Top Floor

Looking straight into what we call the Nook.

My scrapbooking area. All the cabinets are full of just my hobby stuff.

The Library part.

The school part. The kids have their art supplies and school books and workbooks,etc. under the desk.

Our Room:

Our bed

Looking straight into the room from the door with the blinds up. The roof outside these windows is a metal one and doesn't allow for the rollladen like the other rooms in the house. Therefore, a whole wall of windows facing west can be very hot!

Dresser sitting under the eaves to the right of the room.. The stairs are behind the quilt wall.

Straight in with the blinds down and the tri-fold up. It helps keep some of the light and heat out.

The bed again. The color isn't so good here, but the bed is two shades of khaki. At the foot of the bed is a trunk.

Randomness (that's allowed even with OCD)

During the summer here, since we are fairly far north, it stays light till almost 11 pm. The sun comes up at about 4:30ish. For this reason, Europe has these great things called Rollladen. Yes, I know there are 3 L's, but that is the correct German spelling. Anyway, they are usually built into the wall on the outside and have a band inside on the wall for moving them up and down. They can come all the way down and block out ALL the light, or anywhere in between. They are one of the best inventions ever! Unfortunately, we don't have them on the windows in our room (we have 2 door windows and 2 smaller windows) so our room is very bright and hot during the long summer days.

Here is a pic from the boys room, with the rollladen half down.

Here is one window with it down and the other with it up.

Also, When I first showed pics of the house, I showed one from the front door looking out at the auto shop across the street. It is rather unsightly. But after a couple weeks, he has made some improvements. I am not sure I like the new paint job, though.

After, with a fresh coat of neon yellow. The pics don't do it justice! It is hideous. I think I liked the old brown better! But, what can you do. I hope it fades with time.

People really like to paint their buildings bright colors and I usually like it but this is a really ugly yellow. (and I like yellow)

Floor Two

Here a few pics of the house. I will start at the opening of the stairs from the basement. Some would call this the first floor, other the ground floor since it opens up into the back yard. As you come up the stairs there is a small foyer with 3 doors. Straight leads into this tiny bathroom. The sink is so small, I have a hard time washing my hands in it without spilling water everywhere. On first look it probably looks pretty normal, but for anyone who has not traveled to Europe might notice that there is no tank to the toilet. The tanks are built into the wall and the large white thing on the wall is how you flush the toilet. Thankfully, our toilets are fairly similar to American toilets, that means they don't have what we affectionately call the "viewing shelf".

That is a whole other post.

Another thing that is very different to America, is when you move into a place,you literally get 4 walls and a floor. Houses come with nothing! No closets, no kitchen counters, no light fixtures. There are outlets, light switches and wires hanging for the lights and that is it. No bathroom counters or cabinets either. There isn't really room for a cabinet in this bath, so we haven't bothered doing too much with it. I put in a light fixture and a mirror.

On the left of the stairs behind door number 2, is the kitchen. This first pic is a straight shot from the door. I painted it a really bright yellow so that it is not so dark during the LONG winter nights. It begins to get dark at about 4:30, so while cooking dinner the kitchen is pretty dark. Germans love bright colors and I have gotten quite a few compliments on the color. On the left wall, above the "coffee bar" are paintings from most of the cities we have visited in Europe. Some are from street artists and others are prints from street artists paintings. On the wall are paintings from Prague, Barcelona, Venice and Salzburg. Behind the door is the refrig. and a cabinet.
Here are the cabinets and sink, etc. I decorated with the colors of the rainbow. I found canisters and then used the colors from them to decorate with.
The last pic is the corner to the right, with the stove and oven. All appliances here are pretty small and it can be difficult to cook more than one item at a time. Thanksgiving and Christmas can be a challenge! But, we are lucky to have a large kitchen by German standards. It is called a "Wohnkuche" which means that there is room for people to eat in it.Literally translated it means living kitchen as in living room and kitchen. It is just large enough for a table and chairs that seat 6.

That is Jason's computer cord and pigs in a blanket beside the stove that I was making for our Bible study group last night.

Here are the first of the pics of inside our house. I am starting at the bottom, front door and working my way up. That makes the most sense, to me anyway. Our house is only one room wide and two rooms deep (or about) so getting pics is a little difficult. The bottom floor includes the entryway, Jason's office and junk room, and the storage room and laundry room (what they call the Keller.) It is not the first floor. That is above the ground floor. Anyway, here goes.

Looking in from the front door. A cabinet for coats, etc. and a rack for current jackets, shoes,etc.

Each kid has his own "cubby" for shoes and a basket for winter hats, gloves, and scarves.

Looking toward the front door. Germans always take their shoes off before going into the home. We have house shoes for inside and most everyone has a few available for guests. With the yucky, rainy weather here, this is a very nice custom. I also call this area the sandbox, because after preschool, the Caedon and Logan dump out all the sand from their shoes. Caedon can literally make a small pile, I don't know how he walks in them with so much sand!
One pic from Jason's office.It is always a mess! The kids put their school things in here and anything else that doesn't have a home! It is Jason's room and I don't touch it, even though my OCD side really wants to do something about it.
This is the "area" for the kids school stuff. Each has a box for their stuff. Kids here don't have lockers, so they have to keep everything at home and repack their backpack each day according to their class subjects that day. (It is like a college schedule.) Each kid got to decorate it as they wanted.

The stairs up to the rest of the house and a small storage area for skates, shoes, and bike.

At the back of the house is a large storage area with a smaller room for my laundry area.

Just two shots into the storage area. It is a mess and very hard to keep under control. Thankfully, I got a bunch of "hand-me-down" cabinets to organize and hide all of our junk.

Our House

I am fascinated by peoples' homes. I like to think it stems from my love of architecture and interior design. I almost studied both in college but decided to go a different route. I don't regret my decision, but do still find both interesting. Jason says my curiosity is just nosiness. Anyway, I have people asking for my advice on interior decorating and love to "do" up my house. I am constantly wanting to change, redecorate, "freshen up" our home.

So, this set of blogs is for anyone who is curious how this missionary family lives. I have seen a few other apartments and houses of others here in the Germanic speaking world and feel like we are fairly comparable to others' situations. If you have no interest, then just wait a while and I will move on to something else. I plan on giving a virtual tour of our home. It will be only pics, but will give a general idea. So, here goes,

This is our building. It is three row houses together. Yes, it is 4 stories. Ours is the one in the middle. Our house is larger but our yard is smaller. There are three houses that look similar to ours on our street. Behind us is several rows of row houses that are only accessible by walking. Unfortunately, our street is very busy and noisy and we are in the path of planes from the airport. The neighborhood is very quiet though. There are a lot of families with lots of kids. The grade school (1-4th) is just around the corner and the kids can walk there in just a few minutes.
Our house up close. The front door is the one on the right. The other is the window to Jason's office/junk room.

Our small front yard. It is a work in progress. It was pitiful when we first moved here and now it is just a little less pathetic.
The view out the front. Unfortunately, it is rather ugly. The house belongs to an auto mechanic and he has converted some of it to a shop and office and he has a high tech shop to the left of this pic.
The view down the street. Up this street, beyond the trees to the left is a really old Lutheran church (about 800 years old). To the right up the street and around the corner is the kids' school. It just celebrated its 125th or more birthday. It is a very small school, with only 1 or 2 classes per grade, about 100 students at the most. Next week, when I find time I will begin with the inside of the house.