The Golan Home

It’s now six weeks after we moved in and we feel at home. Most of what needed to be done after the move-in was taken care of – at least the important stuff: electricity fixes, master bedroom closet put in place, garden done, gas supply installed, the fence erected and the all important Internet hook up problems resolved.

Not all was done, and the teams still come in to wrap things up, some of them major. We don’t have lights on the roof balcony, the entrance walkway needs to be finished and… the list goes on. We have enough weekend projects to last us a year.

On top of that, Gali is so due that every little move of this unborn girl is very visible on her mother’s belly. It is probably just a matter of days until the baby is born.

What a ride it was and continues to be. The lessons we learned were immense – about handling such a project, the pressures and, most important, the human interaction.

There are so many people to thank, above them all, our architect Shimon, who never failed us. He stood by us through all the hardships and supported the project and us in his always gentle manner. Without him the Promised Land would have been harder to achieve, and never look as good and close to our vision as it does today. Thank you Shimon!

This blog will continue to run. I’ll update it on occasion, maybe direct it to a different path. We have a growing family after all.

May the coming New (Jewish) Year be happy, supply a fertile ground for growth, be a time of new beginnings, safe, challenging and full of love.

These past few of weeks have been hectic, to a crazy degree. We have crews working on the house six days a week, usually a number of them at the same time. It seems like that is how it is supposed to be, but it wasn’t until now.

Our original move-in date of August 1 has past already. The new move-in date is August 15 – this Friday and it’s set in stone: our apartment is being packed, the movers were invited, and everything will be ready.

In the past four weeks we saw electricians, carpenters, A/C installers and ironsmiths work side by side one day, and tile setters, (different) carpenters, door installers and plumbers the next. Coordination, timelines, cajoling, even applied pressure became the central elements of our day, interwoven into our regular activities that kept on going as usual.

A square meter of missing tile or a worker who did not show up were part of the pressure applied on us.

In the midst of it all, Gali is already nine months pregnant and I, just a week before move-in day, flew out to Mumbai for work (I’m writing this post at Zurich Airport on my way back home).

We now have stairs, water, lights, windows and doors (not to be taken for granted!), banisters, even a deck, trees and grass.

In the remaining days the parquet floor will be installed, a last coat of paint will be applied, the front door will be fixed, last bathroom fixtures installed and the house will be cleaned.

Come Friday, we are in!

PS – To our reader Uri: turns out that transfers to India do need to go through border control in Vienna. I hope you got to your flight on time.

I’m sorry it has been so long since I last posted an update here. Travel trips, work, the house and a fair amount of writing fatigue got the best of me.

Not very entertaining, but here is what happened since: We finished putting in the floor in the entire house, save the wood floor that will go in the living room and kitchen at the very end of work on the house and after everything else is done.

The stone window sills were put in, twice everywhere the blinds slide into the wall. Rami, the marble guy, also did the stairs that go down to the basement as well as the top of the English garden wall.

We found a landscaping duo that cleaned the yard from the debris left by all the previous contractors, most notably the insulation team that seem to have lit a small bonfire to melt tar. The yard was then filled with rich gardening soil. These two guys, one a Brazilian with a heavy rolling and joyace accent, came up with some great ideas for our roof garden.

The insulation guy placed a second strip around the house at the new ground level while the plumber connected the pipes coming out of the house to the outside system and the electrician installed the Kill Bill lights.

In the mean time, Ihab, the carpenter, finished building the kitchen. It was exciting to see it in his shop all set up the way it will be in the house. It was then when I realized how large it is. It looked great. Together with the inside doors it was sent to be oven painted.

Running the list it sounds like a lot, but it really took more time then it should, again being busy and finding it hard to manage this project around work time. It really slapped me in the face at two occasions. The first was a report on the construction ahead of the Beijing Olympics. In the time I built half a house, whole arenas, hotels, roads and even additional under ground train stations were erected and completed. But as impressive as the Chinese are these days (proving the power of money and the might of the focused will), a near by house that started to be constructed months after mine is practically finished.

Eleven months past since we broke ground.

Some more work went on in the past week and even more is happening now. All about that in the next post.