Eight Days a Week March 7, 2011

Is it really March already? Sheesh, time flies when you’re having fun taking an intensive language course.  As predicted, the class has sort of taken over my life to some extent and pushed other things (like blogs) to the side.  So between my classes, family visits and resumed shopping trips to Ikea, there hasn’t been a whole lot of time to write.  But here’s the latest progress report:

Language class: It’s going well. Fairly well. Mmmm, okay….the first few weeks were pretty easy as a lot of it was review for me. I even scored the highest grade on our first test. But I’m not patting myself on the back too much as I know the reason for this was mostly due to the fact that I had studied it a bit back in Scotland. And now we’re definitely heading into unchartered territory and I feel it’s getting harder to keep up.  Apparently they expect us to spend 2 hours outside of class EVERY DAY doing our homework and memorizing and reviewing, but I spend no more than a half hour to 45 minutes at best.  It surprised to hear that that was the expectation given that we already spend more than 4 hours in class every day, but it makes sense as I see how quickly we’re flying through the material.  With the difficult bits like grammar, there’s no way you can know the course material well by the time we’re already moving on to something else. We’re having a short break from classes today through Wednesday for Fasching (which I’ll tell you a bit more in my next post), and I return to class on Thursday and then finish up this module on Wednesday of next week. Then I’m taking a two-month long break so the Mr. and I can go on holiday. On the one hand, I’m sort of nervous about such a long break in the middle of my course. On the other, I’m thinking it might be a good opportunity to really learn all the material we’ve just covered rather than immediately moving on to new stuff.  That is, if I take the time and make the effort to do so during my break. And that’s a big if, considering we’re going on vacation during at least part of it.

The flat: Firstly, we’ve ordered an oven with a stove – hurray! We’re hoping maybe it will arrive this week, and then the Mr. can figure out how to install it in the Ikea unit we purchased. The plan will be to then call an electrician to hook it up. Once that’s taken care of, the next step will be cabinets. I think we’ve pretty much decided on which style we want, so hopefully those will be relatively straight-forward. I reminded the Mr. of a conversation we had back when we were flat-hunting. It went somewhere along the lines of  “It’s okay if we get a flat without a kitchen, but I do not want to be sitting in this flat a year later with no completed kitchen. That’s a nightmare situation.” Ha, yes, well it won’t be a year that we’ve lived here until May, but we are slowly creeping up on that date….But with the cooker we borrowed from family, it’s been pretty manageable. I’ve mostly just missed frozen pizza.

Now, moving along to the lounge, we’ve shifted the kitchen table that was in the entrance room to this room where it now sits in between the big Besta unit and the sofas. We had done so initially to accommodate family that was coming to stay, but we decided that actually we quite liked having it there. The Mr. has worked on it some on his computer meaning we can hang out in the same room even when we’re both on our computers, and it also makes sense as a much nicer place to sit in general when eating something versus the darker entrance room. So we’re pretty sure it’s going to stay put.

The Mr. went on his own to Ikea recently and purchased another, smaller Besta unit to go along another wall in the lounge. He also purchased a light to go above it. We decided it made sense to get another unit as we needed some more storage space, and it will be useful if in the future we need to arrange the unit differently to accommodate a television set. Now we have a balanced, matching set of units that can go on either side.

What else have we been up to? Well, yesterday we attended the Fasching parade in town which was really enjoyable. In my next post, I’ll tell you a bit about it and post some photos. But now I had better get some housework done. I may get a break from language school, but sadly Hausfraus never get a break from cleaning duties. Das is verboten!

Getting Better December 9, 2010

A little less than a couple of weeks ago, the Mr. and I had a two-day shopping spree in (given how much time and money we spend there) what must be our favorite place in the world: Ikea. The goal was to buy some sort of storage system for the lounge. We gave this considerable thought as anyone who’s ever shopped at Ikea will understand – the choices there are practically endless. (It’s why they have a restaurant. You show up, walk around the showroom on the top level, feel overwhelmed, and need refreshments – stat!)

