juno project

a loooooooonng day

2011-12-16T18:57:00.000+01:00

today lux and i took a long, long, LOOOOOOOONG walk from our apartment on E. 3rd street all the way down to south street seaport and back up through little italy. south street doesn't seem to be quite as nice as i remembered it being from when we used to go when i was a kid, but we hit three playgrounds on our expedition so we were quite satisfied. altogether it took us about six hours, so i'm pretty ready for ice cream and a movie. and rootbeer. and popcorn. mmmmm....

never in my life have i seen a bigger, more impressive collection of christmas tree decoration than in this store in pier 17. they had just about everything you could think of as a christmas decoration, including a string of ruby slipper lights. i could of dropped quite a large bag o' dough there. but i didn't get a thing. now i'm feel a strange combination of pride and regret. go figure...

zoo day

2011-12-14T21:12:00.000+01:00

our first week

2011-12-09T22:09:00.000+01:00

I've been meaning to write something about our stay in New York so far, but I haven't really been inspired. I wanted to say something about the Why and the How, but I'm pretty much brain-dead at the moment. Maybe it's the remnants of jet lag that haven't quite left me.

Lux is taking this whole move reasonably well despite the massive jet lag. She has started to call the apartment "the new house", a term previously reserved for our new house in Rotterdam. I'm not sure she understands what's going on, but she seems to be okay with it.

We've been trying to speak English together as much as possible. Björn is much better at it than I am; I keep forgetting and slipping back into Dutch. B and L are just not in my English speaking system, so when I'm formulating whatever I'm planning on saying to them in my head it's always in Dutch. I guess I just have to try a little harder.

Anyway, not much else right now, inspiration wise. I'll try again soon. In the meantime, here are some of the pictures I promised. :-p

NC day 6

2011-11-15T19:25:00.000+01:00

NC day 5

2011-11-15T19:19:00.000+01:00

NC day 4

2011-11-13T20:12:00.000+01:00

NC day 2 & 3

2011-11-12T19:54:00.000+01:00

NYC-NC & NC day 1

2011-11-10T19:01:00.000+01:00

NYC day 6

2011-11-08T20:51:00.000+01:00

* last 3 photos courtesy of Lux A. Plooster

NYC day 5

2011-11-07T18:41:00.000+01:00

NYC day 4 - Marathon!

2011-11-06T18:37:00.000+01:00

NYC day 3

2011-11-06T04:44:00.000+01:00

NYC day 2

2011-11-04T17:15:00.000+01:00

NYC day 1

2011-11-03T21:05:00.000+01:00

T-3: the little things

2011-09-28T14:10:00.000+02:00

The To Do list at T-3:

Put in floor heating downstairs;

Put in 2 regular doors and one sliding door downstairs;

Install a sink downstairs;

Put in the concrete flooring downstairs;

Finish off the stairs in front and in back;

Enlarge the entry-way to the downstairs;

Install the glass plate in the living room;

Install a glass plate in the weird little door opening next to the stairs;

Install the kitchen;

Put in wooden flooring in the hallway, the kitchen and the back of the house (upstairs);

Sand down all the new and existing wooden floors upstairs and re-stain them.

3 more days to go and a lot of little things are getting done. In addition to the floor downstairs, the kitchen and the wooden floors upstairs we now have:

doors in the studio and store room...

... and covers for the central heating unit and the gas meter.

The back stairs now have a side railing, so no Munchkins will go tumbling down that way.

And a lot of little things have been done, like vents...

... and cute little cover-ups in the ceiling to hide important stuff that we might have to get at at some point.

Tomorrow the plumber/electrician will be on the job all day to install the sink downstairs, hook up the kitchen and make sure the heating system is working. (We won't be able to use the floor heating for another 6-8 weeks, because the floor has to harden before the heating gets switched on. And you can't use the floor heating to speed up the process because the floor might get damaged. No rushing perfection...)

Might go back tomorrow and take another quick look. The whole thing will be completed (officially, that is) on Friday, but there will still be another few things that will get done next week. So more tomorrow. Or Friday...

T-8

2011-09-23T21:18:00.000+02:00

The To Do list at T-8:

Put in floor heating downstairs;

Put in 2 regular doors and one sliding door downstairs;

Install a sink downstairs;

Put in the concrete flooring downstairs;

Finish off the stairs in front and in back;

Enlarge the entry-way to the downstairs;

Install the glass plate in the living room;

Install a glass plate in the weird little door opening next to the stairs;

Install the kitchen;

Put in wooden flooring in the hallway, the kitchen and the back of the house (upstairs);

Sand down all the new and existing wooden floors upstairs and re-stain them.

Today:

They finished installing the kitchen. (Don't worry, it's not really that color. The blue is just protective foil so it won't get damaged. The kitchen is white, same as our old kitchen.)

And Björn finally got his breakfast bar...

They continued work on the floor, putting it down over the existing carpet for noise reduction.

They had part of the street roped off to accommodate a monster sand container for the floor downstairs.

Unfortunately, for some people two signs and red-and-white tape was not enough...

The floor was put in downstairs...

