Friday, February 25, 2011

Sneak Peak: the New Abode

Sorry for the break readers but as you can imagine, I've had my hands full dealing with movers, internet companies, plumbers, apartment management companies, and unpacking box after box of crap. Ok, most of it isn't crap, most of it is great stuff that we will use but it is amazing; we went a year an a half without most material luxuries and now that we're back to all of our stuff, I'm wondering what on earth we thought we needed it all for. There is a large pile at the moment in what will one day be the sewing room that will be making its way to Goodwill in the near future.

That being said, I am a hypocrite and a sentimental person, so there will be many things that, while unused, will not be making it to the thrift store anytime soon.

So, here it is! Sorry there's no picture of the exterior at the moment. I don't think it would work very well for my image if our downstairs neighbors, neighbors all around us, and the kids currently enjoying recess at the elementary school just two houses down were to see me in my bright pink French Kitty pajama pants.

The Living Room
(a.k.a the only really functional room at the moment)


Here we are facing the street. The French doors lead out to a sweet little balcony which will hopefully hold a little outdoor bistro table for some fresh air dining come summer.



I know the squished living room set-up looks a bit goofy but that's what happens when your tv is a mere 17" diagonally, you have to sit 5 feet away to discern anything.

 

Now we're facing the opposite direction towards the dining room and the backyard. Please, take note of the lovely dyson vacuum, box-o-tools and pie plate filled with random screws, hooks and picture hanging supplies.



This is the cat bed for the (hopefully) soon-to-be Reindl feline. The basket was a hand-me-down from the late and great Madigan, my slightly tubby but wonderful Siamese that disappeared this past fall. RIP wherever you are Maddie.

Oh, and the cushion is the first (and perhaps only?) project ever sewn by M. It is a puppy that could not be parted with so we agreed that it could stay as long as it had a purpose which will be to cushion a real cat.



The fireplace, which I am certain is in working condition but we aren't allowed to use it.


The Dining Room 




The current state of the dining room = disaster. Do ya think we need a china cabinet (*to be read in a sarcastic tone*)? I've been scouring craigslist.com for that perfect steal.



The dresser will not stay but was put there temporarily in an attempt to lessen the clutter. It didn't really work.



Here's a quick look into the kitchen from the swinging door in the dining room.


The Kitchen




It's still a small kitchen with not much more counter space than we were working with in France but the difference is that this one has lots of extra room and with a couple additions, I think this will be a very workable space. At least it has a gas range (4 burners!) and a dishwasher. 

Oh, and if you're reading this Ashley, I take back everything I said about not needing a dishwasher. After being re-introduced to one at our parent's houses over break, I am re-addicted to the machine that cleans my dishes for me.



What? A full-sized refrigerator for 2 people?!

Despite all the space in the refrigerator though, this is one area that I hope to improve storage wise. The little shelf to the right of the fridge (which is in dire need of some added screws for support and other tlc at the moment) will hopefully be replaced by some taller, commercial wire racks for holding all of our kitchen gadgets and perhaps some of the hoards of cookbooks that we own.



 Ok, it is larger than France but still not large enough for the two of us to work comfortably.



Here's another area of improvement; while I love my grandparent's kitchen table, there really isn't enough room for this kitchen to be eat in. So this table will be put to better use as a nice, large sewing table in another room and the space will be made more useful with a counter height kitchen island which will add more much needed counter space above and more much needed storage space below.

On a side note -- is that not the cutest paisley print broom you ever did see?



This is my new life motto. We got two of these bumper stickers on a spice run to the fabulous Penzey's Spice store.



The Hallway



Not terribly exciting but still worth noting. Please notice the peaceful Buddha perched in the little display nook when you come in from the entry stairway through that door just to the left.

As you look down the hall, the first door on the left (past the front door) is the sewing room, the next room on the left is the office/guestroom, the middle door is the first smaller bathroom which attaches with a pocket door (weird, I know) to the larger, master bathroom, the opening to the far right is the small hallway with a small linen closet and our bedroom, the door just past Buddha is the coat closet and the opening to the immediate right leads to the kitchen.



The featured photographer in the hallway is my brother Noah. These black and whites were take of the famed Wellsboro Diner years and years ago.



Our Bedroom



Please disregard the creepy stuffed animals on the bed. I'm still trying to figure out where things go.
And please ignore the fact that we don't have a bed at the moment and still have the mattress and box spring on the floor. This situation will hopefully be remedied in the near future.



 Nothing terribly exciting happening over this way. the door on the left leads back out into the hallway (the little door is the linen closet I mentioned earlier) and the door on the right leads to the master bathroom.



Here's another boring wall that is sorely in need of some artwork. That door that's open on the right is the hall door and the door behind it leads to our closet. That stack of plastic containers needs to leave the bedroom soon.



We've got lots of pretty windows in this bedroom...now what to cover them with?

