Housebuilding in Finland

[Edi]

Looking good.

Why laminate flooring instead of hardwood, though? Hardwood is more expensive yes, but it's a lot easier to keep clean (laminate attracts dust like a motehrfucker) and depending on the variant, it looks a lot nicer than any laminate I've seen. We've got ashwood flooring in our apartment and it's gorgeous. Two smaller rooms still have laminate and I kick myself every day for not spending the extra money to have them done with the same hardwood.

[His Divine Shadow]

Price and durability, hardwood requires more maintenance and I am not keen on that and we got a cat that likes to run real fast and make sharp turns where she's skidding across the floor with her claws scratching the floor as she's trying to change direction. But mostly it's money. Neither of us really cared that much about spending extra on the floor, it'll be abused by kids and pets for years to come. Perhaps when we're older I'll make my own flooring.

[His Divine Shadow]

Stuff has happened. Most of the electrical work is done, still some lights and such left though. Benches are installed, sinks are installed (not yet hooked up), got the fridge, freezer, dishwasher, oven and stove top. Toilets and other bathroom appliances as well but not yet hooked up.

Trying to pester the people to come do it next week because we wanna move in next weekend.

Today we've been putting up the tiles on the kitchen walls over the counters:







Behold, induction stove top ala Jeremy Clarkson, 400 volts, 3-phase, powerrrr!

It'll boil a pot of water in no time flat.

The bathroom door, I am really pleased with this door, I never would have known about it if we hadn't gone around checking other newly built houses.


Also been having some insane weather in Finland the last 4 weeks, plenty of times it's topped 30C which doesn't happen often here, almost every day has been 25-29 degrees though. So some of the nicest summer weather since almost as long as I've been alive (warmest summer in 30 years according to the news) and I get to spend my entire vacation working and sweating and stressing to get the house ready in time.

Also had the earth moving guy there and he's digging and shuffling around that few hundred cubic meters of soil I bought into a shape that pleases me. Also dug a really deep hole to get at a pipe and we struck a water vein and I had to go buy a sump pump to keep the hole drained, so much underground waterflow in this area.

[Chardok]

So Jealous. Here in Texas, we don't have such luxuries as "Water" and 30C is almost jacket weather. :/

[J]

You have residential 3 phase power service in Finland? I was wondering how you'd run that vintage table saw you have, i guess that answer that question!

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah it's standard in Scandinavia and also Germany, parts of Switzerland and I think France. It's how most people run their stoves (electric & induction is dominant here, Finland uses hardly any gas at all), also very useful if you want to run old professional equipment.

I wondered why it wasn't standard in America or Canada, but I think it has to do with the electricity grid setup, seems you have a lot more and smaller transformers serving a few houses, while in Europe the transformers are larger and serve a much larger amount of houses, I wonder if that's why its easier(cheaper?) to supply 3-phase?

We moved in last night btw, been a few extremely hectic days, don't have internet at home yet and still haven't unpacked, but I'll upload some pictures later.

[Sea Skimmer]

That is correct, the US likes to step down voltage and combined phases very close to the point of use, and the transformers on the power poles are endless as a result. Nearly every street corner in the city, every street in the suburbs. Small apartment buildings and such will have a dedicated transformer setup in a pit or less often behind walls on the property. In rural areas a single home might have its own transformer.

The reason for this is anything over 120 volts was seen unsafe, or at least less safe, for residential use for very long time. Though sometimes people have two 120 volt lines wired together to make 240 volts for washing machines or central AC units. But that isn't all that common despite the power savings. My understanding is three phase power at such low voltages and 60 hertz is not seen as economical so it just never exists in US homes at all.

[LaCroix]

I know that at least in Austria and Hungary (which means probably in most Europe), they feed 400V(in a 3phase-null-ground configuration) into the house and rewire it at the fusebox. As in 'take one live line, the null, and the ground' and use it for the residential 240V. Then, they feed all lines to the kitchen to have the stove run at 400V.

Ask nicely, and the "spark cobbler" will set you up with a 400V outlet wherever you want, too.

[His Divine Shadow]

OK, we moved in last sunday, it's been pretty hectic but here are some photos of what it looked like just after we moved in. A bit of a mess in the pictures. Lots of boxes and stuff still unpacked and other things not yet completed, but we're working on it and at least now we're living where we're working so things are way easier.