We won't get to walk on the floor downstairs until Monday. In the meantime (tomorrow), more work will be done on the floor upstairs and lots of little bits will be finished off.. 8 more days to go!

home stretch: T-10

2011-09-20T19:48:00.000+02:00

Note: I started this post yesterday but just as I was about to Save & Post Squarespace crapped out on me and I lost all my pictures and most of what I’d written. So this is a shorter version of what I wrote yesterday, but with additional pictures taken today. I went over today to help out with the kitchen - because I’m the one who ordered it and it is an Ikea kitchen, I am the only one who knows what goes where. So I got to make myself useful for once.

We've entered the home stretch at the house. 10 more days to go before the big deadline. The builders have to be done on or before October 1st for us to qualify for a tax break. So that is their deadline. They have to have everything done in just 10 days... and by everything I mean:

Put in floor heating downstairs;

Put in 2 regular doors and one sliding door downstairs;

Install a sink downstairs;

Put in the concrete flooring downstairs;

Finish off the stairs in front and in back;

Enlarge the entry-way to the downstairs;

Install the glass plate in the living room;

Install a glass plate in the weird little door opening next to the stairs;

Install the kitchen;

Put in wooden flooring in the hallway, the kitchen and the back of the house (upstairs);

Install the kitchen;

Sand down all the new and existing wooden floors upstairs and re-stain them.

All in 10 days... And all just in time for our Painting/BBQ Party on October 1st. Got to get the whole house, upstairs and downstairs, painted before we move in. Because, god knows, if we don't do it before we move in, IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!

So this is pretty much where we are:

They started putting down the isolation and pipes for the floor heating system on Monday. Our contractor calls this “the Lego Floor” and now that I’ve seen it I understand what he means...

All the walls have been drywalled and plastered and are nice and smooth. They turned out pretty darn white, so we’re not sure if we should go to all the trouble of painting them white. We’ll see...

Here’s the hole in the studio ceiling/living room floor, just waiting for its super-duper thick glass plate...

And that funny little Alice in Wonderland door in the hallway above the stair, also awaiting its glass window...

They started on the wooden floor in the hallway and the kitchen upstairs and will be finishing off the floor in the back of the house tomorrow...

And they started on the kitchen today. Ikea doesn’t give out instructions on how to install the kitchen as a whole, only the individual cabinets. And because I did the layout and ordered it, I’m the only one who knows how it fits together. So I spent the day with Wouter and Stefano, putting together drawers and cabinets and basically telling them what to do. Just my cup of tea...

Tomorrow I get to go back to Ikea to pick up and exchange some stuff. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go back any time soon, but no such luck.

And also on tomorrow’s schedule: finishing off the kitchen, laying down the floor in the back of the house and starting on the concrete floor downstairs. They’ve got a lot to do in 10 days...

More pictures here...

awesome offices

2011-09-04T21:41:00.000+02:00

Super stoked about the new offices! We're really getting there...

on site: an update

2011-08-26T09:11:00.000+02:00

i really have been neglecting my house-posting duties lately. lost of excuses: busy, work, deadlines, two-year-old, lazy, blah, blah blah. but i think one of the biggest problems is writer's block: lots has been happening at the house but i don't really feel inspired to write about it. and i don't really know how... so maybe just posting pictures would be best.

what i can say about this part of the project, is that i am very impressed with the contractor and the guys working on the house. they work incredibly hard and are extremely thorough. and fast. we're talking greased lightning here...

remember this?

this was the hatch in the hallway closet, one of the two access ways to the basement, where we decided we wanted the stairs to go, right after they started work on the foundations and busted a hole in the wall towards the neighbors house. and this is where we are now:

this was the way back of the house, right after we bought it:

and this was yesterday:

and here are some more pictures from yesterday.

another view of the stairs:

björn's studio/office:

and the hole in the living room floor, to give the studio below more light. glass plate to be added later:

the storage room:

the back room under the front part of the house:

and the exterior of the back, with the new windows:

pretty impressive, huh? more pictures soon. i promise...

weekend

2011-08-17T21:19:00.000+02:00

it might seem a bit late to be doing a weekend post, it being wednesday and all... but i still wanted to post some photos from this weekend. ours was filled with our favorite chocolate chip cookies, art, burgers, music, and omas and opas. hope you had a good one, too...

back in action

2011-08-12T11:33:00.000+02:00

we haven't been doing much baking. no real explanation. maybe because some days its been too hot to turn on the oven. but not really because so far the summer of 2011 is going down as one of the shittiest in history.
so maybe because i've been too busy. well yes, business has been going particularly well. so well, that sometimes i think the people on the news are just making all this economic downturn shit up (let's not use the r and d words now). so work might have something to do with it.
really i think i just got bored. and i tend to bore easily. i get into something in a big way and then all of a sudden loose all interest...
but the good thing is, you can always come back to it. which we did today. after some nagging by the munchkin, i broke down and got out the old measuring cups again. we went for smitten kitchen's favorite chocolate chips, but it turned out i didn't have any peanuts so we used walnuts instead. and this time round i went for the full size cookie instead on the smaller ones i usually make. and in this case bigger is definitely better.

empathy, man...

