After we first visited in March and went through all that crazy contract stuff in April, the long waiting game began. It would be over a year before our flat was done, but it was also the time we started making our “changes” to make the place ours. Kay’s father told us to budget 10-15% of the buying price (yikes!) for all of our additions, but we decided to limit ourselves to a much lower percentage and cap changes to 15k.
When we entered into the contract the “rohbau” (structural foundation) phase was already finished. The electrical and kitchen appliance work was almost done too, which meant if we wanted to make any big changes we had to act fast.
During our visit in June, all the beams were off and they had these structural supports in place in the living room:
Looking out to the left you can see our huge terrace. (Insert happy grin!)
The second bedroom isn’t enormous, so I’m already plotting how to get two desks, bookcases and a guest bed in there.
As it turns out, by the time we got around to asking about it, it seemed like all the kitchen appliance and electrical work was actually finished. That meant that they had already drilled and installed tubing for our electrical tubes for our outlets, oven, refrigerator and pipes for the sink and bathrooms.
This meant that we had to be pretty happy with how the kitchen was laid out, because there would be no affordable way to change it at this point. See those purple tubes? They are for the stove. I’ll just have to be at peace with it in the corner, but that wasn’t really on my list of worries. I was more concerned about what was going on in the bathrooms…
Want to catch up?
- Nobody buys a home in Switzerland
- How to rent a flat in Switzerland
- Dreaming the impossible
- How to buy a house in Switzerland
- Shopping for houses
- The World of Neubau
- Flat A vs Flat B: Location vs. Cost
- Paying for Sunshine
- We (I) make a decision
- Our future home: Part I
- How we found our giant terrace
- No Mortgages for Americans? Signing the Contract
- Neubau Progress: I