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.

One year ago today we broke ground. I took Omri with me and we looked on as work on our house started:

This is what we have now:

What a long and winding road it is, and we still have another month ahead of us.

The hand prints are in the wall by the entrance, the Kill Bill II lights are set as well and we are getting ready to “close” the house, which means doors and windows are installed. That will happen in about a week.

After that we can start putting in the expansive stuff (otherwise known as the ’stealables’) in place: faucets, A/C, etc.

While Taufik the stucco guy is wrapping up, focusing on the parameter wall (he did a great job so far – mostly notably with the KB II lights), this week we went back into the house with the first layer of paint.

It looked like the painter used a spray gun. Is that possible?

Sniff, sniff. Can you smell the end? As Al Gore once said, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings, but I believe she is already clearing her throat.” Amen to that!

We wanted to add an extra touch to the house that has a real personal touch and decided to do it with our prints. Not a silly hand print in the driveway cement, but a silly hand print taken to the next level.

This afternoon all four of us – Gali, Omri, Tallulah and me – sunk our paws into the stucco mix especially prepared for the house. It was a fun project that came out really nice:

It was great to see how excited Omri was about it. He helped me add water to the powder and mix it, poured it with me into the wooden mould, helping me smooth it, jumping all around it throughout. He even wanted to hold Tallulah when we set her right paw. Tallulah, by the way, was totally cooperative and didn’t move at all.

When we left it outside to dry, he ran out to it every few minutes to check it out.

This week we will place it into the wall as a tile below the window by the door stating “Hi, this is our house.”