2011-08-06T20:44:00.000+02:00

you're at a festival. it starts to rain just as you're getting ice cream. you get soaked but it's not cold so you're good. you jump in some puddles on the way back to the car. you have some laughs and fall asleep in the car on the way home. the next thing you know you're back at the same festival in a new, dry outfit with no recollection of having changed or of how you got back there. now tell me: wouldn't that freak you the hell out? so maybe it's not so strange that 2-year-olds can be a little difficult sometimes. maybe we should cut them some slack. because to me, that sounds like an acid trip...

the vacation that nearly wasn't

2011-07-24T23:30:00.000+02:00

last year we decided that this year we would stay in NL for our summer vacation. not for any particular reason, other than we had never been on vacation in the Netherlands before. we got a tip from friends that there were these little beach houses for rent in Zeeland, but you had to act fast because once they were up for rent in early April (for the following year, mind you) they went like hot cakes. so we tried to book a house in the same week as said friends, but that didn't work out. like i said: hot cakes. so we settled on a week in july, figuring that the weather must be reasonable in july. well, boy i'll tell you, that couldn't have been further from the truth...

the week before we went on vacation, we had just about the worst rain storm i can remember. and usually people comment about dutch weather that, although yes it does rain a lot, it never rains all day. again: WRONG. this was the all-day variety. so we knew before we left that the weather was not going to be good. we packed for bad weather. we were prepared. but after we got to our little beach house on friday, it rained all day saturday and it wasn't showing any signs of improving, we we're just about ready to throw in the towel. give up. go home.

but we didn't. we decided to stay. there were all sorts of conflicting weather reports, but some said tuesday and wednesday would be nice so we decided to believe them and stay to see if they were right. and luckily they were. the rest of the week was nice. i wouldn't go so far as to say it was gorgeous, but it was nice.

and one of the advantages of going on vacation close to home is that friends and family can stop by for some fun in the sun. or in the rain. whatever. and they did, in droves. sunday was the only day we didn't have anybody over. lux loved playing with all her little friends. and big friends. she had a ball. and so did we. in fact, we're going back next year. so if you feel like coming over, just let us know...

we took over 1300 photos with the new sony nex5 (i left my nikon at home, because i knew i'd be tempted to use it and i wanted to give the nex a shot), but managed to whittle it down to 66 favorites. here's a slideshow for your viewing pleasure. originals can be found here on flickr.

snapshots from zeeland

2011-07-22T22:01:00.000+02:00

happy fourth of july!

2011-07-04T15:24:00.000+02:00

obviously, the 4th of July isn't celebrated here, this being Holland and all. but I think next year i might want to have a little do to celebrate. we'll finally have an outdoors so we can enjoy the weather. and any excuse for a cook-out, right?

progress...

2011-07-03T14:24:00.000+02:00

i went over to the house this week to check on the progress and discuss lighting with our project manager. we're having 6 light fixtures set into the concrete walls in the hallway and in the back of the house and we had to decide on where to put them before the concrete was poured in.

i just realized i haven't posted an update on the change in our lay-out plans. after our renovation reality check we had another long, hard think about what we were planning on doing to the house in terms of changing the lay-out and whether it was really such a fiscally responsible idea to turn the whole house upside down. and basically the answer is: no.

so we decided to keep more of the lay-out the way it is now and just try to work with it. this means that the bedrooms and the bathroom will stay upstairs and downstairs we'll have B's studio/office, my office/L's playroom, an extra bedroom and much-needed storage space (how did we ever think we could live without storage space!?!). it sucks to have to change your plans like that, not once but twice. but then again, it didn't take us very long to get used to the whole idea. and especially when we went over to see the house again and remembered how much we love the place. and they're finally making process on the foundations! hopefully, they'll be done by the 15th so we can start the renovations. here's what it looks like now...

this is the hallway, right about where the stairs will be. some time in the future we want to put an extra toilet in tucked away under the stairs, but that'll have to go on our future to do list for now. the smooth concrete wall to the left is part of the whole concrete structure that will be holding up the house once the foundations get put in.

this is the extra bedroom. you never know when you might need an extra bedroom...

here's another view of the extra bedroom. beyond that will be the storage space and B's studio.

this is the back of the house. the whole space will be turned into an office for me and a play area for Lux. my office will be on the house side...

and the play area will be on the garden side with stairs up into the garden. the door to the garden will be right about where that little window is, to the left.

and this is what it's really all about. this is next door, in our project manager/neighbor's basement. here the hollow, steel foundations are being rammed in one by one. once one is in, the next one gets welded on. when all the hollow foundations are in (18 meters each) they'll be filled up with concrete and sealed off. and that's what the house rests on. pretty neat, huh?

she did it!

2011-07-03T09:08:00.000+02:00

yesterday my not-so-baby sister graduated from The Royal Academy of Arts in Den Haag. so proud!!!

more pictures and info here and here...

soaked to the bone

2011-06-29T09:02:00.000+02:00

i guess the iphone isn't ideal for filming running water, but oh well...

fountain from Cait Kennedy on Vimeo.

tuesday in pictures

2011-06-28T13:41:00.000+02:00

lux is at home with me on tuesday and friday. today we decided to try for a picture an hour. didn't quite make it, but we did our best... good day.

