17th October....Finishing the digging !!!!

Here we are on tuesday, down at the right level over most of the site and just a bit of finishing off to do!!!
We need to leave one metre working space for the basement team and finish the batters to the excavation, then take out the driveway to the right level. After that we will be putting in 400mm of shingle. Volker agreed to use shingle cos there's a bit of water coming through the sandstone into the pit.
The its over to the Huf people to do the rest.
I need to count my pennies for the site works as they are quite a bit over the original cost. Originally it was going to cost around £20,000, but with the extra dig and carting all the material away, it will be a bit more.......
People keep coming up to the site and saying....'well that's a big hole'......I just want to fill it with house as quick as possible now.

We have to check all the plans that arrived last Friday for any final alterations. Where do the electric plugs go? Have we got enough? Where are the light fittings going? Have we left enough room in the lounge to get the dog's bed in?

There's a really big issue about a letter box!! There's been hours of debate about this. Here in the UK we have letter boxes in the front door. Germans have boxes outside.
They refused point blank to put a hole in the front door.....'it would not look nice' they insisted. We could have a stainless steel 'huf designed art form post modernist letter box'which cost 1500 euros, but I just wanted a hole in the house anywhere, where our postman could deposit the daily dose of bills and trash mail without me having to go outside in the cold.
We compromised by putting a hole in the door in the basement at a cost of 350 euros, which Pam (her indoors) insisted was essential. In the interests of maintaining domestic bliss, we will agree that. (But at that cost I would have been quite prepared to venture outside or train Lucca (the dog) to fetch it in.

There's another additional cost with the handrail to the balcony. Originally it was going to be wood. Now it has to be stainless steel because part of it will be exposed to the elements. That will cost 2300 euros extra. I am going to check whether it is gold plated for that money, but I guess we will go with that too.

And there's another swiss blog for a Huf Haus , I've put the the link on my site. We will be able to compare notes as they could be similar, and he's just finished digging his hole!!!!!