Thrilling....

We'll be pressed for time.... it's frosty weather and that means that the contractor will not work any more.... AND WE HAVE TO MOVE END OF FEBRUARY !!!

The windows would be placed on 19th of January, than they can poor the second concrete-floor (after the placement of the underfoor heating), and than they can plaster the walls.

The bleu stone for the stairs, the electricity and water-pipes (already done the preparations), plastering of the ceilings, placing the elevator : all those things must still be performed...

Than we have to do some work ourselves : the finishing of the electricity, the floors in bleustone, placing the kitchen on the groundfloor, making and placing the kitchen of the first floor, the floors in old oak parquet, placing the inside doors, making the cabinets in the entrance hall and laundry rooms, a second and third isolation of the attick, the finishing of the bathrooms and showers, the finishing of the toilets, the garden on the back side, the parking place on the frontside .... all work for us. In seven or eight weeks ????

I know wherefore Eddy is so nervous.

Still raining.....

Yesterday, wednesday was our day off. Tabitha is still studying in Oxford and Jarno had to learn for his examinations. So Eddy and I decided to go shopping for the house.

We found the toilets (3 pieces) in reduction at -30 % !!! It was a mere fluke that we went to that store... This way we are going to have a marvellous house at a small budget.

We bought the kitchen for the appartement on the ground floor, already several months ago on a public sale. This kitchen is brandnew, only used as a showroom kitchen. All the kitchen machines were included : refrigerator, oven, cooking-range, washing-machine, lights and spots, etc... all new, never used. For a fraction of the original price. Sure, we had to take a whole day to go to Holland and we had to break-out the kitchen. It was a lot of work for Eddy and me, but we have done it and now we have a wonderfull kitchen at mini-price !

The kitchen on the second floor, is going to be made in our own workhouses as we mentioned before. And because we have to do so much work ourselves it will be a tense struggle if the house will be "habitable" the 1th of March ....

Raining, still raining...

Last week the sun was shining, the weather was dry. So the contractor began to lay the roof-tiles.

But now it is raining so hard.... and there is a lot of wind. That means the workmen had to stop. (Help ! We have to move end of february !!!)

Let's hope the weather will be better soon. But the weather-report for this week spells little good.... ;-(

In the meantime, there are a lot of people talking about the ox-eye. We've got a lot of positive comments on it. ;-)

We are getting nervous now. I already packed a lot of little things (decorations and kitchen-ware that we do not need immediately) into boxes, ready to move. We know that we have to move in the house when it is not ready yet, but that will be an adventure. When the windows are be placed and we can warm ourselves, we can work every day for the finishing touch. And afterwoods we will be satisfied to see the result. We can take a bath or a shower at our friends home when the bathroom would not be finished.

OOOH, ... I am looking outside now and it is raining so hard, everything is grey.... ;-((

6th of November 2009

Did I already tell you how fantastic the workers of Stessens firm are ?
They are all excellent craftsman !
Before we have chose a contractor we have seen a few showhouses.
Finally we decided to work with the Stessens firm because of it is still a family business, and we have had a very good contact with Luc Stessens and his architect Mr Mommaerts. Mr. Mommaerts was the first architect who understood that we didn't wanted a house in parsony-style, but a copy of an old mansion. He even brought pictures of old houses to the first meeting we had.
Further w've got hundreds of adresses and phonenumbers from formal clients, so that we were free to contact them and asking if they were satisfied of the firm and their work.
I have phoned 5 of them, and all of them were very, very satisfied.
Untill now, we are the next ones to be an excellent reference for them ! All of the contractors and other workmen are very fine craftsmen !!! You can see they like their jobs and that they wanted to be proud on the result...

The ox-eye.

They placed the ox-eye in the roof !!!

It is a real masterpiece of handcraft.

I am really happy with it.

Our antique balcony

This is the antique balcony w've bought in Pezenas France for our new house. It isn't restorated yet, so we have to work on it. But it will we beautiful.... as you are going to see when it is placed.

As you all can see, the contractors did a lot of work the last months. They have finished the masonry and began to shut the roof. There has to be a lot of isolation under the roofing-tiles.
We are glad they began to shut the roof, because this is a raining-season... so the house can be kept dry.
Also we are very happy with our bleu-stone porch. They have made it as I have designed it. Good craftsmanship ! Our antique French balcony will be placed above it, before the door on
the first floor.
Yes, we can see how our new house is going to look.... "here's a pretty kettle of fish !".

August and September 2009

Hello again !

This latest months the contractors did a fine job ! While I was in hospital they builded another floor from our new house.

Now we can see more about the dimensions of the rooms. Exciting !

The old house is sold : we hope the young couple who bought it, may be as happy as we were there. We have to move end of February 2010 .... and because we are going to do a lot of the final detail work ourself .....