8.00 we had planned on going for an early walk this morning but rain quickly put a stop to that. so we did the next best thing: our toes

9.00 waiting for the rain to pass, watching baby einstein

11.00 playing in the fountain in the koopgoot, soaked from head to toe

12.00 the artist at her desk, with one of 16 mosquito bites showing

13.00 nap time

15.00 post-snooze snack

16.00 we were expecting another storm to come our way in the afternoon, but the weather was nice and shiny (and bloody hot!), so we went out again. found what is possibly the most gorgeous tea tin ever

17.00 lots of yummy sun tea

19.00 some quick magazine reading before bed

weekend

2011-06-27T19:57:00.000+02:00

we managed to get through the weekend pretty well, despite the soggy weather and all the busyness. lots to do but relaxing at the same time, which is kind of weird but very welcome.

dancing in the street with her new big-girl backpack, party dress and shiny new sneakers, all ready for daddy's party at work...

party at the new office...

storytime...

dessert on Saturday: my current favorite, apple crisp with whipped cream. also one of the main reasons i joined the gym...

breakfast on Sunday: cinnamon french toast and coffee...

lovely afternoon bike ride/run through the city...

and lunch at Hotel New York with my sweets... hope you had a good weekend too.

cousins

2011-06-14T15:28:00.000+02:00

we had made plans today to go to the zoo with Opa Arie and Oma Irene and Lux's cousin, Blits, who had an extra day off from school. unfortunately, said plans were almost waylaid by something having to do with a caravan and swimming lessons. but at the last minute everything turned in our favor and we we're able to go anyway. good thing too because Lux was in tears at the idea of not seeing her cousin. those two really are the cutest. Blits is just over 2 years older than Lux and they get along like a house on fire. they really do look like brother and sister; much more even than Blits and his real sister.

so we had ourselves another zoo day. Lux loved nothing more than running around with Blits, holding hands. they really are sweet, those two...

on site

2011-06-09T12:13:00.000+02:00

I went over to the house this morning to talk to our project manager about the placement of the electrical outlets downstairs - oh, the things we choose to care about. But it must be done, and so it was.

The floor was poured in earlier in the week, so the place is finally looking more put together. The walls will be done a week from Friday. Then it will really start to look like something you would actually maybe want to live in some day...

Of course, I forgot my camera, what with getting Lux ready for daycare and out the door (she's becoming quite the little hoarder and wants to take EVERYTHING with her, preferably in it's own separate bag). But I snapped some pics with my trusty iPhone. The quality's not ideal, but c'est la vie...

The black tubes are part of the foundations. They'll be rammed into the holes in the concrete floor and then they'll be filled with concrete.

And this is the back of the house, from two different angles. The wooden boxes is where reinforced concrete will be poured into the walls of the old structure. These will be connected to the new walls, which rest on the floor, which rests on the foundations. So they pretty much hold up the whole house.

W.E.E.K.E.N.D

2011-06-06T08:33:00.000+02:00

For the past week I've been killing myself trying to finish this project I've been working on. Spent several nights working till 2 or 3 and then up again at 6... Might have been a bit of bad planning on my part. But you know what they say about hindsight, 20/20 and whatnot. Well boy, does that ever apply to YT!

But in between all this ass-kicking hard work we managed to have a great weekend. Friends of ours came over with their twin little boys, we took the kids to the zoo and we got to road-test the new grill. Lux had a great time playing with her new buddies and it was nice for us to have some quality grown-up time.

Hope you had a good weekend! Happy Monday!

renovation reality check

2011-06-02T19:01:00.000+02:00

Just as work on the house is finally getting underway, we got some bad news. This week Roel, our neighbor and project manager, came over with the estimates he'd received from 3 building companies for the work that needs to be done on the house (upstairs and downstairs) to finish it off according to our Master Plan. It seems that we drastically underestimated what this whole thing is going to cost. To the tune of almost 50%! Meaning our current budget will only pay for half of the work we want to have done. Oopsie!

So it's was back to the drawing board for us...

This problem could be tackled in one of 3 ways. First, we could try to find the money somehow. This would mean either sucking up to the bank some more (and realistically, there isn't a chance in hell they are going to lend us more money) or hit the parents up for some financing. This didn't really seem like the grown-up thing to do. I really do think that at 35, you should be able to handle things like this without having to run to mommy and daddy (unless there is really no other option). So that option was out.
Our second option, and the one we tried first, was to strip down the Master Plan to a bare minimum. But as we were whittling away at all the great ideas our architect had come up with, it seemed we weren't really getting anywhere. There's only so much you can strip out of a plan without totally destroying a good thing. So this, too, was not a realistic option.
Which leaves us with option 3: dividing this whole project into 2 stages. Both Björn and I have always been big fans of instant satisfaction. And we're pretty good at making it happen for us. We're not used to having to wait. But in this case it seems worth it. So a new plan was born. Now, instead of finishing the whole thing off in one go, we're going to keep the upstairs pretty much the way it is now, with 2 bedrooms and a bathroom, and finish off the downstairs only as far as our budget will allow. For the time being the downstairs will just be one big loft-like room, without any further subdivision into bedrooms or bathroom. And then somewhere down the line, we'll be able to finish the whole thing off according to the original Master Plan. But in the mean time, it will be livable and we won't be giving up on the things we really want for the house. We'll just be postponing them for a while. It'll be good for us. A much-needed lesson in patience, as it were...

This is what the downstairs looked like last week. In the week since these were taken the reinforcement for the concrete flooring was put in and the concrete floor will be poured in this Monday.

This is will be the entrance to the downstairs, where the stairs will be.