Anyway, we decided on Ikea’s Besta series as it could serve as concealed storage for the stuff we don’t want people to see, as well as a way of displaying things we do want to people to see. Like all of our nifty alcohol bottles. Seriously. We have a bazillion bottles of whisky after living in Scotland for 5 1/2 years.

So, behold the magnificence that is Besta:

Oooh, aaahhhh - storage!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are a few other photos of how the flat is coming along:

The lounge

Mia's new cat tree. She freakin' loves it as she can watch the world go by from her cozy perch above the heater =)

the entrance room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re thinking about buying another smaller version of Besta for the wall of the lounge next to the door to the office/guest room as we’ve come to the realization we have quite a few CDs and DVDs, and we don’t particularly like having them on display. So we’ll probably reorganize what’s on display if we do get another unit.

The office/guest room. A work in progress.

And you may notice the naked woman (or at least her top half) in the photo to the right. Yes, the naked ladies are still with us. The Mr.’s grandfather was a talented artist and I like quite a bit of his work, but the almost life-sized portraits of the four seasons as big-breasted, bare-crotched women have become the bane of my decorating efforts. I mean, what the heck does one do with four enormous portraits of naked women?! (If you’re the Mr., you hang them in your entrance hallway so it’s the first thing a prospective girlfriend sees when she’s visiting your flat the first time. But that’s another story….)

It Won’t Be Long Now November 21, 2010

By popular request (okay, just from Linz =) ) I thought I’d post a few photos of the flat in its current state. As I’m sure I’ve said a million times, it’s by no means finished, but there has been some progress since the orginal photos I posted. I’ll focus just on the back part of the flat for this entry, and will try to take some photos of the front in the next week.

The kitchen, I think, will come together fairly nicely once we get cabinets, etc. And I have pink and gray orchid blossom decals that will go into the bathroom once we’ve determined whether or not we’re able to install another cabinet. But I’m feeling a little stumped on how to make the loo more interesting. I could go the decal route like I’m planning to do throughout much of the flat, but I’m not quite sure what sort of decal and style would make sense. At the moment, all I have for inspiration is a duck bar of soap and a papier-mâché fish. So any ideas, throw them my way!

Here we go….

The view when you walk into the kitchen. New island, sink and to the left a stove/oven unit.

Sink and "tea nook"

Close-up of "tea nook"

Kitchen island

Rose from our garden

Fridge =)

The loo. It's sort of long and skinny, so I'm not sure how to decorate it.

Notice the water heater under the sink. If we hadn't complained and asked for one, we would have only cold water with which to wash our hands. Yuck.

Bathroom. The only room that's just about finished except for a possible cabinet and decals that will go above the tiles.

The big projects for me at the moment are trying to decide which decals to get for our bedroom, guest room/office and the lounge, as well as deciding on a storage unit for the lounge. I love vinyl decals as they really add character to a room, but I am concerned about the fact that we won’t be able to take them with us when we move. Most are removable, but not reusable, and the ones I’m interested in range in cost from about $60 to $150. What do you think? Would you invest, say, $300 in decorations you know you can’t take with you?

P.S. I’ve decided I’m crap at coming with up titles for entries, so see if you can guess my inspiration….

Fun with Ikea Construction August 2, 2010

The saga that was “building the wardrobes” has finally come to an end for the poor Mr., nearly 24 hours after he began the task.

We received the Ikea shipment in the early afternoon on Thursday. Before the Mr. could begin constructing the wardrobes, however, he wanted to first put together a small storage unit we had also ordered called “Besta.”

