MISADVENTURES IN LIVING ABROAD

well the joys of being on holidays is that you get to enjoy a hotel stay and all the perks of eating out, sleeping in, visiting sights ... traveling to another city for school is a completely different story ...

j and i had to madly rush around london as we only had a few days in our hotel and with our trusty tourist map and tube travel card we set out to try and find a flat to let ...

well first day we wandered around some neighborhoods we thought we'd like to live in and were disappointed at the prospects ... too far away from school, too shady looking, too close to all the pubs and really loud touristy areas ... so we restructured our plan and decided to focus on the bloomsbury area as that is where my school is ... we emailed some letting agents in the area and tried to set up some appointments ...

second day woke up to some emails and tried to organize some viewings and many of them couldn't meet until the next day ... by fluke we found an ad and phoned the letting agent and we could meet them in 20 minutes ... we ran over in the rain and met our lady and had a look around ... all i can say is the photographer was amazing at making the studio flat appear deceptively spacious ... we looked at 3 in this cartwright gardens building and it wasn't too bad ... extremely secure buildings that are well taken care of, the flats are furnished, laundry on site and super clean ... 2 out of the 3 were in the basement and the third was on the 3rd floor overlooking the tennis courts and green space and about 2 feet larger than the others ... we considered putting a deposit down but as it was nonrefundable and it was our very first flat we looked at we went on our way and tried to find our next viewing down by hyde park in paddington area ...

we caught the wrong tube line and ended up on the opposite side of the park and we ran to the neighborhood in the pouring rain only to find that our letting agent wasn't even there and when we phoned him he said he was on his way to meet us and after waiting for 45 minutes he still didn't show so we left ... we phoned to secure the flat on the third floor at cartwright gardens and within the 45 minutes of leaving the place someone had already secured a lease on it ... we decided to put a deposit on the slightly larger basement flat and went home somewhat happily that we found a place that would work for me to walk to school ... i'll admit we still we a little unsure if that was the right thing to do ...

the next morning we went to put all the paperwork through and it was confirmed that this was the right spot to live because transport for london decided to have a tube strike and it really showed us the nightmare of trying to get around when one of the major routes of transport gets shut down ... i felt much better that i had a 10 minute walk to school and a quick trip around the neighborhood we found a beautiful grocery store and a shopping centre that has a market on the weekends ...

thinking we were good to move in the next day we tried to set up the money transfer with the bank and the nightmare began ... we could only transfer an amount that large if we were there in person (well obviously that was not going to happen) the next option was we could transfer up to $1000 a day over to the company and at that rate we would be moving in the following week ... so the next best solution was to get one of our parents to go down to their bank in canada and force them to transfer the money over as soon as possible ... it actually worked but of course we had to delay moving in by 2 days because of the slowness of this whole process ...

in the midst of all of this i had to go enroll in person at the institute of education ... stand in many queues and find out at the end of it all that my canada student loan didn't really count for my status as a sponsored student and i was expected to pay a third of my tuition right then and there ... i managed to talk them into signing my loan papers and granting me an extension though ...

no pictures yet of the interior of our spacious flat at cartwright gardens but a view of the exterior of our lovely building ...

yup that's our ground floor flat ... what a lovely view :)

our gigantic door and awesome tiled stairs

one of the best parts about walking home is the fantastic curved street completely lined with baskets of flowers and planter boxes ... it really does make the tight living quarters more bearable and a little more dreamy :)

cheers ~n

KICKING MY BLOGGING BUTT

long time no writing ... let me explain

working between 2 schools this year has been tonnes of fun because i get to teach the littlest ones all day long ... but oh my oh my ... i have been so super busy this last month and a bit because each school has its own projects, events, open houses, parent teacher conferences, staff meetings and when you work at 2 schools it is automatically doubled ... even j mentioned that he hasn't had an evening wife much this last little while

... i will be returning soon with more posts once i get a second to breath, catch up on some sleep and feel rested

cheers ~n

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE THE FIRST (AND NOW FINISHED!)

j and n are very excited! we have a finally have a home for all our lovely coats and shoes in the front entrance. this is huge as we have waited 3 plus years for this day and finally everything is put away, clean and organized the way it is supposed to be. after much searching the best solution (and affordable for us) was to take a trip to our local ikea, bring home the flat boxes and let the magic happen.

side note - the setting up of the wardrobe unit didn't take long at all ... securing it to the wall was the issue ... j did run into some trouble when attaching it to our lovely plaster walls ... as he was putting the screws into the wall the entire screw and a chunk of plaster disappeared into the wall! our solution was to put a piece of wood in front of the brackets and attach it to the studs and we are happy to report that this beast is going nowhere :)

the beautiful glass doors that n just had to have were another story ... n is gifted at being able to read and interpret those pesky ikea pictures fairly easily and her job is to get the pieces ready and direct j with what to do ... after 7 plus years of marriage and setting up multiple pieces of ikea furniture we have a beautiful system ... there was no such luck with the doors after 8 frustrating hours they finally came together and now we have storage!!

the closet does stick out quite a bit in the entrance way ... much more than we hoped ... even though n is a fabulous photographer and it doesn't seem that way :) the eventual and ambitious plan is to steal a bit of space from the guest room and sink that closet back a bit more ... but we have upstairs dormers to build and a basement to finish so that is a much later plan. we are just excited to have a home for our coats and shoes

let the merriment begin :) all these boxes just waiting to become something

zoe seems confused why these boxes have taken over her play area

the first day the frame is made ...

yeah so close but little did j and n know that it would take forever for the front to be put on

here are the gorgeous

(time consuming pain in the butt) doors

but they are amazing and totally fit our clean line square design for the house

here is each side of the closets with drawers and shelves at custom levels ...

notice the boot shelf height is not too tall or too short its just right

one of my favorite parts of the closet ...

the drawer with all these compartments that can fit all our closet odds and ends

(keys, watches, garage door openers, mittens and all of zoe's leashes)

and without further adieu a final picture of organization perfection

which makes j and n extremely happy

cheers ~n

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE THE FIRST

living in an old war time cookie cutter house built in 1960 has a certain element of charm to it ... the big trees, cute as a button houses, one of a kind local shops and stores, parks and pathways to run and bike in and n could go on and on

... although right now j seems to think that the only charm is in the neighborhood and it has nothing to do with this particular house :) and n truly believes the charm is in the house

anyways with this supposed charm also comes many impossible problems that j and n are trying to solve in a way that is functional and isn't just some slapped together solution it also needs to keep with the overall design plan and to quote n "look pretty"

this impossible problem aka mission storage has been plaguing both j and n for over 3 years! apparently people who lived back in 1960 didn't own any coats or shoes or had a need to store them anywhere. j and n scratch their head that for over 50 years no one has bothered to come up with any sort of coat closet in this house. typically this is our solution for the lack of a closet:

do you see j and n's lovely breakfast nook table?

didn't think so because it is now our back closet and part of n's classroom storage :)

this is what j and n have to work with in the front of the house and we have come up with a solution that is functional, pretty and fits our clean line design

side note - we still have a bit to go before this part of the house is done - window and door casings, baseboards, trim for the tile, door handles and another impossible mission (railing for the staircase) but with that said here are the before pictures:

and this is not an acceptable storage solution ... although functional it is definitely not pretty

and the happily ever after (where did it go?)

side note - well j and n had a date on friday night to go pick up the storage solution but n has gotten really sick and they will have to wait till n is better and in the mean time trudge on with function instead of the pretty and will re-post when the happily ever after of their storage fairytale arrives

cheers ~n