Day 7 Of Our Rhine River Cruise And Germany Bus Tour

Finally and slowly getting around to posting entries about our last adventure. Our home remodel has been keeping me quite bust and away from posting about our last vacation. So let's pickup where we left off.
This would be Day 7 and on this day we docked in Breisach, Germany. Breisach is at the foot of the Kaiserstuhl Mountain on the French-German border. Breisach is also the gateway into the Black Forest region.After spending the morning in Breisach, we took a bus in the afternoon to visit Colmar, France.
Below are some photos of the sights while we were in Breisach:

Unusual piece of artwork in Breisach 

  Smoking is still going strong in Europe. This working machine was in Breisach.

 After visiting Breisach in the morning Veronica and I decided to take an excursion to Colmar, France. We had already planned on going to Colmar the next time we go to Paris but wanted to see if it would be worth a longer visit. As it turned out Colmar will be a place that we return to in Spring of 2019 when we go to Paris. We will take a train to Colmar and spend the night there. It is a beautiful place and will be more enjoyable after hours, when most of the tourists have left the area for the evening.

St. Martins Church is a Roman Catholic Church in Colmar 

Shoes nailed next to the windows of this residence in Colmar. Not sure what the reason they were there

Colmar had some beautiful canals running through it and flowers were in bloom everywhere

We left Breisach and were sailing towards Basel, Switzerland. We went through several locks on our way there. I was leaning out of our cabin veranda and saw this other river boat ahead of us heading towards a lock. I took this photo to catch the boat and the reflection of the boat on our ships outside windows

Below are views of one of the bigger locks our ship went through.

Tonight we had our farewell dinner on board the Avalon Felicity.

Tomorrow we will get off the ship with all of our luggage and take a van to Munich, Germany. We we supposed to be taking a train, in 1st class, to Munich but due to some sort of rail line maintenance issue, we ended up on an extremely long drive in a van to meet up with our next group on a Globus tour of Germany.

New Lights Hung and Awaiting Painters

We have been very busy since my last blog entry. After a bit of stress and a few stern words to the owner, the drywall crew finally completed the job they were hired to do. Yesterday they worked hard and did everything asked and expected of them and completed the all of the drywall patching, caulking, mudding and repairing in preparation for the upcoming painting project that will begin soon.
The owner and crew worked very hard to make up for some issues that transpired after their first day on the job. But with that aspect of the work done I can honestly say that the interior of the house is as ready for the new paint to be applied as it is going to be.
We have had to move what was left in the house into the middle of each room in order to give the painters access to the walls and ceiling.
Yesterday we also got all of the electrical work done and completed. New lights everywhere along with new ceiling fans plus adding a ceiling fan into Veronica's sewing room.
I still have to move the furniture in our bedroom into the middle of the room and clean all baseboards and door frames in the room for the painters. I will tackle that job tomorrow. Depending on what day the painters start, I might be able to get a little more caulking done in our current bedroom and in the sun room. Everywhere else in the house has been done.
Our painting crew was supposed to have started 2 days ago but because the walls had not been fully prepped yet I had to call them and postpone the start of painting by a couple of days.
Here are a few photos of our new lights and the current condition and location of our belongings in each room. It is getting harder and harder to live in the place in the condition everything is in and really hard to find anything that you might need.

 I really like the lighting fixture shown below. It has LED Flame effect bulbs that flicker and look like they are gas lights

Our breakfast nook light

Formal dining room light. We will probably change out the bulbs. They have that yellowish look to them and we like the daylight look better plus they are much brighter

Below is our kitchen light. The interior is white in color which helps reflect the light but we are probably going to use a roller brush and paint it a similar color to match the outside color. We are also thinking about adding something to the outside  

New ceiling fan and gimbal light fixture. the ceiling fan is remote control. Also below are the rooms with everything put in the middle of the room for the painters

Tree On Roof Issue And An Update On The Home Renovation Project

We were finally able to get someone out here to remove the 2 large branches that were laying on our roof that were caused by the high winds that we had when the tropical storm (downgraded Hurricane Michael) passed West-Northwest of us a couple of weeks back. The tree people ended up cutting the remainder of the once beautiful Bradford Pear tree down and hauled it away. They will be returning to grind the stump down in the near future.
We then had a roofing specialist come in to check on potential damage to the roof caused by the tree.
Upon further inspection of the overall roof, we were notified that the roof and gutters had suffered wind and hail damage.
Based on this information I contacted our insurance company and filed a claim. An adjuster will be coming by on 11/7 to check out the damage himself.
We will see how that turns out. If it were not for the tree falling ion the roof we would probably have never known about the recent wind and hail damage to our roof and gutters.
We have been very busy removing our belongings and packing stuff up in order to get as much out of the house as possible before the painters arrive on Monday. Our POD unit is full and the garage is about 3/4 full. I also had to put stuff into our attic.
Yesterday our electrician came in and started on the long list of items that we requested to be done inside the house.Today he will return and put up all of the new lighting fixtures. I will post photos when he has completed the projects.
Currently we have a drywall/plaster crew inside doing quite a bit of work on our walls...repairing cracks, smoothing out portions of the wall and mudding various areas. All of this is in preparation for the painters to start painting the interior, which they are projecting as being a 2 week project.
One last note....the new pantry door came in and was installed and the gas gas range has been hooked up so now we can cook again.
More updates to follow.