The "Besta" unit in our entrance room

We’re not entirely sure what we’re going to put into this yet. At the moment, it’s sitting in the entry room next to the bedroom door. We’re thinking we might put the dining room table directly across from it, which would place the table almost center in the room but towards the far end near the lounge and office/guest room doors. Putting the table here would mean this room would double as a sort of entry room/dining room. On the one hand, I’d love to be able to just have this room wide open and nearly empty (except for Besta and a coat and shoe rack), but on the other hand it would fit in the above-described area and would mean we have more space in the lounge. (And somehow I think we will need that space for book shelves….) Anyway, Besta might end up being stuffed with an assortment of dining room table stuff (dishes, candle holder, etc) and winter gear like hats & mittens.

So it wasn’t until early evening on Thursday that the Mr. started the wardrobes. We actually purchased two wardrobes to be connected together because one wouldn’t have been big enough, that’s for sure. To be honest, I probably needed this entire thing just to myself and then maybe then all my stuff would have fit. Maybe. But now I’ll be spreading out the rest between a chest of drawers next to the bed and our storage room in the cellar.

the Mr.’s progress over the next 24-hours (not including breaks and sleep) looked something like this:

Constructing the body of one wardrobe

Fun with the power drill

All finished!

Yeah, that’s the abbreviated version, that’s for sure.  Three photos just don’t do a solid 24-hours’ worth of work much justice! We’re really happy with how they turned out, though. The Mr. thinks the darker wardrobe probably still would have looked okay, but I think the white color helps the room still feel spacious and bright even though the wardrobes are now taking up a huge part of it.

One the one hand, these two wardrobes cost us a lot of money and the Mr.’s blood, sweat and tears. Well, okay, no tears but a lot of sweat. If we were living in the US, the apartment or house we moved into most likely would have had (a) closet(s), (most likely several of them), eliminating the need for such an expensive and expansive monolith in our bedroom. On the other hand, I love the way it looks and it certainly adds character to the bedroom. Plus, a wardrobe instead of a closet means you have all sorts of cool built-in features like this:

Shelf, hanging clothes rack and shoe storage system

Jewelry & knick-knack storage, trouser rack

Built-in drawers on the Mr.'s side

The only bit of the wardrobes I put together was installing the shoe horns on one of the shoe racks. I  also helped lifting the heavy glass doors, etc. as necessary. I kept offering the Mr. more help, but he would mumble something about how I would “cause him more work if I tried to help,” or something to that effect. By the end, he was starting to really lose it and I felt badly. He ached all over and said that other than moving, it was the hardest physical work he had ever done. He said he couldn’t believe how much work it turned out being to construct it, and had naively imagined a job requiring only a few hours’ worth of effort. He worked all afternoon and evening on Thursday, all day Friday and until the early afternoon on Saturday. He also mentioned several times during this process that a kitchen “wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.” Uh-oh….

The Swedish Experiment July 27, 2010

What happens when you take two people and put them into a warehouse-sized maze full of home wares they need to purchase, yet in a building that lacks natural light and clocks? Also add into this little experiment the fact that they have to AGREE on everything that is purchased without maiming each other? Well, 15 hours later they’re a lot poorer, probably a bit fatter and definitely a lot crazier.

It may seem hard to believe, but the Mr. and I spent about 15 hours total over Friday and Saturday in Ikea. Over the course of these two days, we ate two waffles with vanilla sauce and cherries, one green jello dessert, one pudding with cherries dessert, two salmon dinners, a meatball dinner, a pasta dinner, four hotdogs, a salad with fresh mozzerella & tomato, french fries. We had several side portions of squabbling, too. We also drank 5 glasses of soda, two bottles of bionade soda, two cups of coffee, an alcohol-free beer and a large bottle of water.

At noon on Friday, it all started off well enough. Our first priority was to order a wardrobe for the bedroom. Sounds easy enough, and it should have been since we first visited Ikea to get an idea of what we wanted three months ago…and debated long and hard on what to get back then. At the time, we  decided on this with the intent to go back and purchase it when I returned from the US:

But on further reflection and after spending an inordinate amount of time staring at the bedroom walls, I came to the conclusion that something that dark might stand out too much and look strange in our bedroom. Because here’s the thing: the ceilings of our flat are all very high, about 12 feet high, to be exact. And our walls are all bright white. So somehow, a dark monolith taking up an entire wall set against bright white walls that go up 12 feet just wasn’t adding up. Plus the bedroom doesn’t get a lot of natural light anyway, so it’s always fairly dark. I told the Mr. my thoughts on the wardrobe, and after only a short discussion he said he didn’t have the energy to think about it anymore and was happy with whatever I wanted. So we left for Ikea on Friday and figured ordering the wardrobe would be fairly straightforward. Ha! It never is.

