As you know, we moved on August 17th, and I’m happy to say that we’ve been 100% settled since Friday September 14th (just 4 days after the goal I had set). And even more–I finally have pictures to share!

Let’s start in the front of the house. We occupy the second floor of a 3-unit building, and after unlocking the door the first thing you do is come up a big set up steps under a skylight. As soon as I had my camera out and ready to take pictures, I heard a key in the door and . . .

. . . welcome home, baby!

Just in time for a little photo shoot. Because what everyone wants when they first walk in the door after a long day at work isn’t a hug and kiss as you may expect, but a camera in their face!

. . . right?

Anyway. The first stop for incoming people is the shoe bench (actually two of them side by side, courtesy of Ikea).

The front of the house is basically a big kitchen/living room/dining room area, which I tried to photograph from a number of angles to give you a sense of the space.

The dining room area is a nice size for our little round table (inherited during our undergrad days from a certain Darius Fong), but I wonder how a larger table would make it feel–cramped? We want a table that can seat more than 4 people, but we’re a little afraid that if we upsize, our guests will end up being packed into their dining situations like sardines.

Oh, and that door against the wall leads to a little balcony which my husband loves to sit out on. I’m still a little leery of spiders and getting debris and leaves on my bottom from those plastic chairs. But I’m working on my phobias as we speak.

We turned this rolling cart thingy from a coffee station (in our previous apartment) to a wine station.

And above it hangs one of my favorite paintings, from the walls of Mama Kitty and Big Jake’s house.

It reminds me of my Wisconsin roots and makes me feel . . . I don’t know. Good. Nostalgic. Peaceful.

In the dining area we put our big ole shelf:

Not a perfect fit for that wall, but close enough.

It houses things that delight me: my cookbooks!

Glasses and pictures!

And a bin at the bottom for Alice’s bibs and little utensils and such.

After a month of packing and a month of unpacking, having everything in its place and not a single box remaining anywhere to be seen feels glorious.

My husband and I are matched in this sense–we are creatures of order. We love harmony, routine, and our spirits have a much easier time being peaceful when our surroundings are peaceful.

So I feel like I’m breathing easier than I have for the past couple months. And being done with everything move-related is probably why I’ve been able to go from losing pregnancy weight to finally gaining some.

More shots of the livingroom area:

In these pictures, the fireplace/mantel area looks a little cluttered to me. In our defense, we had to use decor and furniture to cover a series of hefty cables coming out of the wall above the mantelpiece (originally there to connect a TV) and to the right of the mantelpiece (surround sound), as well an unsightly pipe coming out of the “fireplace.”

And in real life I don’t think it looks as busy as it does in these still shots, for whatever reason.

I have presented my defense, and I rest my case.

I’m so glad to finally have this painting out, since it represents Spain to me (the artist was a friend of my mom’s from her painting circle in Madrid).

And the framed cross stitch from our friend Kathy brings our church in Delaware (EP) to mind–and into my prayers.

This is my new morning devotional area:

It’s such a peaceful, wonderful spot for early morning meditation and prayer.

I love it.

As for the kitchen, I didn’t take that many pictures . . . maybe because we didn’t really do anything to make it look so nice. It was already nice. Which is an apartment first for us!

I guess in the above shot we were in the middle of dinner preparations, hence the slight disarray on the counters (i.e., the rice cooker). Please pretend in your mind that it’s all picked up before we move on. Thank you.

One of my favorite things is that the three hanging lamps above the bar-height kitchen counter are on a dimmer, so late at night we can have a nice, quiet glow coming from the kitchen area.

Alright! So if you can stand to see more, let’s move down the hall. Our first stop is what we call the 3rd bedroom/computer room/library/{insert name of guest staying with us}’s room. So far it has been John’s room, my mom’s room, Jon’s room, Ben’s room, and Julia’s room. Maybe we should simplify and just give it its own proper name. Like Harvenschtein. Or Hepselforthgard. Something with an H, definitely.

As you can see, we own a lot of books.

