Shopping for accessories

We popped over to a place near Amsterdam on Friday that sells old and reclaimed building materials, called J. van IJken Oudebouwmaterialen bv. We've been after some original Jugendstil tiles for the toilets after discovering the background of the house (we've since found out that the house was used by a chiropodist prior to it being converted into an art gallery) and we weren't disappointed by this place; we're now the proud owner of 200 authentic Jugendstil tiles (see picture on the left)!


The place sells lots of things that have seemingly been rescued from old buildings, like tiles, bricks, roof tiles and soap trays from old bathrooms, like the one we bought for our new shower pictured above. We were going to have a tiled shelf built into the shower cell, but after chatting with a guy in a bathroom showroom, we were put off by the idea of having to clean it every day. So this old solution should turn out to be more practical... and more charming.


I suspect that we may be paying this place a couple more visits in the future. They sell lots of old doors and windows and frames; it may turn out cheaper and stylistically quite interesting to try re-using some of these old bits and bobs in the new house, for example for the glass division we still need to source between the front entrance and the kitchen/dining room and maybe to construct some furniture from?


And talking of old furniture, we managed to acquire a vintage piece of what we assume is a kitchen wall cabinet. You can just about make out the bottom half of it in the picture above, sat on top of the floor standing cupboard. After a good clean up and some new hinge pins, we plan on hanging this on the wall in the dining area to keep our cups, saucers, glasses, tea and coffee in.

So, we've generally had a good week and I'm certainly glad that we took the week off; we seem to have got on top of things a little and we're both feeling more confident about getting on with the job. Next step is to try and get the building cost down, since we got the quote off the building contractor this week...

Happy Easter!

 
Hope you're all having a great Easter?

We had the pleasure of entertaining Flo's parents (Charles and Truus) after they accepted our offer to come 'round for brunch and it was a great excuse to prepare lots of nice food and open up a bottle of champagne.

Proost! 

Our new street, as seen from space...

 
I was just having a play with Google Earth and thought it would be gezellig to stick a picture of our new street on the blog, as seen from space!

I made the picture so that you can see our street in relation to the Peace Pallace... our street is just down the road, literally a 2 minute walk from the historic building. It's also only about a 3 minute walk from Chris' den Haag office (NIB Capital)... so no excuses for not popping in and seeing us when you visit the office anymore Homer!

Anyway, our new street is the one in the centre of the picture, running north-west by south-east. The house is on the east side of the street, so the back garden is facing north-east. 

Floor's floors and drawers...

Since Flo's given an update on the baby project, I feel obliged to update on the house project. So here goes...

Flo and I decided to take this week off in order to try and get on top of things... with such a lot to do it's difficult juggling everything while keeping a full time job going at the same time.

We're still waiting to hear back from the local council for planning approval to knock down some load bearing walls. Although this is delaying things, it's really a bit of a saving grace at the moment since it's giving us time to choose what we want and to plan things more effectively. We received the updated drawings from our structural engineer last week, now incorporating our new kitchen layout and bathroom and with new calculations for the steel beams that will support our neighbour's house when the load bearing walls are knocked out. He's been in contact with the council and seems to think that we'll hear from them within the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we've come up with an electrical plan for the entire house and already been through one revision to incorporate some of the existing electrics in an attempt to keep the costs down. We've been to a few bathroom showrooms and are getting a quote for the bathroom fittings, tiles and shower base; we're getting a quote on having a custom made Belgian bluestone base made for the shower cell.

We've had a guy 'round to look at making some new stairs and we've organised for a couple more to come 'round and give us some quotes. We were supposed to have a guy come 'round to survey the chimney to determine if we can install a log burning stove or at least a gas stove in the lounge... but after him not turning up for three appointments over the course of the day he decided to loose our business when he hung up on Flo while she was explaining to him how disastified with his service we were (the company was Griffioen in Rotterdam... steer clear!)

This evening we showed a Scottish carpenter around the house and asked him to give us a quote for fitting double glazing in the back windows, making a trap door over the stairs to the cellar, fitting some shelves in the wine rack in the cellar and making the division between the front entrance and the dining room/kitchen area. He smelt of stale beer (not pish) and cigarettes, but I suppose that's par for the course being a Scott's man. Seemed like a pleasant chap though and he comes with good references from my work colleagues.

Flo's also been busy chasing gardeners, so we should soon be getting some quotes for realising the chosen garden design that Harrie came up with.

Still to do this week is visit the showroom where we're thinking of getting the cement and epoxy floor from and chase up a lead from a local knicker shop for supplying a wooden floor; we asked the shop owner where he got his wooden floor from and it turned out that he got it very cheap and fitted it himself... so a very promising lead and one I got some pants out of... some new Calvin Klein's!

Although we have the kitchen pretty much decided, I still need to write it up and source the parts, so that'll keep me busy over the next couple of days. The radiator plan is sorted and we're planning on re-using most of the radiators that were in the house, with only a couple of new ones. We've also decided that we're going to buy a new toilet to try and save some space in the upstairs toilet; since this is a pretty small room, we need to be economical with the space and the existing toilet isn't.

We're still waiting for the quote from the building contractor. Flo spoke to him this evening and he indicated that it was looking like it will come in over the budget that we've given him. Fortunately, we gave him a low budget, but even so, we may have to start cutting back in order to reduce the expenditure... we'll find out in the next couple of days.

To help pay for it all, we've also seen a couple of financial advisers this week... we managed to sponge a free lunch from the ones we met today, so that saved us about €7.00 already! So off to a good start...

Back to the hospital

Since we have been asked by a couple of people when we'd update the blog, a short update.... Good to know that we have some dedicated followers! :-)

Yesterday we went back to the hospital for a couple more tests. We met some new doctors and nurses, all of whom knew our names and that we had done one try before in another hospital. It felt so much more personal than before!

Jonny had to do a sperm test and I had an ultrasound. We get the results of the sperm test tomorrow and will then know whether the indication is IVF or ISCI. Since we did ICSI last time, they are assuming it will be the same this time.

The ultrasound was not all good news; the doctor discovered a cyst of almost 5 mm on my left ovary and said we cannot start the treatment until that has gone. The cyst basically rules out the left ovary for stimulation and there is also a risk of infection during the puncture. Apparently cysts are quite common during the cycle and they come and go naturally. We need to go back a couple of days before the menstruation prior to commencing the treatment. During another ultrasound they will then be able to see what the influence of my cycle is on the cyst. If it is still there we then need to discuss further treatment of the cyst before we can carry on with the IVF-ICSI.

After the test we had a chat to a nurse, who explained the procedure to us. Like Jonny said before, they have the short procedure. This means starting the hormones on the first day of the menstruation and the puncture between day 11 and 14, depending on the growth of the follicles. So a lot less hormones and we both liked the sound of that!

I went out of the hospital glowing (according to Jonny). Happy that we are starting again and that the team in Voorburg will try and help us have a chance of our own baby. And it was a nice sunny day too... Cold though! Will spring ever start this year?