Hello and thanks for stopping by!

I am very happy to announce that we finally received the building permit to start building our house at the end of February. It took us a long time, 10 months to be exact, and some back and forth negotiations but we finally have the stamped document with the go ahead!

Some back ground so everyone is on the same page:

I met Paul in April 2018, he was already in the planning stages to purchase hie grandmothers old house and farm. In July 2018, he made it official.

The farm part was not being used for production anymore and the 3 building were all rented out. By November all of those tenants had left. Today we have a new tenant in one of the halls and the other two halls are being used for storage - one for outdoor /yard work and the like stuff, and the other with all of our personal belongings that have no room in our tiny apartment.

The house was built in 1950 with an addition added on in the 70s. Paul wasn't sure what he wanted to do but he knew that he wanted to bring the house into the current decade. We started by completely gutting the first floor. Which was a very interesting experience for me, as it gave me some insight to how different houses are built here in Switzerland. I never imagined I would have to shovel out gravel from a house demo site, but never say never I guess! After a week spent gutting the place, Paul assessed the situation and calculated out a renovation. There ended up not being such a big price difference between the price to renovate compared to the price to build a new house. So that is when it was decided to build a new house.

The zoning of this land is under the farm land category, and because of that it is very challenging to make a change to the building on the land. We hired an architect, Albert, in January 2019 to assist with making our house dreams come true. Albert and Paul tried to reach someone at the provincial level (side note: normally building permits get approved by the city/county, however because of the zoning we needed to get the approval from the province) to get more information as to what we could change, how big can we make the house and so on. Unfortunately, after many failed attempts to receive information we decided to simply submit a bid to build and hope that then they would give us some answers. So we finally sent in our request in April 2019.

Looking back, we should have sent something in much sooner, as they still took a while, but they then finally reacted to our bid. First we got a list of 4(5) items that needed to be changed on our original request.

1. There could be no dormer.
2. We needed to put window shutters on the windows
3. The house was too tall - our first plans included an Attic that you could fully stand in and have a normal staircase too (this has now been replaced with a pull down ladder)
4. Continuation of point 3 - the number of stories needed to be the same as the existing house. The existing house had 2 stories and we wanted to make 3 in the new house (with the 3rd being the attic)
5. The house in general was too big (even though it was about ½ the size of the current house on the property)

Side note: the province lays a lot of value to keeping the new house looking the same as the old house so that the landscape keeps the same general look and feel. The Swiss are very particular to making sure everything looks perfect, and that is why everything (even changing a door) must first get an approval. (add in eye roll here…))

We made all of the corrections and sent back the plans to the province. Paul and Albert then went for a meeting with them as well. We also needed to set up some poles to indicate where the new building was going to go. Then the public was given 3 weeks to say that they have a problem with the proposal. This needed to be done twice. Once before the above changes and then once again after the changes and the height had been modified. Thankfully nobody had an issue with our building plans. There was some small back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, until in January 2020, we heard that things were looking good and that they just needed to complete all the necessary paperwork, and then finally in at the end of February it was approved.

Where we are today:

Since then we have been busy with getting our bank loan approved for the project. And we have been busy discussing which companies will complete what work. It's interesting Paul gave Albert a list of 3 to 5 companies under each category (plumbing, electrical, foundation, ect.) and Albert sends each company information about the project. They come back with the price for the outlined work. Then Albert goes back the company, showing all of the proposals from all of the other companies (with hiding the names for who bid what) and then they counter with a discount and then from that we choose who we would like. I hope that makes sense!

To be honest that stuff is all alittle over my head, but it's interesting to be part of the meetings and see how it all happens. I am more concerned about what the house will look like….but to be honest someone's gotta do that part too, hehe

We went to plan a kitchen at one place in February and then to another company beginning of March. We liked the second company better, they also agreed to do our closets in the mudroom and hall, which is a nice added bonus that we don't need to worry about getting someone extra to do those. My big struggle in the kitchen, is deciding on the colours and textures for the cabinets and countertop and backsplash, but that will be decided at our next meeting…so I still have some time.

For bathrooms, we went again to two different companies. It was also an interesting experience. Both companies did it the exact same way. We had a sales person who had a little cart, and with that cart we zoomed around the display room back and forth and back and forth. Looking at different kinds of faucets, what type of drain we wanted in the showers (?! There were several different options here), to the sink types to the toilet bowl types…should I continue or do you get the idea, lol Everything for me was relatively easy to pick, except of course the counter top for the basin to sit on. Some items were easier to choose due to our budget. For example, I think free standing bathtubs look much nicer than a build in bath tub, however besides my brain telling me that it's easier to clean a build in, the price difference was around 600-700 CHF for a build in compared to 4000-11 000 CHF(!!!!!!!) for a stand alone…so ya the choice was pretty clear, let's go with practical as opposed to visual.

Because of the virus, I have been off of work for 2 weeks now, and it's been great for me to work on planning some house stuff. The last time we saw Albert he gave us homework in the electrical department. We have to outline where we want the switches, outlets, lights, and what kind of lights (eg. Pot light). This project was relatively easy, the only struggle I had was the light of the dining room table. Because of the open floor plan, this one was challenging to place, not knowing how everything looks and not knowing exactly where the table was going to be placed. But I hope I planned correctly, only time will tell J

So on my agenda at the moment, I need to decide:

• Tiles, tiles and tiles - backspash, bathroom main floor and bathroom upstairs
• What kind of flooring throughout the whole house? (struggling between wood and tile)
• Kitchen - countertop and cabinets
• Bathroom - countertop

At the moment 2 provinces in Switzerland have already put out building stops due to the virus, if that doesn't happen here then we are set to demo and dig starting April 8th. And the foundation guys will come on April 20th. This of course could all be postponed due to the virus.

The house as you can see in the plans is being built right beside the current house. This is practical because we can continue to live in the old house while the new house is being built. We are however tearing down ½ of the old house so that there is enough room for all the construction cranes and equipment to come through.

And that is that, thanks for reading so far and for your interest in this exciting project in our lives. I am looking forward to updating you as we continue to build.