The Downstairs

Okay, let's begin the house tour, shall we?  I'm going to take you around the downstairs today since the upstairs is really just a pile of boxes and a mattress on the floor at the moment.  Oh, and I apologize that these pictures aren't especially well-lit as they were taken early this morning before the sun was really shining.  Which it actually does quite regularly now, God bless spring!

So, you saw a bit of the kitchen from moving day and this shot gives you an idea of how the laundry room fits into the floorplan, but I'll skip a photo of that because it's cat stuff and cleaning stuff and the furnace and (WOOHOO!) a washing machine. 

Here is the hallway from just inside the front door, with the kitchen to the right and the living room straight ahead.  We're not sure what we'll do with the great space under that staircase once the boxes are gone.  It is one of a few areas of the house that feel particularly luxurious because we don't have to fill it with something out of necessity.  Stroller parking, maybe.  Oh, and the previous owners had a toddler and generously left safety gates for both the top and the bottom of the staircase. 

Here's "my" bathroom.  Before we moved in we decided on a bathroom splitsky that was pretty arbitrary, but turned out perfect because The Swede is too tall to see himself in the downstairs bathroom mirror.  Plus, the upstairs one is much more macho.  You'll see that later in the upstairs post.

The living room is about the size of our entire old apartment, however it's so long and narrow that our sofa can only fit in this spot, which gives us a bit of a TV placement challenge, especially since we're getting a longer media cabinet.  I feel confident we'll figure it out, though.  Not to brag, but in general we're pretty clever.  And, hey, if you have any ideas let me know!

And here is the other side of the living room, which I think would be a perfect spot for some tall shelves where we can keep baby toys and whatnot.  Geez, don't those pictures that looked so huge in our old place seem teeny tiny now?  And speaking of huge, the last bit from the downstairs tour is our backyard terrace and our beast of a grill.