Which is why I love the wall shelving we got at Ikea–our tomes have outgrown our bookshelves, and used to be sitting in piles on top of them. No longer! Now they all have a proper place to sit.

I should also point out that those frames will not hang empty forever–I’m ordering prints from photos I’ve taken of Chicago, which should arrive semi-soon.

Rotating clockwise, we have the dual desk action area, with a writing desk for my husband . . .

. . . and, next to it, the smallest computer desk we could find for our desktop.

Next to which is a closet.

I’ll show you what’s in it!

All our instruments (acoustic, classical and electric guitars, djembe, violin), sewing stuff, games, our filing cabinet etc, all organized by my amazing husband. And apparently, a rotary phone on top of it all.

So that you can take a call in total privacy.

And if you visit, there are even hangers, and some space for you to hang your clothes! So c’mon by. Or something. You’ll feel right at home in Hepselforthgard!

As long as your spine doesn’t object to our bony futon.

Next up is the guest bathroom, which I found an awesome shower curtain for at Target.

My husband made sure to equip the bathroom with a clock, in case you get distracted by your intense grooming rituals and need to know exactly how much time you’ve spent plucking your left eyebrow.

Next up in our trek down the hallway comes Alice’s room on the right, but you’ll get pictures of that tomorrow–that room deserves its own post.

I didn’t photograph the laundry area (I figured you guys had seen it before), but there are a series of bookcases we moved into the widest section of the hallway because, let’s face it, they just weren’t going to fit into the 3rd bedroom.

Believe me, we tried.

Hence, our ‘media’ bookcase with DVD’s and some CD’s:

(from Ikea! And the laundry area is behind the doors to the left)

(and in case you’re disoriented, I turned around to snap this picture, so we’re facing towards the front of the house, and the door you see on the right goes into the bathroom we just visited) (metaphorically speaking)

And, turning around again to face the back of the house, here are the bookshelves (the door at the end of the hall is our back door) . . .

. . . that precede the final door into our bedroom.

Yes, our books have yet to be organized and alphabetized and such, but don’t worry! With my husband in charge, it’s bound to happen. It’s only a matter of time.

Finally, we have our bedroom! It gets so much lovely morning light.

Which makes getting up so much easier . . .

. . . though not easy, mind you. Nope, not at this stage of pregnancy.

And if you like the bedding, you must know that it all came from Rummage. I love, love, love shopping for bedding at Rummage.

And at risk of being repetitive, we LOVE that the big light hanging from the ceiling (which came with the place) is on a dimmer. It makes night time reading extra fun and cozy.

We’re loving our bedroom set from Ikea, and I think my husband made a great choice with the bedside tables and lamps.

As you can see, my night time reading appears to be all about . . . well, food.

We’ve decorated our bedroom pretty minimally, and for the time being we’re really enjoying that. There’s a lot of empty wall space, but I don’t feel moved to fill it up. For now, we’re keeping it simple with a few pictures of us.

I love this open space.

And the dressers were 100% necessary to house my clothes . . .

. . . which, at our old apartment, used to live in a closet in our 2nd bedroom.

No more! I love having my clothes in my actual bedroom. No more naked dashes across the hall . . . at least none out of strict necessity.

Sorry–was that way too shocking? I can’t quite tell. Hunh. I’ll have to remember to turn on my self-censorship/propriety gauge system tomorrow, because obviously I failed to do so when I got up this morning.

We even have a built-in hidden shelving area in a nook by the window, mostly used by my husband. Since it’s invisible from most areas of the room, it doesn’t necessarily have to look matchy matchy . . . but if it ever starts to get under my skin, I reserve the right to go hog wild and purchase 20 matching bins.

May I highlight the current bin action happening?

Thank you.

I neglected to photograph the master bathroom connected to our bedroom, so I’ll just refer you to this post to refresh your memory. But having a bathroom right there is so awesome–I can’t even believe it.

Thus endeth our tour. Tomorrow it’s all about Alice’s room!