Before I get into plumbing and wiring and all the parts of building a house that are not glamorous at all, I have some news, which I already shared on my Instagram – we are expecting a baby. I am in my ninth month writing this, which honestly still feels a bit unreal to me, and Ivo and I are so excited that we have started counting down the last days. There is something kind of poetic about building a house and waiting for a baby at the same time – both take a long time, and then suddenly they are real..
So, where we are now: all the rough works are finished – plumbing, electrical, everything that goes under the roof – and the drywall is going up. But first I have to apologize a little, because, like I said, you are going to see a lot of photos of the inside, and it is a MESS in there. Every week I go and it is messier than the week before – more pipes on the floor, more rolls of insulation, more little bags of small parts everywhere – and every week I think okay, maybe this is the week they finish and leave it clean. It never is. It just gets messier. Sorry about that.
The Pipe That Will Become a Beam
Okay, the plumbing. The hot and cold lines went up on the walls as red and blue, and the orange sewer pipe came up out of the floor where it should. Pretty standard so far. But there are two things here I actually want to talk about, because they are the kind of decisions you only get to make at this stage, before the walls close everything up.
The first one is that we added hot water recirculation.
If you have never heard of it, basically it keeps the hot water moving in a loop through the pipes, so when you open a tap the hot water is there almost right away instead of you standing there running the water and waiting for it to warm up.
I really hated that wait in our old place, and honestly with a baby coming and all the washing that comes with one, I think this is going to be one of those small things we never really notice but are quietly happy we did.
The second one is the drain, and this one took some thinking. In the plans, the main canalization pipe – the big one that carries everything down from the second floor bathrooms – was running through the corridor.
We did not want it there, so we decided to move it and send it up across the ceiling instead. Right now it is just out in the open (you can see it in the photos, that big orange line), which looks like a lot, but it is like that on purpose.
The plan is to close it in and make it look like a beam – a third beam, because we already have two real wooden ones, so it will look like it belongs there. We are also going to put soundproofing insulation around it, because it runs over our heads and I really do not want to hear the drain at night, especially with a baby coming.
I want to be clear though, this is the plan, it is not done yet. So if it comes out bad, I will just never mention it again.
The TV We Did Not Buy Yet
The wiring is where Ivo and I really showed who we are, which is two people who cannot make a decision. The whole problem was where the TV goes. One wall has the better view from the window, the other wall is better for the sofa, and we went back and forth about this for so long that in the end we just ran the cables to both sides.
So now, whatever we decide, the wiring is ready. Is it a bit silly to wire two walls for one TV? Yes. But I do not regret it. I think future us, tired and holding a baby, will be happy that we were indecisive in a useful way for once.
Outlets Everywhere, Just in Case
And since we are on the subject of not deciding – the outlets. I read somewhere a long time ago that nobody ever finishes a house and thinks they have too many outlets. I took that very seriously. So we have outlets basically everywhere. Where the furniture might go, in corners we will probably never use, in places I cannot even explain. If you look at the photos of the walls before the drywall, you will see how many cables are coming out of every section, and that is just us putting outlets everywhere in case we need them one day. I would rather have one I never use than be missing one later.
The Hard Part Was the Waiting
If someone asked me what the hardest part of this stage was, it was not the decisions. It was the waiting. And it was waiting for everything – the permits first, then the crew to be free, then the materials to arrive. The strange thing, that nobody really tells you, is that once the workers are actually there, everything goes so fast. A whole wall of pipes in a day. A floor wired in basically no time. The work itself is quick. It is the waiting for it to start that takes forever. You wait and wait, checking your phone, and then suddenly there is a lot of progress at once and you almost forget the three weeks of nothing before it. I will be honest, I did not handle this part well.
And then, the Drywall
And then they started putting up the drywall, and the house finally felt REAL. I cannot say this enough. For a long time it was just this skeleton of wood and silver membrane and everything exposed, and you really had to look at the plans and imagine to see rooms.
But the moment the boards went up – the grey ones on most walls, the green moisture-resistant ones in the bathrooms and wet areas – it stopped being a building site and became a house.
Suddenly there are hallways. There are rooms with real corners. You can stand in the room that will be the bedroom, look out the big black windows at the hills, and finally picture the bed there.
I walked down the long hallway to the front door, which has this narrow vertical window in it that I really like, and past the stairwell with the timber stringers cut and waiting for the steps, and I had a moment.
On paper this whole stage is good, not great – it is pipes and mess and waiting. But standing inside those finished walls, I liked it so much more than I thought I would. It is amazing what walls do to your imagination.
What is Coming Next?
So, what happens now. We are going to start with the floors – the underfloor heating goes in first, and then the tiles go on top of that. After that comes the joint compound, and then finally picking the wall paint colors (we are still not fully agreeing on some of those, I will be honest), and then the bathrooms. The outside plaster is on the list too. We also already have the whole project ready for the kitchen, but that one really deserves its own post, so I am saving it for another time.
The bigger plan, and the thing pushing everything right now, is that we want to finish the first floor completely first – so we can actually move in and start living in the house. Everything else comes after that: the backyard, the second floor, the other two bathrooms. One step at a time, first floor first.
And the reason for the timeline is the baby. We have already bought everything – honestly the baby is more ready than the house is at this point – and we really want to get the first floor done in the next three months so we can move in by the end of September. I know it is tight, especially with how the waiting tends to go around here. But a deadline that is an actual little person arriving has a way of making you move
Where We Are
So this is the unsexy middle. It is the part that never makes the nice photos, but in a way it is the most important part. It is not pretty yet (again, the mess), but every pipe and cable and “just in case” outlet is a small decision about how we are actually going to live here, with the baby coming soon and changing everything.
So if you are looking at your own future project and feeling stuck on the boring parts – the permits, the pipes, the waiting – I would just say that those parts pass, and faster than you think once things start moving, and then one day the walls go up and it is all real. If this post does anything, I hope it makes you want to start. The mess is temporary. The house, and now the baby, is forever.
