Busy, busy, busy

It's been a busy week at the new old house. The first coats of paint have been applied, and it looks great.

So far only on the 1st and 2nd floors, but the color is a nice change from the color of dust that has been the general look of the place recently. These floors have also been sanded and varnished (1 coat so far).

The bathroom and shower rooms haven't seen such dramatic
progress. The shower room has been on hold waiting for the chape (poured floor) to cure. We had to rethink the tiling for the shower after we found out the price of the lovely Italian mosaics we chose. I had confused the price per sheet with the price per meter square. (Only an order of magnitude off!). The reboot was a good thing, as we now will have some slighly less extravagant lovely Italian mosaics, in a new color scheme.
The kitchen has also arrived.  Jean-Philippe of Wood Fashion in Waterloo designed the kitchen following our wishes, in a classic style. I love the Falcon stove. The stonefitter was making measurements today for the countertop and back wall. We tried not to distract him.
The counters will be Belgian bluestone, from a quarry near Liege. I can't wait to see it. If we are lucky, there may be fossils.

Making Progress

The windows and roof are done, and things are progressing. The attic, soon to be Max's pleasure dome, is now all light and air. The interior finishing will have to wait until January, though, as the manpower is needed to finish the rest of the house.

Because of the long delay for the windows, the first half of November was lost time, so now every moment counts. We hope to move in while the calendar still says January. 

A lesson learned.

The wood frames for the windows are not FSC certified, so the don't count for an additional. €30 per sq meter government rebate. It can pay to check these things beforehand.

The first coat of paint has been applied to the 3rd floor. The Farrow and Ball paint is on order, so the first coat is an approximation of the colors in a good 'domestic' paint.

The plastering is done on the main floor, and the kitchen will come in on Wednesday the 14th. This is exciting.

Blue skies above

The Roofers have finally arrived. It only took them about 3 hours to remove the old tiles.

Fireplaces are great - up to a point

As this house was built pre-central heating, there are plenty of fireplaces.  One per room, in fact. They're not built for wood, though. 1905 Brussels seems a gas-mad place. There were gas heaters in every fireplace, and gas lines leading to the light fixtures on the ceiling. Many of these have been removed, but all the fireplaces remain. Some are beautiful,some, like this one, not so much.

This one is in the back, on the 2nd floor (or the 4th floor - it depends on how you count). Not only is it homely, but it gets in the way of a bookcase we'd like to locate there. It's a big case I made of doussie, a dark African wood. It's 4 meters long, and this is the only wall it fits on in this room, to be Rosa's office and library.

So the fireplace must go, as well as the chimney behind it.  What makes it a big deal though, is removing the chimney above it. It goes also through the attic (soon to be liveable) and onto the roof. That's a lot of bricks to remove. The roofer will demolish it to the attic, and the contractor's guys will do the rest. A lot of work for a bookshelf. But it's a really nice one.

The View From our Window

The back 2nd floor window, to be precise. Soon to be the view from Ms New House's office. My view will be onto the street. There will be plenty of sun, provided there is plenty of sun - this is Brussels, after all.

Some bad news from our window suppliers. The 11 new windows and frames won't be ready until Nov. 21, not next week as planned. I don't know the reason for the delay, but our contractor is not very happy.  His unhappiness is contagious, I'm afraid. Taking out the old will cause a lot of damage to the walls surrounding them, so he will have to wait on refinishing these walls.

The current plan is to finish all the work mid-January. Ms NH is less optimistic than me, and is keeping the lease on the current apartment until Feb. 15.

De-Mo-Lition!

Lots of things getting smashed up now, or at least being detached and carted away.

Say goodbye to the old kitchen. Dîtes au revoir to the many layers of wallpaper everywhere. No one will mourn all the departed toilet fixtures.

The work crew, in their generosity, thought it a waste to toss the still-functioning refrigerator. They put it on the sidewalk with "cadeau" marked on the front. This was noticed quickly by a local administrator, who pointed out all the laws this broke. The fridge now sits as a lonely sentinel inside the living room.

It Begins

So the work has started. The departing tenants left the place so clean it was a shame to trash the place. But that's where we are now, stripping the walls and removing all the plumbing fixtures. It looks a bit Pompeian now.

The Old Windows Let In More Than Just the Sunlight

                                                      

Built in 1905, our house is typical of the neighborhood. It's called a Bel-Etage, having a slightly elevated main floor, and a half-subterranean cellar. The bricks are enameled and there are details in Belgian bluestone.

 The windows are very detailed and interesting, but also very old, drafty and rotten in parts. They will have to be replaced. Since we are in a historic district, changes to the facade have to be approved by the commune's (borough's) building department.  The process is pretty informal.  We sent in some pictures of the house, and plans of the new windows, and they told us to go ahead. The new windows should generally match the look of the old, but unfortunately, the beautiful piano moldings are beyond our budget to duplicate. The other disappointment is that the beautiful existing brass interior hardware will not be compatible with the new mechanisms. We investigated the possibility of just putting new double-glazed glass into the old frames. There is a company here in Brussels that specializes in just that. It's much cheaper, and keeps all the old details, but the poor state of some of the frames precluded it.

I'm waiting to hear from the window company as to when they will be installed, but it should be in the next couple of weeks.

Hello World

Brussels is bathed in sunshine today (not a sentence you often read), as our tenants are moving out. The came as an extra bonus with house when we purchased it in June, but now their lease is up and we can set about to make the house our house.

This blog will document the process of renovating this house. I am not a great handyman, and will leave most of the physical work to our hired guns. I'm not an expert by any means, and by sharing the process, this should be a learning experience for everyone.