We also need some sort of rug on the floor...too much wood everywhere.



The Master Bath
(And by master, I'm not implying that it's large, just that you enter it from the master bedroom)



Our lovely tub/shower; I really like it now that we bought that pretty and economical eco shower head, the old one was ridiculously high-flow. It felt like being sprayed with a garden hose without any sprayer nozzle. 



It's tight but it works just fine.



The Hall Bath
(Remember that this one attaches to the master bath with a pocket door)



This one is even tighter, but we don't mind. Neither of us really get the concept of having 25% of your square footage taken by by gigantic bathrooms.

Oh, and I'm standing in the shower to take this picture.



Here's shower #2, a small but useful stall shower. I used this one for a few days (and liked it!) until we got the new shower head in the other since the high-flow shower head in the other shower ate through all of our hot water after about 3 minutes.


The Office/Guestroom



Still a big ol' work in progress.


If the boxes still aren't unpacked it means they are filled with books.



Or in the case of all the milk crates, filled with cookbooks.



The Sewing/Knitting room
(I don't really know the eventual intended purpose but this is what I'm calling it for now)



 A large portion of this room is taken up by the Goodwill pile.

There you are people. Come visit us sometime, Chez Reindl. I promise I'll clean up by then!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Reindls Go West

Well, we made it to the Midwest at least and that's as far as we're going for now.

Since not everyone is on Facebook, I though I would share my recent mobile pictures (translation: cell phone pictures, so not the greatest) on here for everyone to see.



Before hitting the road on Friday morning I snapped this quick picture of our new (old) coffee table. During our time home, whenever we weren't spending time with family we were in my parents' basement cleaning up some old pieces furniture pieces for use in the new apartment. We didn't get everyone done that we wanted (there are still two chairs that I need to cane and finish) but at least we have a coffee table.



We made our icy way down route 287 towards Jersey Shore (for those of you not from Tioga County, Jersey shore is a town in north central PA, not oceanfront property) we drove up upon this little guy racing down the middle of the road. I slowed down and drove a good bit behind him (or her) so that bambi wouldn't veer into my car. After a quarter mile, driving deer-speed became a bit rediculious so I sped up to pass when a giant tractor trailer came in the the opposing lane, forcing the deer to jump off into the woods to avoid becoming road-kill. 

I guess all that ice covered snow made cross-country travel difficult for even the deer.



Here we are crossing our first milestone into Ohio.



Poor Stella (my 1990 Saab) sustained some damage on the highway but as my sister-in-law Laura pointed out, Stella now has a chip to match the chip on Michael's car's windshield.



We stopped off at Arby's for an on the road lunch which was our first fast food meal in a very long time. Tummy aches took up the remainder of the day of driving. 

Thankfully, Susie (Michael's Aunt) treated us to some delicious homemade tortellini soup when we stayed over that night.



Driving was no so pretty or so smooth on day #2. We managed to hit Indiana (and miss the "Welcome to Indiana" sign) just in time for the last of the snow/ice storms. That increased speed limit of 70mph did nothing for our time since we rarely made it over 55mph with all the snow, slush and ice.



Illinois was a little better for us but not so good for others. The bad weather passed for the most part by then but as I noted on Facebook that I-70 was closed in both directions and detoured almost 10 miles while clean-up took place from an earlier multi-car and multi-semi pileup.



In case you needed it, here's some proof of the terrible driving conditions. Please disregard the blurriness, the windshield was so dirty that the camera refused to focus beyond it.




The delay from the detour put us back 2 hours so that instead of arriving to our new city in daylight and having time to explore, we pulled in at sunset, taking this blurry picture of our Welcome to Missouri.



Is it any surprise to any of you that the first thing we did (after picking up Michael's job-supplied rental car) was to find and raid the closest Trader Joe's.



And more importantly: Trader Joe's wine section


 

Our first dinner in the hotel room consisted of Trader Joe's packaged Indian food and a sweet German wine, which, ironically, we were unable to get in Metz, even living as close as we did to a famous German wine region.


 

We enjoyed a bit from home and a bit from our new home during the Superbowl. The old treat in the form of dad's famous mustard dip and the new treat in the form of some delicious Schlafly beer from the local Schlafly brewery. We need to check out the actual restaurant at the brewery, but for now the beer certainly wins our seal of approval.



On Sunday we drove around a bit to familiarize ourselves with the city. We purposefully drove by the iconic Gateway Arch just so we would finally feel like we were in Saint Louis.




For now, there's nothing better than relaxing with a glass of 2-buck-chuck and some pommegranate blueberry sherbet but tomorrow the work begins (for me...Michael started his job last Friday); the movers should show up at the new apartment tomorrow morning (fingers crossed for us please people!) and I'll be busy for a good bit trying to put together a reasonable home for Michael and I to live in.

I'll post an update soon to give you all a view of the new place.