This is the main area under the living room, soon to be Björn's office. The wooden boxes are the neighbor's casings for the foundations. Ours will be stuck in between these, but with the openings on our side.

This is the back of the house, soon to be my office. It will have windows in the back wall and the wall to the right. To the left is the neighbors back; the concrete floor has already been put in there.

This is what the reinforcements look like before the concrete is poured in. (Sneak peek at the neighbor's basement.)

And this is the sad state of the old foundations. You can really see why this whole thing is necessary.

On the bright side: the Dutch government has decided to extend their tax break on construction man-hours to jobs contracted up to July 1st (instead of jobs finished by July 1st), which means if we contract this whole thing by July 1st we only pay a 6% tax on the work done, instead of 19%. Saves us a much-needed wad of cash!

So eventhough it is not all good news, if really feels okay. Some adventure...

More pictures here.

photo walk: het park, rotterdam

2011-05-27T22:29:00.000+02:00

For a while now, Lux has been quite averse to sleeping in any way, shape or form. It's been quite a challenge for us to keep our sanity, be nice and not hurl ourselves out the window. But that is a story for another time...

Last night, she finally slept through the night for the first time in I don't know how long. So this morning I wasn't feeling to shabby, thank you very much, and I thought I'd treat myself to a quick photo walk before starting work. Behold the results of said walk to Het Park, here in Rotterdam.

Road Trip!

2011-04-16T21:53:00.000+02:00

Last weekend Björn went to a music festival here in town with some friends of his. Three days of merriment and revelry were his. (Boy works hard, y'all, so he needs his fun in the sun.) So this weekend I had my day, which I was going to spend in typical girlie fashion: shopping, getting my nails done and what have you. But than I thought who would I rather spend the day with than with my peeps. Rather than going out on my own I'd much rather go on a mini-trip with the fam.

Unfortunately, our favorite soon-to-be-two-year-old is have a mighty tough time sleeping lately. Trouble going to sleep, trouble staying asleep. And last night was an all-time low point. Fortunately for me, Björn took care of most of it but that only meant that both B and Luxie were tired puppies today.

But we weren't going to let that stop us and, after a quick trip to the dentist, it was off to the Emmen Dierenpark. We had hoped Lux would sleep on the way up (2 and a half hours), but no such luck. At least not until we were about 6 minutes from the park. Predictably, that's when she fell asleep. Isn't that just like a soon-to-be-two-year-old... But we love her anyway.

We had a great time, despite being a bit tired. Saw some beautiful animals from way closer than you would at any other zoo. The little cycle-twirly-kiddie rides were definitely Lux's favorite. And for once, I remembered to change the lens on my camera! So all in all, a successful day...

UPDATE: Just noticed an unintentional overload of mama-baby shots in this post. I swear, that's not all I took. More here...

old-fashioned oatmeal raisin cookies

2011-04-13T14:02:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, I almost didn't get to get my bake on. I had told Lux she had to finish her sandwich before we made cookies because I didn't want her filling up on cookie dough, which I know she'll do. But she refused! Point blank. No more eating. So I told her "No cookies" and there was a little bit of crying, but not much. Damn! Shot myself in the foot on that one... Fortunately, I left her sandwich out on the table and she went back to it in her own time and finished it off. YEAH!!!

I finally found a recipe for oatmeal cookies that I really wanted to try. So Old-Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies it was. And they're SO good! (If I do say so myself. And yes, I do say so.)

This is actually a combination of two recipes. I first found the Gold Star Favorite: Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies on Poppytalk and then the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe it was based on on Simply Recipes. So I sort of combined the two: skipped the chocolate chips (I'm a purist when it comes to Oatmeal Raisin), kept the whole wheat flour, soaked the raisins. Yup, this is a keeper.

This recipe makes a lot more than the 24 cookies it says, but as I've said before I like small cookies so that might have something to do with it. Of course this meant I had to pack Björn off to work this morning with a whole box of these suckers. I'm guessing it didn't harm his popularity any...

On site

2011-03-13T18:56:00.000+01:00

Haven't posted anything about the house recently. There are two main reasons for that. One is that I've been busier than I ever thought possible. Lots of work all of a sudden, which is good. Really. But busy. Really busy...

And reason number two is that there is very little going on right now. Because we were last to sign on to this project, we are also last in line for having things done. So we'll have to wait a little while longer for some actual action down there in that basement of ours.
We did meet with the architect this week and our plans are really coming together, which is always reassuring. But other than that, not much has happened.

Our neighbor, Roel, was first in line to get his basement done so he's much farther along than we are. His house is a mirror version of ours so pictures* of his basement will give you an idea of what has yet to happen to our house.

This is the back of Roel's house, in what will be Lux's room and the guest room in our house. All the ground that needed to be excavated has been removed and the concrete floor has been poured. It has holes in it that the foundation piles will later be sunk into.

This is the same space but in our house. There's a lot of crap still in here; they found out hadn't excavated enough from Roel's basement after the digger had been moved down the street. So all they could do was dig out the earth from Roel's basement and dump it into ours. When they come back to do our basement it will all me moved out again.

This is what in our case will be our bedroom, the bathroom and Björn's office.

And this is just to give you some idea of the scope of this whole project. This was taken from Roel's basement, through ours and into the basement of our neighbor on the other side. This is some project...