We get there and find the wardrobe I thought would look the best in the room:

We drew up our design for the interior. But then, somewhere along the way, the discussion about color began AGAIN, and after about two hours of hemming and hawing (partially over lunch), the Mr. came to the conclusion that he simply couldn’t live with a white wardrobe for the next 20 years. And I came to the conclusion that I simply didn’t care anymore – I’d be happy with whatever; it was too exhausting to think otherwise. So back to square 1:

We went to the counter to place the order. The salesperson then informed us that we couldn’t order the black Pax system with one-half of it mirrored, as planned. Uh oh. So we asked about the white Pax system above, and whether we could order it with one-half of it mirrored? Nope, no can do. She suggested that perhaps we’d like to consider ordering a wardrobe with doors that open out instead of the sliding style, as these can be combined with mirror doors? Truth is, we talked about all this back in April and decided we weren’t interested in ordering something with doors that opened up; we (i.e. the Mr.) really wanted sliding doors. But at the moment, after we had spent hours and hours debating which unit and what color to order, after we had gone back and forth on what would look best, while we were standing at the finish line of finally getting this damn thing ordered, desperation set in – we just caved. The woman showed us our options and she quickly started helping us put something together a little like this:

Not exactly like what we had designed, but close....

Suddenly, the project we had labored over deciding and agreeing on for literally months looked totally different in the wake of 15 minutes. We placed the order. Sure, it wasn’t we had planned to order, but I was happy with it.  That evening, however, the Mr. stands in the bedroom and says “I’m just not sure whether something that dark will look good in here.” Oh, dear lord. So on Saturday morning, we went back to Ikea. It took customer service about an hour to figure out how to cancel our original order, place the new one and reschedule the delivery (which they very kindly did for us as a sort of “exception” to the usual rules), but we finally got everything sorted and ordered our new wardrobe:

Perfection, at last.

We also bought side tables for the bedroom, a couple bathroom towel racks, a huge purple rug for the guest room/office, bedding, pillows, and LOTS of Ikea cookies and candy. I love the samples they have sitting out everywhere, but it is dangerous, my friend….

Anyway, last night the Mr. started putting together one of the bedroom side tables. He cheerfully told me that maybe he could work on putting together something every evening until it’s all done, when he promptly sliced his thumb on his right hand pretty deeply. He washed it with cold water, and we slapped some expired Neosporin on it and a band-aid. Thankfully, the wardrobe isn’t being delivered until Thursday, so we’ve got a few days before the flat is completely taken over by flat-packed boxes. And then the real fun can begin….

Confessions of a German Hausfrau July 19, 2010

It’s been a little more than a week since I arrived back in Germany, and I’ve officially begun my new job as a German Hausfrau.  Hausfrau, or housewife, might not sound like a very glamorous or rewarding new position, but I have to admit that I’m rather enjoying it so far. It has a lot of perks. I get to sleep in every day, watch movies in the middle of the day if I want, and go shopping for food while everyone else is slaving away in the office.  The only downsides are tasks like scrubbing the toilet and removing limescale, but my mother has introduced me to the wonders of vinegar so I can cope.  The real challenge at the moment is trying to “keep up” a residence with no kitchen and boxes (i.e. mess) everywhere. But I think I’m maintaining some semblance of order vacuuming like a madwoman and washing dishes in the bathroom sink. Yes, the bathroom sink. I used to think doing all our dishes by hand at the kitchen sink was time-consuming, but that was positively dreamy compared to washing them individually in a bathroom sink. Still, it works and it means I’ll appreciate a kitchen even more once we have one. And a dishwasher – gasp – now that would really tickle me pink.