Our own kitchen will be a home-made custom furniture in painted oak. Mainly for our clients (from our antique shop Den Ouden Overzet), we work with massif pine, but for our own kitchen Eddy will use massif oak. This kitchen will not be very large, so it has to be proportioned and friendly to use. I designed it myself, so I hope it will be as nice as I am expecting ...

For the bathroom we are going to make the cabinets in our own work-houses too. Eddy wanted to have an old looking bath. And I do not want to have tiles in the bathroom (only in the shower), so we decided to place massif pine wainscot to paint. So another job to do for us.

10th of July, the progress...

It is amazing how hard the bricklayers have worked last weeks !

26th of June 2009, the inside front wall.

The whole raw-building ground floor is finished !!! The walls inside are all done, the concrete stairs from ground floor to first floor is done, the blue Limestone for the facade is placed, the concrete rafter is done, a part of the outside wall in old looking bricks is done on the backside of the house,.... But the next three weeks they do not work, because of their summer holidays.

The back wall today with the old looking bricks.



The concrete rafters (ground floot/first floor)

Ground floor : a part of the living room.

Door at left : store-room or washing room.

Door in the back : to their own passage.

Sight from the living room to the open kitchen

on the floor ground.

The concrete "downstairs"....

The first part of the passage (entrance).

The second part of the passage with the elevator and the stairs.

The bleu limestone on the front wall.

Wednesday we've gone to Sint Truiden to choose our flooring materials. We have chosen for blue Limestone in old type paving. We liked the stone washed dark antique finish of those Limestones. In the passage and our bathroom we prefered a pattern of bluestone and an old looking beige stone.

This is the bleu Limestone for the living rooms, I like this design.






This is +/- the floor pattern for the passage and the bathroom.

For the bedrooms we are going for a wooden hardfloor in oak. But I am still comparing the prices.
So many dreams to go .....

The start....

Good news : our old house is sold !!!

We can stay there till the end of February 2010. Than we have to move...

Will the new house been finished that moment ??? We don't think so !!!

(Warning to our friends : we'll pocket your houses !!! We' ll stay over with you !!! ;)) )

But the contractor started the works : begin June they came with an enormous crane/drill to drill 24 holes into the earth (depth 7 m = about 23 ft). This 24 holes they've filled with concrete to stabilize the underground.

Do you see the workman ?

June the 19th they have finished the concrete floor. At first they did a great job to wave heavy iron for this floor. More's the pitty, but I didn't take pictures from this.

Last week, the weather was fine here in Belgium : no rain, a lot of sun,...

The bricklayers started their job and this is how far we are today : they already finished a part of the inside wall. After placing isolation against temperature and noise, they will make a second outside wall on the front with an old-looking brick.

(The yellow mats you can see on the picture is the isolation against noise).

We don't know how many time it takes in the USA to build a house, but here in Europe you have to count at least one year. Most of the houses here are stone houses. Exeptionally you can find here a wooden house, often used as a little weekend house.

We have decided to do the most of the finishing works ourselves. We would be nuts if we didn't ! Because of our Interior and Antique shop we can order/buy a lot of the finishing goods like floors, lighting, kitchen, bathroom furniture, etc. at cost price. or custom made by ourselves. ;)

But therefore I have to wait a little (?) bit longer, that's still the future. ;(

This was the start of the blog for family and friends..

So I started the building blog today. I had to learn a lot about it, I am still "green after my ears" what meant I have to learn a lot about this.....

tomorrow more news and pics.

This was the old mansion, I love it !!!!

But I think (know !) that we doesn't have that lot of money.

But I still love it...... and I will have the balcony !

This was my first message about the new house (facebook)

Building a house in Belgium. 1.


woensdag 4 februari 2009 om 20:46



Today we have had our information day about "environmental friendly" houses. Maybe our friends and family in the USA doesn't know, but our gouvernement find it very important to consider the environement. So do we...It is now about three years ago, that we decided to build a new house, next to our antiqueshop. It is in the adjacent village. Now we live still in Zwijndrecht, but the shop is in Melsele.We already sold the half of our house in Zwijndrecht. It sounds silly, but the half of the big, big house was our first antique shop. So we sold the shop-part and there is a very good restaurant now ! Now we only have to sell the house. Let's hope we soon will find a buyer !Finding the architect who understand what kind of style for the house, we desired was quite an adventure. The most popular house-style to build here in Belgium is the "parsonage-style". We like those houses, but it is not what we would build. Our dream (most of all mine, to be honnest) was an old looking European mansion.Puzzling the rooms, the stairway, the personal elevator (we are not getting younger, thinking on the future..), it took some time...But soon the contractor is going to start our dream...






This is the new style of an old European mansion, my dreamhouse. Ours will be in this style, but a lot smaller and not in such a lovely parc !