Quick tour of our house

I don't usually join in blogging parties (as it were) but just as I was thinking it was time to post a few more photos of our new house, I spotted that Boomama is organising a grand tour of bloggers' homes, with links to dozens of them, showing a wide variety of living spaces. The idea is to show one's front door (without any identifying features), living room, blogging space, kitchen, and one other room.

By the time I got around to taking the photos it was dark (as happens around 8pm here even in summer), so here's what our house looks like at night-time. It's four weeks since we first had access to the house, three-and-a-half since we moved in. So there's still quite a long way to go.

Our 'front door' is at the side of the house, at the top of a marble staircase, since our guest flat is on the ground floor. That has a nicer and more photogenic entrance that really is at the front of the house, but this is the door where we come in. Except when we come up the spiral stairs at the other side of the house. Sophia is out enjoying the cool of the evening (and moved slightly as I took the picture).


Here's our living room, the first room we painted, and also the first one we organised and made livable. Tessie is asleep on a chair on the right of the photo. The light coloured bookcase (which originally belonged to my grandparents in the UK) contains our DVDs and a few of Tim's music books. The two darker bookcases, which we recently bought from some friends who have returned to their home country, contain about half of our non-fiction. One is Christian books, the other 'general'. The other half are still in a random muddle on shelves in the guest apartment.


Here's our kitchen. I loved this kitchen at first sight: real wood cabinets, and lots of them! Even the tiling is to our taste, and while the dark counter tops aren't quite what I would have chosen, they look good.

I was particularly happy to find that (a) there's an air conditioner (b) there was a space for a dishwasher. Neither of which we had in our kitchen at the old house. So we bought a dishwasher to fit the gap. I am extremely thankful for both.


Here's the dining room - right next to the kitchen. That might seem obvious, but in the old house it was the other side of the house. I particularly like the dining room because we've combined the best of our teenage and grown-up (I hesitate to use the word 'adult' since none of it is anywhere near X-rated) fiction in the bookcases around the walls. Most of our children's fiction is scattered randomly around the shelves in the guest flat, along with some other books we didn't want to get rid of, but don't read very often.

The door goes out onto a little balcony where the metal spiral staircase leads to the guest flat.


And lastly... my study. Where I do my blogging, much of my reading, and where I plan to do my sewing, knitting, tapestry, writing, and Greek study.

Still not painted, alas. There have been too many other calls on our time. But maybe some time soon...


The sharp-eyed may notice a cardboard box next to my desk. Yes, this is one of our moving boxes, yet to be unpacked. A week ago there were about six in the study, so it's a great improvement. But this one is a bit more difficult, since it contains all the things from the other boxes for which I couldn't find obvious places....