime because it wouldn’t be profitable.
They would have to continue working as a journeyman with only a vague promise that they might become the owner in a certain number of years. Of course, for money they can't really save up while working as a journeyman...

This all seems very unrealistic to me, dear 11ant.

Well. I know this from my own family. The parents run a medium-sized company, and the son realizes early on that he is interested in the business field and chooses his education accordingly. If, after completing training, you’re unsure if it’s the right fit and whether you want to continue working toward the foreseeable goal of taking over the company, then as a senior you should also realize early on that you need to explore other options.

No one suddenly discovers in their late thirties that their father actually owns an interesting company. Either you have the ambition earlier on, or you don’t have it at all.

Jurassic135 schrieb:

@kati1337 Have you found a solution for your terrace and slope landscaping yet?

Yes, sort of. =)
We hired someone again to take care of the essentials.
He’s handling the paving of the access path and driveway. He’ll add a small flower bed in between.
There will be curbstones installed around the house, and a splash guard will be added – I had completely forgotten that you need that here in this region, especially with plastered walls. A terrace of about 40+50m² (430+540 sq ft) will also be built, along with some paved edging so you can reach all the doors behind the house without walking through the mud.
According to the general contractor, the slope can stay as it is. We plan to build a staircase there ourselves, and we’ll plant ground cover and shrubs to green the area.
We also wanted to plant some edible plants there, like currants and the like. Maybe we’ll do that, depending on how tight our budget is next spring. In any case, we want to let it root well to reinforce the soil.
For the fancier ideas we have, there’s no money in the first phase. But a property grows and develops over time. It would be boring if everything were perfect in the first year.

Other news:
The general contractor called today to say my “special request” can be done at no extra cost: I wanted the stair risers to be white. Originally, the stairs were planned entirely in solid oak wood. It will still be wood, but the risers will be painted white instead. I like that better; it makes it look a bit more rustic, in my opinion.
And today we upgraded again (last week I said from now on we’d stick to the standard for everything). The baseboards: the standard was wooden, white, and 40-60mm (1.5-2.4 inches). Now we’re getting wooden, white, Hamburg profile, 80mm (3.1 inches). The surcharge per piece is $4.50 gross. For the whole house, that comes to about $270-350, depending on the total number.

Here’s a photo from today. We chose the baseboard on the far right. This is also the wood for our parquet flooring. I’m really excited about it.

What still worries me a bit are the mobile network providers. I’d be happy if one of the connections was ready within a month, but that’s wishful thinking. We’re getting fiber optic from Inexio (which is a complete communication failure so far), and regular copper wiring from Telekom—they will provide some kind of limited DSL line, which might actually be better than nothing.

With Telekom, the black cable is hanging into the house. In the meantime, Inexio managed to lay the empty conduit into the house. But no one has completed the house connection yet. The connection dates at Inexio are still to be scheduled (?), while Telekom’s status still says "civil engineering." The cable, however, has been sticking out of the wall for weeks.

Can someone with experience tell me if it’s normal for the status to still say "civil engineering" when the cable has already been installed? Or should I call them?
I didn’t actually want a Telekom connection, but since we work from home, I can’t manage another year with internet via a mobile SIM card.

Question 2: We have ordered a fiber optic connection and a plan from Inexio. Can I still exercise my right of withdrawal as long as the plan is not active? I really can’t wait until they—if ever—finally finish. But I also don’t want to end up paying for two plans if they do manage to activate it next quarter.

The paving and planting plans sound really great. The rest will come step by step. I think you only really notice how to best design everything after living in the house for a while. We’ve also been planting and digging in our garden almost constantly for nearly six years now (when we moved in, it was just a lawn with half a hedge, apart from a few shrubs). It’s nice to see how everything develops over the years.

I would have upgraded the baseboard as well, and I believe it’s definitely worth it. After all, you’re not tearing a new baseboard off the wall, but I wouldn’t have liked just a plain strip without any profile either.

What kind of hardwood flooring are you getting? We’re having one from Joka installed in August, with baseboards in the Hamburg profile of course, which we’ve already had good experiences with within the family.

And unfortunately, I don’t know what “Stellstufen” are. Do you mean risers?

kati1337 schrieb:

The black cable from Telekom is hanging into the house. Inexio has meanwhile managed to install the empty conduit inside the house. But no one has completed the building connection yet. Inexio still needs to coordinate the connection appointments (?), while Telekom’s status still shows "civil engineering." The cable has been protruding from the wall for weeks already.

It’s the same for us. Our shell builder/electrician installed the empty conduit up to the utility room and even pulled the cable through, as it was long enough. Telekom, however, is not aware of this.
They outsourced the installation and connection inside the utility room to an external company. We are in direct contact with them, and the technician will drop by spontaneously in the next few days if he’s nearby.
The company is very straightforward and also frustrated with Telekom. They said they will only update the status with Telekom once everything is completed. So the civil engineering status remains in the portal until then.