One of the workers in our new house sent us a couple of pics from the situation at the beginning of the construction. I hope we will still be able to get hold of the pictures from the brochure, as the house was when we bougt it. With those pictures added to the ones we have already, we can make a nice 'documentary' of the whole reconstruction process.
Kitchen at start of construction
Sitting room at start of constructionIn the living room, we took the beam ceiling out, as well as the support column (on the left). The door will be replaced by a more modern version. In the kitchen, the bar is being replaced by an island with a sink and we took out the storage cabinet (closet?) on the right, to be replaced by a 'cabinet-and-appliances-wall'. Hopefully, in a few weeks time, we will be able to show you the 'after' version of the kitchen (and the rest of the house).
The kitchen is the area which has caused me the biggest headaches. The builder who is doing the kitchen for us, has a lot of experience building kitchens, but not as much actually designing them. So, we basically designed our own kitchen. I'm quite happy with the design we (or better, Pieter) came up with, but I'm stil not confident about the color. It's pretty hard to decide which color to choose for a kitchen that's actually part of the living room (a so called open kitchen). We opted for white, but I was not 100% sure that it was the right choice. With white cupboards and white walls, we were worried it would be too sterile. Too much like our bathroom-house in Hsinchu :-) Rather than putting a color on the cupboards, we finally came up with the idea to paint the walls. Most likely red. And replace some of the plain white cupboard fronts with white-wash glass ones. With these changes, I'm much more confident that the kitchen will be to my liking.
Both bathrooms are halfway finished and looking good. The next two weeks, the last ceilings will be put in and the 2nd and 3rd floor will be painted. Doors will be put in, radiators will be installed and light switches and other remaining electrical jobs will be done. The week after next, the floor in the living room will be put in and one week later, the floors on the 2nd and 3rd floor. Even though we have emphasized from the beginning that the floors were the crucial items to be finished on time (being mid June), the last work in the house to be done is ... the floors! Hopefully the container with our belongings will take a few weeks to get through customs or maybe we can delay their arrival in Veldhoven by a few weeks. If not, we'll have to find a place to put the contents of a 40-foot container for a period of two weeks. Anyone with a few spare rooms in or around Veldhoven?
In the meantime, Emma and Janne are enjoying themselves living in our temporary house. There's a little playground across the street and plenty of kids to play with. That will be a bit different in the new house, where they'll have to play more in the back yard. Fortunately, they seem to adapt to life in Holland without any problems. Emma has several friends from school, whom she likes to invite to come play. She also likes to go on a playdate at their houses. This week, we had Aylene, Elliott and Tyler (friends from Hsinchu) over on Wednesday afternoon, and Elke (Emma's friend from school) on Friday afternoon. Once Emma and Janne will start going to some clubs, it will be a little more difficult to arrange play dates, but we will try to leave them enough free time to just play :-)
This week, I also started looking for swimming lessons for Emma and Janne. I was shocked when I found out that even for swimming lessons there is a 1,5 to 2 year waiting list .... Holland, the country of waiting lists. I think that is why Dutch people are so good at planning and looking ahead. We have to! You have to register your child for day care the moment you find out you're pregnant. When your baby is 6 months old, make sure to register it for your favorite kindergarten, otherwise you might be too late. And please, don't try to move house until the kids are grown up, or all your planning will have been to no avail.
Besides these surprises, we're doing fine :-) I survived my first reversed culture shock dip and can see the bright side of the whole move again. Maybe the warmer weather helps a little bit. Although it still is 10-12 degrees at night, day time temperatures regularly go over 20 degrees C. Which is quite comfortable. And I don't want anyone to tell me they've been having 30 degree weather for the last two months in Taiwan, because all my happy thoughts about the Low Country will go out the window ...
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