I thought I’d share a few photos of the domestic domain I now rule. I know many people are dumb-founded when I describe the “no kitchen” situation, so I thought it might help to include a couple of photos showing what our current set-up looks like:

Table, microwave and kettle....

And fridge. And that's all, folks!

With the fridge, the kettle and the microwave we’re getting by. I’m not a great cook, anyway, so it’s not as if we’re used to having fancy-pants meals every night, but it will be nice to have a stove and an oven and a kitchen sink again at some point. And I do have ambitions that my new role as a Hausfrau will inspire me to want to cook more. Honestly!

Bathroom sink, AKA "dishwashing zone"

The bathroom sink above is where I do the dishes. Yeah, it sounds kind of gross but keep in mind that our toilet is separate from our bathroom, so it’s not too bad.

And I know many of you are curious what our “sitting shower” looks like:

The "sitting shower," in all its glory

Thankfully, the Mr. managed to buy the equipment to make it into a “real” shower and it works great. The floor gets a little wet so we’re debating whether to get some sort of barrier around the side facing the sink so it’s more contained, but mopping up afterward also works pretty well.

I also had my first communal task to complete for the house. As is usually the case in Germany, all parties in the house have to share tasks such as sweeping the walkways, taking out the garbage, and in the wintertime, clearing away snow and ice. My job this past week was to sweep the walkway to the door, as well as the back pavement behind the house. It was a relatively cool day, but it still took me more than an hour to clear away all the dead leaves and pine needles and it made me kind of sweaty and gross, to be honest. It was really the pine needles that made the job so arduous as we have very large pine trees that seem to shed copious amounts of needles. I always thought evergreen trees were less hassle than deciduous ones because they don’t lose their needles in the same way. Silly me.

In addition to upkeep both inside and out, I’m also familiarizing myself with the new neighborhood grocery store I shall be visiting on a regular basis. It’s fairly well-stocked, and I took my handy Ikea shopping trolley there a few days ago and bought quite a few things.

Oh, Ikea, how I love thee

At the grocery store, I was proud of myself for understanding that the cashier wanted to know if I had a Euro so she’d have to make less change. Ah, it’s the little things that bring joy….The good news is that although I’ll miss our shopping trips to Toom with the car, I think this smaller store will cover all the bases until opportunities arise when we’ve either rented a car or have signed-up for car-sharing and can go to a bigger supermarket. And they still have a pretty awesome chocolate section despite the limited size, which is most important of all. I’ve also discovered a new favorite treat:

A little bit of heaven in a plastic cup

You can choose between, 40, 60 or 75% cocoa content. I went for the 75%, and it was de-lish. The higher the cocoa content, usually the safer it is around the Mr., too. He prefers milk chocolate, so I cleverly purchase things he won’t like. Does that make me an evil German Hausfrau?

Out with the old, in with the new May 19, 2010

After a long and at times stressful journey yesterday, I finally arrived in Indiana late last night. I don’t even have the energy to go into describing everything that went wrong, but I was pretty cranky with Frankfurt Intl’ Airport, United Airlines AND Washington Dulles Intl’ Airport by the end of the day. That’s right, you’re all on my poo-poo list now. So watch out.

But I am happy to report that the move back in Germany went smoothly on Friday. I went through some of the kitchen boxes on Sunday to help the Mr. get a little more organized before I left, so now I feel slightly less guilty about abandoning him to the “no kitchen” situation. However, he did write today to tell me about the challenges of eating chicken soup with a knife. Yep, I never managed to find any silverware for him, poor guy.

It took the movers a couple of hours to bring everything inside, and reminded us of exactly how much crap we have. Seriously. We never did the usual “moving purge” of stuff because we didn’t really have the time, plus the moving company did all the packing for us which is when this type of purge would normally happen. I’ve told the Mr. that this doesn’t let us off the hook from still doing a purge as we unpack, however.

