...to a deluxe apartment in the sky...
Okay, so maybe not a deluxe apartment...more like a small, yet nicely finished flat. It is definitely a move up from our corporate housing flat. The last week and a half we have been busy getting our stuff unpacked and creating solutions to our storage shortage. Apart from waiting for our TV stand to be shipped and putting a few more things on the walls, we are pretty much settled and it is starting to feel like home!
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| Our street, in the Borough of Islington, London |
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Our neighborhood is nice and quiet...so different from the Creechurch flat. It is nice to finally get a good nights sleep! And just down the block onto Essex Street we have access to almost everything we could possible need. Within a five minute walk we can do some grocery shopping, visit at least 6 pubs, pick up some odds and ends at a pound store, grab an organic meal at a Whole Foods type store, do some second hand shopping, pick out a few books at the library, eat at a dozen different restaurants and peruse fabric at two haberdashery shops. It is great! Plus, Josh LOVES his short 10 minute walk to work, it is so much better than getting on the tube!
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| Past Caring...a second hand store in our neighborhood. |
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| My dream...a library right down the street! |
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| Essex Street |
Our flat is situated on the ground floor. We have an upstairs neighbor who shares our outside door and a downstairs neighbor that has their own entrance. We haven't met either of them yet, and luckily we haven't heard much noise from either of them.
As you walk in our flat, we have a short hallway.
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| Coat rack in the entry. |
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Off the hallway to the right is the reception (living) room. The couch, dining table and coffee table were furnished with the flat.
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| Josh having his lunch in the reception room. |
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| Reception room. |
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| That little alcove used to be a fireplace. |
See that fabric box? I made it! I also made one for under the coffee table. Extra storage...oh yeah!
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| Our TV corner. |
We ordered a bookcase to put our TV on...and it came on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, they sent us the wrong one, so for now we have a bogan set up. Bogan, by the way, is a word we learned from our Aussie friends that means something similar to a red-neck.
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| Reception Room. |
To the left of the living room is our bathroom. I love this bathroom. It is a million times better than the one on Creechurch. Of course, this is England, and it does have its downfalls, but they aren't too terrible.
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| Bathroom |
There is a huge counter that has virtually no storage in it, which is annoying, but the sink is nice and big and the toilet flushes with no problem, yay!
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| Shower/Bathtub |
The shower has good pressure and is usually a good temperature. I am disappointed in the bathtub though...the bath time situation is sad. The water comes out really slow and not very hot, so I do not see a lot of baths in my future, darn it.
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| Howdy People! |
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| Our fancy bathroom storage. |
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That nifty towel rack warms up your towels. Nice!
To the left of the bathroom is our kitchen. I love the kitchen, it is great! Thankfully, there is a lot of storage in here, so everything cooking related that I had shipped from the states fits. The only thing I really miss is a disposal...not a fan of having to dig food scraps out of the sink. Oh well, I can't have it all!
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| Kitchen! | |
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| Grocery sign I brought from home and spice racks from Ikea. |
I kind of had too much fun with chalkboard paint the other day. All my spices now are labeled with chalk and I have herbs on my window sills that are labeled as well.
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| I love it! |
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| More kitchen. |
I really like the granite counter tops, although it is really hard to tell where crumbs are. I actually have to bend down to counter level to tell if I got them all, ha ha!
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| Kitchen |
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| View out my kitchen window. |
Down a few steps, past the kitchen, is a tiny little closet that houses our washer and other things that needed a home.
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| Utility closet. |
I can just barely stand up in this closet, so, lucky me gets to do all the laundry since Josh would have to hunch! There is only a washer, so everything has to be dried by on a rack. I have two racks that will hang off the radiators. I also hang a few things up over the tub. It is slow and a more work, but all in all, it isn't too bad.
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| Our bedroom |
The last room we have is our bedroom. It is located at the back of the flat and you can access our patio through it. The closet in here is tiny! But we managed to get everything put away. There is also storage under our bed, so that is where we have put a lot of things that we only use occasionally, like luggage and Christmas decorations.
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| Bedroom |
If you look closely, to the left of the dresser, you will see our corner closet. Here it is open.
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| Our closet. |
It actually goes all the way to the wall on the right, but it is still only about 3 or 4 feet. Josh has the top and I get the bottom. I managed to get most of my hanging stuff in there by making these...
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| Space savers! |
It is a metal shower hook with a short chain attached. This allows me to hang a bunch of stuff in a small amount of space. Yay! Off of our bedroom is the patio, that we have yet to enjoy since it is still chilly and we don't have furniture out there yet. But I think we will spend a lot of time out there once the weather gets nicer.
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| Patio |
So there you have it! All 466 square feet of Baird residence! Last night, we had our first "dinner party" with our Aussie friends. It was nice to have people over in our own home again. I can't wait to have some visitors though. My cousin Trisha will be visiting in March, I'm very excited to have her stay with us!
Bye for now, Rachel
12 comments:
Looks really nice Rach! And you have done well with working out the storage stuff, what does that word Apothercary mean on your sign? Love the pic of you too! So when I come for a month, where will I put my clothes? LOL! Poor Josh probably just had a heart attack.
You didn't tell people how you have to dry your cloths, this to mean would be interesting.
Good seeing and talking to you yesterday, so glad to see your new Blog up, Dad and I always enjoy reading it. Say hello to Josh, Love ya, Mom
Apothecary is an old word for a pharmacist. I made it a few years ago for one of our fall parties. I think you would go crazy here if you stayed for a month! A week should be plenty, and we will find somewhere for your clothes!
Is the sofa the only seating in the reception room? Love your creativity thought out the Flat, from your
plants for spice to your crafty hanger thing.
In the reception room we have the sofa, a chair that we had shipped over and 4 chairs for the dining table.
Well, it looks very nice and cozy, can't wait to see it in person., tell me again why we are waiting till October?
You can come whenever you want! Just avoid the Olympics!
Forgot, we are waiting till Sam and Amanda get there too. Did you get your TV stand?
I wrote on this once but guess it didn't make it. Love you flat. Looks so cozy. And you are so Suzy Homemaker in how you make things work for you. I'm very proud of you! You've got a nice view out your kitchen window. In fact I think all the rooms look just right for two people & maybe a little company once in awhile. Your wash room leaves a little to be desired but hey, where there's a will, theres a way. Like your hanger you made to save space. Mom said you made your own graham crackers the other day. I didn't know you could do such a thing. Had you a recipe for it? Love you hon, Grandma D
Finally got it yesterday...Josh is attempting to put it together as I write...
Thanks Grandma D! I do have a recipe for the graham crackers. Do you want me to send it to you?
Two places I for sure what to see when we come is the Museum where Princes Diane dress are, and Harrods. Are you going to get a journal book?,place where peeps can tell what they did when there, and if they enjoyed it or not would be helpful to other guests.
I haven't thought about it...sounds like a good idea though!
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