* Please excuse the quality. We weren't counting on going down into the basement so all I had was my iPhone.

Chocolate chip cookies, revisited

2011-03-12T09:49:00.000+01:00

Two weeks ago we took a trip to my favorite cooking store here in Rotterdam and picked up a small cookie scoop (which is really just a small ice cream scoop, but that is neither here nor there). And I also found chocolate chip, which really made my day.

Yesterday I really wanted to make some cupcakes, but Lux was bent on making cookies. So we decided to revisit Smitten Kitchen's Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, but with a few more tweaks. I wanted to see what they would be like using real chocolate chips and maybe add some stuff just for shits and giggles. And I wanted to try out my new scooper. I must say, it is perfect for the Little Miss A.R. in me...

I opted for 2 different versions of the CCCookie: Oatmeal (for me) and Rainbow (for Lux). (BTW, I'm looking for a good oatmeal cookie recipe, so I anyone has a fabulous one, send it my way.)

In process:

Those of you who know me well will appreciate how this new scooper satisfies my need for a sense of order in the chaos...

The finished product:

How cute are these rainbow sprinkles?!?

And the obligatory Cookie Muncher shots:

The verdict:

I have to say I prefer these with chipped chocolate instead of Chocolate Chips. Something about the chewy consistency and whatnot...

I think I am in need of some real Oatmeal Cookies; the oatmeal addition in these doesn't really do anything for the taste or texture. These's too much going on to be able to actually taste the oatmeal.

But the rainbow sprinkles are cute...

Have a death wish? Then by all means, read on...

2011-03-04T20:11:00.000+01:00

Seriously, if you have a death wish then these are the cookies for you.

This week has been so insanely busy. I was facing 4 deadlines and Björn's rebranding the business plus they had a big office move going... It's been a regular party.

Lux went to daycare for an extra day on Tuesday so I could get my work done. (No guilt here; she absolutely loves the place.) So Tuesday Cakefest got stuck in the proverbial freezer.

Today, Friday, was another of Lux's "home" days and 3 out of 4 of my deadlines are now behind me, so we could finally get our bake on! We decided on Double Fudge Oreo Crunch Cookies from How Sweet It Is. (This website is my new addiction. I swear this woman is trying to kill me.)

Let me tell you, are these cookies ever heavenly or what! I'm not really much for chewy cookies and the fudge part makes them chewy, but the Oreo crunch part more than makes up for it. These are definitely a keeper...

I think Lux agrees with me...

Tuesday Cakefest! the nearest thing to chocolate chip cookies

2011-02-22T11:27:00.000+01:00

Lux has been very interested in helping out recently, so I thought it might be fun for her to do some baking. BINGO!!! Hit the jackpot on that one. She loves to fool around with measuring cups and whatever I'll stick in a bowl for her to 'cook' with. And she loves to help put ingedients in the bowl for mommy.

So last Tuesday we decided to try a Smitten Kitchen chocolate chip recipe I've had lying around for a while and today we made them again, but with a few adjustments.

The Nearest Thing to Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Smitten Kitchen

I love chocolate chip cookies, but chocolate chips are extremely hard to come by in this here country so I never make them. But then I thought, we have all this wonderfull Dutch chocolate just lying around so why not use that. I used pretty much the darkest chocolate I would find and it turned out great. Because of the difference in consistency, the chocolate melts more than conventional chips would, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The recipe originally calls for walnuts, but I really like the chocolate & peanut combination so I used peanuts instead. Also, I like vanilla so I doubled the amount but you could use the original amount if you are so inclined.

According to the original recipe this makes about 20 cookies but I like my cookies small, so you end up with a lot more.

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar

8 tablespoons (115 grams) unsalted butter

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups (200 grams) chocolate, at least 70% cocao solids, chopped up into small chuncks

1 cup (300 grams) salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 150 C. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix together sugars and butter. Add in egg, vanilla and baking soda and mix together.

Stir together flour and salt, then add to the batter. Mix in the chocolate and the nuts.

Scoop the cookie dough into small balls using two spoons (or one of those fancy cookie scoops, if you have one) and place them on the cookie sheet, 5 cm apart.

Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

On site

2011-02-16T16:49:00.000+01:00

Can you believe this is what is currently keeping our house from collapsing into a pile of rubble?

Also, the Squarespace App for iPhone is WAY COOL, for any SS users out there...

We have a pool!

2011-02-12T23:19:00.000+01:00

We dropped by the house today to show Gijs and Amy around. They came down with the kids and we went to Railz Miniworld (see here). Good times.

When we opened the hatch to the back, we found this:

No idea what's going on here, but we seem to have acquired a pool of some kind. We'll have to check with the project manager on Monday to see what the deal is. I'm determined not to panic in the mean time...

The Foodie Project

2011-02-11T23:24:00.000+01:00

Okay, so so far this has been all about The Renovation Project. But I'm calling the shots and if I say that there is more to this here bit of cyberspace than renovation, then that's the way it's gonna be. Live with it.