Still missing the sink/wash basin and cabinet in the bathroom, but the shower and toilet works at least.


Still haven't gotten the proper microwave and some drawers and hinges for doors are missing too.

[Borgholio]

Looking VERY nice. And of course I see you have the mandatory counter-top cat.

[Chardok]

A very nice house. But I'm noticing an alarming lack of televisions.

[His Divine Shadow]

I haven't had a tv since 2006 actually. But it just so happens that we just bought a 50" lg television

[fnord]

Awesome! Finally in. How's everyone adjusting (whether on two legs or four), and how long do you think/hope will it take to get all your stuff unpacked?

[LadyTevar]

Ok, now its a home, you have a cat laying claim to countertops and baby toys in the floor.

I love the leather couches, those look very comfy. The kitchen may not be finished, but I can see it's got everyting right in reach. Did you plan for an extra bedroom once the twins are old enough to demand one?

[His Divine Shadow]

Thanks, and yeah we have one room for each, but they'll get to share a room to begin with, though for now they have their beds in our bedroom.

We had to move the cats dishes to the countertop because Daniel gets everywhere now and he once put his hands in the catfood.

[Elheru Aran]

They do that. I will be happy to assure you that they grow out of it. Cat food is also generally not going to harm them if they manage to eat some of it-- it's mostly a vague meat product with some vegetable supplements. Might not taste that great, but they might be too young to care. It is rather the dickens to keep them out of it for a while though!

I can attest to this from personal experience

What are you doing for child-proofing on the lower cabinets?

[Chardok]

Interestingly, I recently tried a bit of wet cat food. It tasted very simliar to sort of....mushed vienna sausages. Not awful - I could probably eat it if I had to on a semi-regular basis (i.e. zombie apocalypse, Mad Max)

[His Divine Shadow]

On the cabinet issue I dunno what's a good method really, so far I've just decided to take all the baby dangerous stuff to the high cabinets instead.

[Borgholio]

On the cabinet issue I dunno what's a good method really, so far I've just decided to take all the baby dangerous stuff to the high cabinets instead.

They do have baby proof locks...although when I was a kid I could break into them in ten seconds flat.

Another option is to put the dangerous stuff in high cabinets and secure them with earthquake latches. I dunno if you can even get those on that side of the pond but they're a dime a dozen over here for obvious reasons.

[Sea Skimmer]

You can get little internal magnetic locks for cabinets without knobs, but you do have to then use a key to open them each time. I've seen them used before, I've heard of mechanical ones that allow the cabinet to openly slightly, then you have to depress a lever from the top with a tool or fingure to unlatch. Everything dangerous in a high cabinet is a fairly reasonable option for safety, but some kids will just tear into anything and that can be a problem anyway.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah I'm just thinking that we'd grow insanely frustrated in the long run with that kind of solution, I could put the magnetic locks in a few cabinets perhaps with cleaning fluids and the like that are not often opened.

[Lord Revan]

I seem to remember that plastic stoppers aren't that expensive and are put on with screws so they'll be easy enough to remove once you don't need them anymore, but I could be wrong as I brother's kids don't visit here that often so I've not needed to child proof my appartment.

[His Divine Shadow]

Been doing random work in the house, today we got the central vacuum cleaner installed and the 2nd bathroom is finallt fixed.

In the garage I made an extended outfeed table for my table saw:


Made this on sunday, finishing work and a coat of some translucent stain on monday, considering shellac finish in addition to what it's got, something darker:






And I am gonna pick up this little jointer/planer (planer/thicknesser in british) later, something of a renovation project:

[madd0ct0r]

beautiful old piece that. and well done on the shoe rack - you've reinvented ikea!

[His Divine Shadow]

Well it's a stop gap until I can afford something better, I did find a 400kg machine for as many euros, a really nice cast iron vintage machine, but my workshop is too small for it. Anyway for now the ability to plane and thickness will be very useful for all kinds of projects. Also for making my own lumber from trees.

In other news we got a TV (and a proper table since this pic was taken)


Finally bothered cutting up the trim for the area around the stove


Found a whole new room in the garage (I really didn't know about the hatch there):




This will come in handy as a storage area for boards and lumber, gonna make some shelves so I can keep everything organized.