Perimeter wall

Finally, the area around the house is starting to take shape too. We decided we wanted a terraced wall around the bottom of the platform the house sits on. A vertical wall - which was one of the suggestions made  - would have made the house look more like a fortress than a house. And health and safety regulations - yes, they are here in Germany too - would have meant having to put a fence around the top of the wall to stop drunken house owners or hapless children from falling to certain death...Then it really would have looked like a fortress!

We used 50 - 60 cm blocks of "Muschelkalk", which according to the dictionary is what it's called in English too. Don't believe it.... Alternative suggestions are: "shell limeston" or "lacustrine limestone" or "coquina". So if any of you happen to know which one it is, let us know... Anyway, the stone is typical for this part of Germany.

The patio.

The patio from the garden.

Looking up the hill towards the living room and kitchen.

Looking to the East across the kitchen and living room.

Wallpapering and painting finished!

Today the last touches were put to the plastering, wallpapering and painting which had been going on for the last two weeks. Here you can see our decorators, Ralf and Christiane, a married couple from near Frankfurt. They took a day longer than expected because Ralf took a sore back - I can sympathize with that ok!

Here's the living room which is actually apricot in colour, but it turns out a bit different in the photos:

The bedrooms are light blue, although they look a tad turquoise in these photos:

The rest is in plain white - the green bits in the bathroom will be tiled next week:

The garage dropped in...

Well, thankfully it didn't drop in - it was lowered into place. At 7 a.m. this morning a 40-tonne lorry and a 4-axled crane / garage transporter were on site. The garage, produced by Zapf is six metres long and three metres wide, and the adjoining shed is three by three metres. The garage weighs 12 tonnes and the shed 6. Both were on the lorry. First the shed was moved from the big lorry onto the small lorry:

After that it was moved to the house and lowered into place. Then the same happened with the garage. Watching it hovering on the end of a crane gib about 3 cm from the wall of the house is pretty disconcerting - it didn't seem to bother the man working the crane... Seemed as if he'd done it before.

Here it is in place. The garage door is sectional and electric.