The thing is, as of January 1st we started on the South Beach diet. Or rather, Björn started and I went along with it, with enthusiasm. His reason for wanting to shed a few pounds is quite commendable: he'll be climbing the Mont Blanc in July and wasn't overly keen on schlepping an unnecessary 10 kilos up the mountain side. So hurrah for him and I support his efforts wholeheartedly. As for me, I could stand to lose the last few kilos of baby weight I put on nearly two years ago (has it really been that long?!? shame on me...) and it really does make life easier if we don't have to cook separate meals. Also, I had a pretty bad soda and munchies addiction that I could do without. And that's putting it mildly...

The first two week, which are usually the hardest, went by rather easily. I really got into it and found lots or recipe resources. We were doing fine. And the pounds came off as easily as promised. I lost my 2,5 kilos (5.5 pounds) in about 3 weeks and B's lost about 6 (13 pounds) so far, so we were really doing fine.
But then it hit me. I could do without the soda, without the munchies (thank god! popcorn is allowed or I would have given in long ago), without the potatoes, the white rice, the pasta (whole wheat pasta is okay!), that was all fine. I didn't really have a problem with any of that. But what I did have a problem with was the sugar. And I'm not talking candy bars or gummy bears. I mean good-quality baked goods. As far as I'm concerned, a life without cupcakes is not worth living. (And yet so many people do it, I know, I know...)
Until we started this 'new way of eating' I never knew how much I loved cake, cookies, muffins, etc. The good stuff, not just any old store-bought crap. Baked goods made with love. So I now have to admit, YES! I love thumbing through How to be a Domestic Goddess and I secretly get all giddy when I go through the gazillion food blogs in my Google Reader. Homey? Definitely. Shallow? No, not really. It's a hobby like any other. Mine just happens to be on the domestic side... No harm in that.

So I'm giving myself leave to bake. Cookies, cupcakes, muffins, cakes, anything that tickles my fancy and my taste buds. And I get to post about it here. So if you are equally fond of prancing around the kitchen like a Martha Stewart-wannabe, stick around and you might enjoy yourself.

More digging...

2011-02-06T17:33:00.000+01:00

We went over to the house today to clear out the rest of what's still in the front basement. Here are some pictures of the current state of things.

Here are two views of the back basement, now completely dug out to 4m. In the top picture you can faintly make out an orange X in the top right-hand of the picture; that's were the opening to the front of the basement will be made.

In the front basement, the workers have taken out the stairs, which was kind of a pain in the ass because that was the only way of getting things out of the basement... They left the top step, which wasn't very secure as I later found out when I went right through it. So now it is all completely gone.

Here are a few views of our neighbor's basement, which is almost done. They have about 3 more days of digging to do there. After that they are going to do at least part of our front basement (because our basement floor will be connected to the neighbors), then go on to #86 (we're 80) and double back to do 84, 82 and then finish our basement. This is all because we're the last owners to join this massive project, so we're last in line. Not great planning though.

This is Roel, our neighbor, in his basement

Those pillars are the foundations, the rotten reason we're doing this in the first place.

They've already made a hole in the front of the house so they can run the conveyor belt out up to the street to get rid of all the muck:

Last one for today... The previous owners bought the house from the NS (the Dutch railways) and got stuck with this safe, which they kindly passed onto us. The thing weighs a ton and can't really be moved without a substantial amount of equipment, so they've decided to dig a big hole and have a nice little ceremonial burial for it. Reminds me of a story about my dad and a sports car...

... or Jimmy Hoffa.

The pit

2011-01-30T21:07:00.000+01:00

They started on the back of the house this week. And OH MY GOD what a job! They've got a little digger down there that they drove in through a hole in the wall (they started with our next-door neighbor Roel's basement and then they break through the walls of each of the houses and drive the digger right on through.) They also removed the stairs so we couldn't really get down there to take a good look. All we could do was peek through the opening and try not to fall in...
Here are some pictures of what it looks like now. The second and third photos show how far they've gotten: the former floor was around the top of the plywood. So they're making tracks!
Sorry about the quality. I forgot my camera and there are no lights down there when the workers aren't on the job, so these are iPhone with flash. Not the best quality.

And this is what they've removed. Yuck!!!

The back

2011-01-25T22:24:00.000+01:00

If all goes well, the workmen will be starting on the back soon. They'll be gigging out the floor to a level of a bit more than 3m from the beams. We strongly suspect the concrete floor is hiding the original brick flooring and then another layer of bricks on top of that, so it will take them some time to get rid of it all before they can start on the actual earth removal. But the ceiling is already at about 2m, so they only have to dig out about 1,5m as opposed to the basement in the front of the house, which is at about 1m. Lots more to do there.

These are the before shots.

The back is 10m long and we want to turn it into two bedrooms, one for Lux and one guest room. They'll both have windows to let some light and air into the place; the ceiling of the back basement is about 1m above ground level, so the windows will be about 80cm high and evenly spaced along the longer wall.

Looking forward to some nice Before and After shots once this is done...

Scavenged

2011-01-25T22:10:00.000+01:00

We've been going through the downstairs areas, both front and back, and been trying to get rid of all the shit the previous owners left behind* because the foundation guys are starting on the back this week.

Of course, I wouldn't be my father's daughter if there wasn't some old crap I think might be worth holding on to. Who knows, they may yet turn out to be gems...

Etched-glass door: I strongly suspect that the glass and the door around it were not originally intended for each other. But I really like the glass, so we'll have to see if we can make it work, either in this combination or perhaps use the glass in another door.