The flat was cold the first night, but eventually heated up to a reasonable level. We were a little concerned since it is an old building, but we think it will be okay. The sitting shower is…interesting.

The "sitting shower" prior to its installation

We were relieved to find that the water pressure is nice and strong, and there’s plenty of hot water – whew. But still, it’s a chilly experience to have to turn off the water to suds up given that the room never really gets all that warm. So we definitely have to convert it a regular shower, but the Mr. has nearly two months to do this before I’m back ; )

Then on Saturday we went to Ikea and bought lamps for three rooms, as well as a large gray rug for the lounge. We went on a bit of a buying spree as the Mr. handed Baby Merc back over to the rental car company today, and we’ve decided we’re going to hold off on buying a car for now. Makes me a little sad that we’re going to lose the convenience of hopping into it for bigger shopping trips and the luxury of being able to easily travel around on the weekends, but I know we’ll save heaps of money.

In the meantime, I happily have a car to use here in Indiana. My mom recently bought a new car, so that leaves me her old one to drive while I’m here. I drove up to my brother’s house today where I’ll be staying for the next few days with my mom as she’s taking care of my niece & nephew while my brother and his wife are in Japan. Then I head back to my parents’ house and will begin working on clearing out all the things they’ve been storing for me. The plan is to put together a big yard sale, and hopefully my old will become somebody else’s new.

Trouble Ahead, Trouble Behind May 11, 2010

We signed the lease on Friday for the art nouveau flat, and the movers will deliver our things on Friday at noon. It’s a relief to finally have a place of our own, and to know that we’ll soon be reunited with all of our cherished (and now probably dusty) belongings. I am slightly worried about a couple of things, however, which puts a bit of a damper on the move-in joy:

1. We saw the newly installed tub\shower combo on Friday. I don’t think I mentioned this before, but one of the drawbacks to this flat and what would have resulted in an instantaneous veto from me had the Mr. said we couldn’t change it is the “sitting shower” in the bathroom. On our first viewing, the agent explained that a combination bathtub\sitting shower (basically a tub with a seat moulded into the back) would be installed. “Sitting shower?” I asked the Mr. with trepidation. He whispered that it wouldn’t be a problem to change it if we took the place. In the days following, the Mr.’s attitude shifted slightly from “we can change it, no problem” to “I think we can change it.” In the end, I decided just to trust his initial inclination and we agreed to take the place. He’s not as concerned about it as I am, but says he will do his best to try to fix it to a more normal shower setup. (I mean, what idiot came up with the idea of a “sitting shower,” anyway, in any other setting apart from a nursing home?) Then on Friday, we saw the shower nozzle for the “sitting shower” for the first time and entirely new fears (shared by both of us) have surfaced. It’s really, really small. I mean, we’re wondering how much water can actually come out of this thing since it’s so small. And because they chose an incredibly small nozzle, maybe that means there’s no good water pressure and we’re going to have a warm trickle of water with which to bathe every day? We’re probably just being paranoid, but I fear we may need to learn how to love being dirty.

2. The kitchen situation. I feel really, really badly abandoning the super-busy Mr. to a flat with absolutely no kitchen for 1 1/2 months. The poor guy won’t even have a freakin’ kitchen sink. He says he’s not concerned about it only because he has a million other things on his plate right now and having no kitchen is the least of his worries. This doesn’t exactly alleviate my guilt. On Saturday, we actually found a range from Ikea that we both like:

Ikea's Abstrakt kitchen range in gray

The problem, however, is that the Mr. says he just doesn’t have the energy to delve into planning a kitchen right now, which is fair enough given his work. After much discussion we’ve decided that although it’s inconvenient for him, it makes sense for me to go now and to wait on planning and ordering the kitchen until July when I’m back. Alternatively, kitchen-planning faeries might show up and take care of everything for us, but I guess I won’t hold my breath waiting for them.