What it's like to live in a construction pit for 3 months, part 3: There is so much more to it than just building the place!!

High intensity

Building our own home while living there is one of the toughest projects I went through. And definitely, home renovations or building projects of any kind are hard work. But I do think that having a construction pit as your home, without really a backup place to go to to chill out for a bit (Rotterdam being a new place for us, no family and friends here at that time), added a lot to the intensity. But well, I've never really had any problem with high intensity ;). And the results we had in the end were and still are so satisfying! And I really do believe that after working hard for something, the results will be more dear and enjoyable.

There's more to it than you'd think

The project started out with tearing the whole place down. That was hard work, and it gave a lot of mess, but it really did do wonders in creating space and helped me to open up to the possibilities of the new home we were building. But that spacious feeling didn't last long.

If you've done any construction work yourself, you'll know that in the time of building, the actual building itself is just one of the things you have to do. Another is selecting materials, getting them at stores, moving them to your home and getting them inside and then finally, wherever you put them they'll be in the way again at some point and you spend maybe one third of your time moving around all these materials to make space for you to work in. And then there's the equipment you need to have at the right time and which you need to maintain and take care of. And at the end of the day, there's cleaning up work to do, tidying things up to start fresh again the next day. Well and of course you'll have to take a little care of the people who are helping you out, or even just take care of yourself, so making coffee and having lunch available and all that... it's all part of the process ;).

Laundry time

Moving ourselves around

Since we were living in the construction area, it wasn't just materials that we were moving around. We replaced our bedroom several times too. First we made a spot at the back end of the 3rd floor, the one we were making into our own apartment.

3rd floor bedroom area

The blue plastic thing served as a curtain which we pulled closed at night. The see-through plastic acted as a barrier for dust and debris while building. And it added a tiny feeling of privacy when there were construction guys all over the place all the time. They weren't allowed behind the plastic sheet ;). All the belongings we used for living purposes at that time were in the boxes next to the bed.

The closet area

Dust and debris, was that even an issue? Yes! Like when my husband was drilling holes in the wall where the socket outlet would go.

Or when I was working the door posts with a sanding machine

You ever joined in on a construction party being a girl? As a lot of to do things require more muscle than the amount I have, you end up doing these typical jobs. I didn't really like sanding, makes your eyes burn and gets your nose clogged. But I did it. A lot.

Moving to the studio

After the initial phase of tearing the old place down (see pics and read the story here), we focussed on building the upstairs studio first (pics and story here). Once we had the isolation in place there, it became a much nicer place to stay than the 3rd floor. So after a few weeks, we moved our bed up there. And things became really flashy when we placed the kitchen and could use the stove! I was looking forward to having a hot shower there too, but unfortunately by the time we finished all that, our tenant moved in ;).

We were in a rush those days. Apparently ;). Because I don't have any pics of our bedroom at that time, except for this weird one. Where one of the guys who was helping us out with doing the construction work imitated the picture we had sitting by our bed of our Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda. Now you might be either shocked by the idea of having a Guru or you might be shocked by the guy imitating him. But I guess that's material for future posts. At least the bed is looking comfy isn't it? Surrounded by isolated walls and even having the radiator in the back, which at some point we connected after which we could actually be warm and comfortable again!

See how we had all the boxes stacked beneath the bed? Always looking for storage places.

Even if the studio was quite tidy by then, we still weren't safe from the dust and debris. Like when we disturbed the dust sitting in the ceiling/floor for years to put in these pipes for water and central heating and sewer and had a moment of see-through between the 3rd and 4th floor. Shows how little there actually is to separate the upper and lower floors of the building.

See-through from 4th floor to 3rd

Moving the bedroom one last time

Then we finished the studio and went back downstairs again. Luckily, we had finished some important elements of the 3rd floor apartment by then. Actually, it wasn't luck, it was due to intense puzzling and planning exactly what to do when. The luck of it was that our plan actually worked out for the most part ;).

Before we moved our bedroom down again, we had the stucco finished. And in the area where we new we were putting our stuff, we already finished isolating and putting down the floor.

The place lightened up sooo much after the stucco guy did his work

After putting in the floor, we started getting a first impression of what the place would be going to look like. Lol, we loved it! So much better than when we found it!!

When we moved downstairs again, it was good to know that we would be staying this time!

Closet area the second time we had our bedroom on the 3rd floor. Containing everything from bananas and rhubarb to my high heels in the right corner of the pic. By then I had started a new job in Rotterdam and needed to look decent at work. I don't really remember how I managed without even a decent shower for freshening up.

This is where we did our showering for 3 months. The thing was how the previous owner had left it, running on this tiny little boiler, giving just a trickle of lukewarm water.

Moving stuff around

Of course, it wasn't just a matter of moving our bedroom to different places. The construction materials were the biggest obstacle, most of the time. It was really a challenge to find a balance of when to get certain materials: you want to have them ready before you need them, but as long as you don't need them yet they'll be in your way. Sometimes we got lucky and got some building materials very cheap, or even for free. The downside was we got them way before we needed them, and during the course of three months we moved those materials around maybe 100 times.

On day 3 of our home building project, we were driving our car and passed the green floor isolation tiles you see stacked in the back of the picture below. Probably someone had them left over and put them outside to be collected as trash. We took them home, since we already knew we would be needing them, and had the tiles for free! Still, they were in our way for a long, long time.

I don't even remember all the places where we kept the tiles before we finally needed them at the very end of the three months when we put in the floor.

Same goes for the kitchen. We had an amazing deal on it. Some people from a rich neighborhood in Rotterdam were selling their complete and high quality kitchen second hand on Marktplaats.com, an online market place for selling your stuff. The kitchen has an outspoken colour, so probably the owners didn't get a lot of interest for it. We bought it at a very good price, but we got it early, and it took up so much space!!

But well, I love the colour yellow. And our black cat:

Homely touches

See the two pictures below? I actually made them because at that point I decided to clean the windows. As I told in one of the earlier posts, the guy who lived in this place before us was a smoking addict. For 45 years, he smoked in that place day in day out. I don't think he cleaned his windows much. In the pictures, you see the difference between the left window which I cleaned, and the right one which I didn't clean yet. Isn't the difference almost horrible? That nicotine layer glare? Just imagine you would have a layer like that in your lungs.

Having too much materials around leads to having to work in tight spaces.

Award winners for stuff most often moved: TOOLS!!

When the stucco guy comes and plasters the walls. Or when you've tiled the bathroom or put in the kitchen. Those are moments that the place you've been working on starts to look much more like a place to live. But it's the little things like cleaning those windows or having your cat around that makes a place feel like home.

I remember feeling so proud and satisfied when we took our first shower in our new bathroom!

The end results

If you've read all the way through this post, and especially if you read the earlier posts too, then you must be feeling a bit like we were feeling after 3 months of hard work. The feeling of: and now let's see some results! And you do really deserve to see them! However, after the construction work was over, it took some time to get the place nicely furnished and decorated. You know how over time, you're constantly tweaking the looks of your home?

Very shortly after we finished the building project, we moved to India for one and a half years. We rented out our apartment in the meantime, and the studio too of course. Providing a nice budget for traveling. We came back a year ago, and after that made some changes to the furnishing and decorations of the place. And I'm sorry to tell you, but I actually don't have any pictures of how it looks now! And today has been nice and sunny, but the sun's down by now. So those pics will have to wait till a future post! But I promise you, I'll share them soon.

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