Metal shelving: ways a ton, needs some work. A little rust removal and a few coats of bright paint will make it perfect for puzzles and art supplies in Lux's playroom.

Lamp: this might really turn out to be one for the trash, but I thought I might give it a go. It's a long shot though.

I'll keep you posted on whether our finds turn out to be yeas or nays.

* Mental note: next time you buy a house, make sure the sellers take whatever you don't want. You don't want to get stuck with a ginormous, non-functioning freezer again...

Here's the deal

2011-01-24T09:37:00.000+01:00

We bought this house knowing that the foundations had to be redone. Or rather, because the foundations have to be redone. If the foundations hadn't been shot, we never would have bought the house. Too small...

Redoing the foundations is giving us the chance to basically double the size of the house. So it is a hassle that we will happily (and I expect occasionally unhappily) for the next 4 to 6 months. Because after that time we will get what we want: a house big enough to live in indefinitely, in the city, with a garden and enough space to meet everyone's needs.

So here's the deal. The ground floor of the house currently looks more or less like this:

The entrance is through the right door, into the hallway and on into the kitchen. The living room is to the right and there are two bedrooms and a bathroom in the back of the house. What isn't shown in this mock-up is that the floor in the hallway and the kitchen are red linoleum and the floor in the hallway and in the larger and smaller bedrooms in the back is carpeted in green, purple and red, respectively, and the bathroom floor is tiled.

Here's the new situation:

To do's on the ground floor:

It goes without saying (at least in my mind) that the red linoleum and the green, purple and red carpeting will be replaced, we hope by a wooden floor that matches the living room.

The current kitchen is a bit shabby looking so that will also be replaced.

The position of the stairs will be changed. Their position in this mock-up is something we came up with on our own, so we're not yet sure if it is in fact doable...

The current stairs will be removed and the space will be turned into a pantry.

The bathroom and smaller of the two bedrooms will be joined to make a playroom for Lux.

And I get the back room as an office (no big work their, only cosmetic).

The situation in the basement is currently like this:

The front part of the house and the back part are separated by a wall. The ceiling of the back part of the house is now at around 2m and the ceiling of the front part of the house is at around 1,2m. The whole area is going to be dug out to 2,5m in the front and 3m in the back (height difference is due to the back of the house being 50cm higher.)

Here's what we hope it will look like by July 1st:

So a lot of work needs to be done here (as you will see in the photos I will be posting one of these days), but it's pretty self-explanatory. Everything in the mock-up has to be built.

Tonight we're meeting with our next-door neighbor, whom we hope to hire as project manager for the rebuild, and with the architect he works with. Our neighbor's house is a mirror image of ours and his plans run pretty much along the same lines, so we're hoping to cut some of the costs by doing this together. And we're hoping the architect will tell us that our ideas are absolutely brilliant and indeed quite possible. But we'll see. Keep you posted...

Week 1 at The House

2011-01-21T09:40:00.000+01:00

A little over a week has gone by and not much has happened at the new house. On Saturday Björn and I took Lux over to oma and opa to get some work done, but we ended up going through every room/space in the house and deciding what needs to be done, where the walls should go and such. So we didn't accomplish what we set out to do, but some important decisions were made.

I've been sick for a few days now, but I'm feeling a bit better now. Thanks to all who tried to convince me I hadn't contracted the Plague and was in fact not dying a horrible death. Thankfully, Björn is working from home today so he can help out with Lux when things get hairy. Maybe we can get over to the house this afternoon to take some photos and I can show you what it looks like now and what we're going to do. Till then, here are some photos from the sales brochure...

smaller of 2 bedrooms, soon to be the playroom

larger of 2 bedrooms, soon to be my office

We did it!

2011-01-13T11:51:00.000+01:00

We finally did it! We bought our first grown-up house*. After months of convincing the bank to give us a mortgage (it seems banks aren't too keen on lending to people who own their own businesses, even though their employees have no problem getting a mortgage what so ever...), we finally got the keys to our new house yesterday.

The house in and of itself is in pretty good condition. It has a big living room with a nice wooden floor, a kitchen with a skylight a bathroom, two bedrooms and a garden. All in all your basic city apartment, nothing special.

Not in good condition, however, are the foundations. Rotterdam is notorious for having really crappy foundations and a lot of work is being done replacing them. Unfortunately, this isn't just something that can be done in 1 week or even 1 month. It takes quite a long time, because usually they (meaning builders and/or the city) don't want to redo the foundations of just one house but rather a group of houses or even one side of a street at a time. So, the foundations have to be redone on our new abode. But this is a good thing!!! Because so much digging and whatnot is going on in the basement and because the garden side of the house is on a much lower level than the street side, we have the opportunity of creating a whole

other story to the house with windows and daylight (!!!), giving us twice as much space.

Of course, all this is an enormous amount of work so it will take at least 5 months to finish. We're hoping to move by July 1st, but we're pretty flexible as we haven't yet sold our current apartment (any takers?).

My intention here is to keep track of this new project of ours for any and all who might be interested (and to bore you with anything else I need to get off my chest). So check back for updates if you can...

* I'm using the term 'house' loosely here. It is actually the ground floor of a 4-story building that once used to belong to one owner, but has long been split into two separate apartments.