House Warming Party - Pimp My Flat Postlude

After weeks of no new blog entries, here's the third one this week.

1 1/2 weeks ago we had our house warming party. It was a lot of fun. Started at 3 p.m and ended at 3 a.m. We were really exhausted but it was well worth it. The afternoon was filled with friends with kids. Esther and Knut came from Rostock with my godson Bosse, which was awesome as we haven't seen Esther and Knut since New Years Eve. All in all there were around 9 kids - noisy, funny, sassy and cute. The German saying "until one of them cries" (said when kids play overtired and "psyched") was fullfilled many many times this afternoon.

Esther, Knut and Bosse


The same time as our party there was a street festival downstairs with live bands until midnight. They even let hundreds of balloons fly - which we were able to see from the terrace.

People watching balloons


And...the ballons




Guests were coming and going all day - around 40 in total. We also got to know some of the neighbors, all very nice. One couple lived in the house before it was sold and then they bought their rented apartment. Another couple is doing the complete renovations to the apartment themselves, which is unbelievable. You should see the apartment: it's a gutted shell of a flat.

Thomas


Ingo with his daughter Johanna - saying good bye, so Ingo could start to party ;-)


Jim, Nat and Thomas drinking one of the first Caipirinhas


The afternoon crowd - the kids are hidden ;-)



A lot of Caipirinhas were consumed and a lot of wonderful presents were opened including a huge toolbox from my office - with lots of tools. So the times where Jim has to repair stuff with his Swiss army knife are over.

There are not that many pictures: we didn't take any - these are all from Frank. Thanks Frank!

Red Flag Day in the family!

Mom and Dad - we wish you all the best for your 46th anniversary! Celebrate the day! We love you and we are looking forward seeing you in four weeks!


Janice - Happy Birthday Sister and Sis in Law- have a wonderful day and lot's of wonderful presents! We love you!



Jim - Happy second anniversary - this have been two wonderful married years with you! I love you!



Nat

Pimp My Flat - Volume X

We have been officially pimped!

We are out of alpha and beta phases and into version 1.0 of the flat. Nat and Jim took the week before the house warming party (Sat. Aug 13 - blog entry to come) to get the final touches done on the apartment: a few hooks, lamps and other small items were all it took to baseline v1.0.

Now come the longer-term plans to upgrade furniture and make improvements. Need to get a new cover for the sofa, for instance, or new shelves in Nat's study. Or we're thinking about converting the bathtub in the washroom into a shower (right now it has no showerhead), and we'd like to put a skylight in the kitchen. The list goes on and on. Now the we are home-moaners, we have a different perspective on investing in the place.

Here are some pictures. These were taken the day after the house warming party.

Kitchen:



Dinning area between the kitchen and livingroom:


From the livingroom looking through the dinning area into the kitchen:


Sprial staircase going to the rooftop deck:


Livingroom:


Nat's study:



Nat's room looking into the livingroom:


Jim's study


We're pretty wired: DSL with WLAN, wireless speakers, external hard drive, and so forth - makes for a good cable salad.


Jim's home office:


The WC with a shower:


Washroom:


Sorry, no pictures of the bedroom: we hadn't cleaned or made the bed at the time of taking these pictures. It's basically a room with a bed in it (imagine that!).

Here's a rough floorplan that is not 100% accurate. It's just enough to give you an idea of how the place is laid out: