The House Tour Post

I meant to post this earlier.  I blame the heat wave.  The heat took a lot out of all of us, even though it was just four days long.  We mostly stayed inside, when we could help it, lounging around panting with our mouths open and trying to remember what we were really supposed to be doing.  On Friday afternoon, the last day of the 43 degree (C) weather, we realized we needed to go grocery shopping.  So we hopped on a tram and headed to the nearest large grocery store.  After buying an overfull load, we waited and waited in the 109 degree (F) temperatures for the tram to take us back, but it did not come.  Worried about the groceries, we walked the mile home.  And by the time we arrived, all our tempers were sizzling hot and we had to go to bed early to get away from each other. 

But since Saturday, the weather has been cool again.  What a relief.

In any case, while you await eagerly other details of our lives, we bring you a tour of our apartment, with photos.

Here is a picture of the lovely living room.  We actually had to roll up that rug and move it onto the balcony, because Tim seems to be allergic to all the rugs in the apartment. 

And here is the lovely balcony on which the rugs currently lie.  (The owner is supposed to come pick the rugs up so they don't get damaged.)  Note all the lovely trees.  They made a big difference during the heat wave.

We have another balcony that looks about the same. 

Next, a view of the kitchen.  Note we have a dishwasher.  That is nice.

 

 

Dining room.

 



Jonathan's bedroom. 

 

 

Toilet.  Yes, the toilet has its own room.  And tiny washbasin on the top.  When you flush, the water runs into the washbasin first, then into the toilet tank, and it continues to run until the toilet tank is full.  Plenty of time to get those hands clean, if a little awkward, leaning over the toilet seat.

 

 

 

In case you wondered, so far I have no complaints with Australian toilets.  The bowls are straight (no trophy shelf as in the UK).  Ours actually seems to be deeper than those in our home in the USA, which is a feature.  Less splashing and less cleaning.  Just in case you wondered.

 

Another interesting feature of the toilet room is that there is no glass on the window, only a screen and some slats.  If you don't put glass in the window of the toilet room, then you never need to install a fan.  Not a bad idea, eh?  The building was built in the 1930's, and I'm sure it was seen as very modern and fresh-smelling back in its time.  I do anticipate having a chilly bum, though, in the winter.

 

If the toilet gets its own room, then where is the bath?  In the bathroom, of course.  With the washer and dryer. 

 

 

Then we have the office, where Tim works.  That rug in the photo was the first to go, by the way.  Because Tim has serious allergies to rugs.

 

 

And finally the master bedroom. 

 

 

The window in the master bedroom seems to be warped or painted shut.  It doesn't open.  But after a couple of days of living there, we found out that that is for the best.  On the other side of the glass is a tunnel-shaped spider web where a giant man eating hairy spider lives. 

 

You can also see from the picture that our bed sheets are black.  Black is typically not my first choice in sheet color.  However, sheets were not provided with the apartment.  When we went to Target to buy them (yes, they have a Target here), there was a large sale of sheets.  The fancy slippery-smooth sheets were on sale, for example.  But Jonathan was with us, and he said that if we got to get fancy sheets, then she should be able to get them, too.  Only there weren't fancy sheets for a single bed, only standard sheets.  So then Jonathan declared that if he had to get standard sheets, we had to get standard ones too.  Only there weren't any standard sheets in queen size. 

 

And so we were at an impasse.  Usually when we reach such a situation, we tell the boy "it stinks to be you" and just buy the nice stuff four ourselves.  In this case, however, Tim was able to avert disaster by finding a set of standard queen sized sheets hidden on the back of a shelf somewhere.  And they were black. 

 

So yes, we are the black sheets in the family.