Cellar - Day 1

We wanted to head up to Heimerwegwiesen early today to be there when the guys arrived with the cellar and see the first walls going in but we got away late after sleeping in as Sophie decided to play a screaming game between 5am and 7am!

We arrived in Lehningen around 10am and the lorries with the cellar were there along with a couple of vans and two builders, but there was no action on site.  It turned out that the crane broke down on the way so an alternative had to be arranged at short notice.  Unfortunately the second crane also couldn't make it so a third had to be organised.

Lorries with the cellar waiting for the crane:

 

After a surprisingly short wait the third crane arrived and work started at around 11am, about 3 hours later than planned. Respect to all involved for getting a new crane booked at such short notice.

Firstly, they installed the pillars to hold up the bay extensions and to support the garage foundations.

These pillars are much more substantial than we thought but that's fine with us!

Next came the first wall.

The guys worked through without a break until all the walls were up.

Next up was the floor plate for the rear bay extension.

Then the rest of the ground floor plate.

Finally they installed the floor plate for the dining room bay extension. You can see this in the foreground in the above picture.

At quarter to four they were done with the heavy lifting and they had their first break, we supplied coffee and cake.  They then just had to prepare the site for tomorrow before finishing for the day.

Here's how things looked when we left:

Other news is that we bumped in to our Head Builder who was in Lehningen to oversee another Allkauf build opposite ours.  We arranged to meet him again this Thursday once the cellar is finished to plan our build. We also met our heating installer and our chimney sweep who were also on site to plan our neighbours installation.