home sweet row house

I have promised my mother to show her some pictures of our apartment for some time. We actually have a fairly large place - around 1800 square feet. I just know I was so thankful that it felt clean when I arrived. I will always remember how dirty our kitchen in France was when we first moved in. Ken said that all the flooring was new and everything freshly painted. Apparently the row houses are 30 years old or so - some personnel from Ken's office actually lived here in the 1980's. I think that there have been some problems lately with some of the apartments but we have been fine here.

I am just going to concentrate on the living/dining area right now. This picture shows our living area. Sorry for the poor quality on some of the pictures. We kind of have a mishmash of furniture that doesn't all match too great but it is functional for our needs - meaning Ken and I each have a couch to lounge on while watching TV. FYI - can you see the green thing outside the window that is hanging down from the ceiling? That is my clothesline.
As you can see, I brought a few things over to decorate somewhat. However, I didn't really have anything that matched the huge light fixture over the coffee table! Luckily the coffee table is there because anyone could bump their head on this monstrosity. I also like how the ornateness (is that a word? it didn't come up on spellcheck!)of the fixture blends so well with the modern floor lamp in the corner! The big blue thing is our air conditioner which I have not experienced, so I don't know how to work it yet. The heat in the lower floor comes from radiators that go along the entire back wall. There isn't really a thermostat for the heat, you just turn a dial to tell how often you want the heat to come on. How long it stays on is beyond me - maybe Ken knows. I just know that if I am cold, I turn the dial all the wall to the right. The upper floor has heat in the flooring.

While I am talking about heat, I want to show you a picture of the downstairs powder room. However, you can see that you could also do more than powder your nose because there is a shower setup on the wall. The entire wall and floor is tiled with a drain actually in the floor. You also step down into the room. I have always wondered if you can turn the room into a steam room by having the radiator and water at the same time. It seems like the water on the hot radiator might possibly produce some steam. I guess you could also take a shower while sitting on the commode if you wanted to - to save time or something.




The dining area is fine. We can seat 8 people at the table which is nice. By the way, do like the forsythia on the dining table? I passed by some bushes that I thought needed pruning (and I can't believe it, I actually had my pruning shears in the car for some reason - ha!ha!).
One thing that is really nice are the double windows we have. It is not like they are double paned - there are actually two sets of windows to open. I'm sure it keeps the noise out. We have 2 sliding glass doors upstairs and they are the same.