Nestled In

Here are some pictures of lazy days at home. I love our little home but I hate the neighborhood. We have decided to stay here until it’s possible for us to buy a place of our own (hopefully in the next few years) but I hate waiting (I’m always so impatient!) and, like I said before, I hate the neighborhood and the building we live in. So I try to make the apartment as nice as I can for now and I try to take nice pictures of it to remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with the apartment itself and that we are lucky to be living here together (Which I know we are). But oh how I want us to be able to move out already! Do you have any similar frustrations about your home or neighborhood? Please share if you do!

Since we moved in together (7 months ago) we have dreamed and talked about buying a home of our own. We have talked about either a small house or a row house apartment with 2 or 3 bedrooms. Although we like our current rental apartment, it would be nicer to live in our own home and have a small yard. It would be nice to have a small garden and terrace and a place to barbeque. We want a simple, functional and practical apartment or house.

The whole project is completely in the air and all the budget calculations are still to be done, but we have started to look for our perfect home. We have browsed through the apartment portals in the Internet, scanned the web sites of real estate agencies and building contractors and read newspaper ads. We wish that this time next year we’ll live in our home home.

(Images from Sköna Hem, Avotakka)

We have almost all the furniture we need for our new apartment but there are still a few things we have to buy. For example, our dining table is really small. It has been designed for two people so it’ll be ridiculously small for the dining area in the new apartment. Last weekend we browsed through IKEA’s website and tried to find a dining table and chairs that would appeal to both of us. Since we like to photoshop we tried out how the Ekensberg table and the Olle chairs would look together. We would like to find simple black wooden chairs and a natural colored (solid) wooden table. We think Ekensberg and four Olles would be perfect for us and for our budget (under 300 euros altogether). The IKEA store in Haparanda is only 120 kilometers away from Oulu. That’s why we are planning a shopping trip to Sweden during the winter/spring in any case.

I haven’t seen our new apartment live. I won’t see it before we get the keys in the beginning of December. Katja has shown me a couple of photos and I’ve seen the floor plan. Last weekend we spent some time with planning. We are trying to figure out how we are going to arrage our furniture beforehand so that it won’t take too much time when we actually get to move in. Because we don’t have any exact measurements of the apartment or the furniture at this point, we can only dream and draw rough sketches.

Here’s one of the possible scenarios.

On Friday we were supposed to sign the lease to our new apartment. Unfortunately, when we got to the office we found out that it was closed for the day because of an employee training. Because of our long-distance relationship we usually see each other only on weekends and holidays. Last Friday was the only day we were both in town during the office hours so next week I’ll have to sign the papers by myself. It’s such a pity because we wanted to sign the lease and look at the paint swatches together. Paint for the walls and ceiling are provided free for us but the color selection is limited. We’re planning to paint the bedroom green so hopefully there’s a nice shade of green available.

We’ve been together since the summer of 2006 and we are moving in together in a month. During the first week of December we are going to clean and paint our new apartment and the week after that we’re moving in. We’ll have a little over a week to unpack and settle in before Christmas.

We created this blog to document the process of turning a 62 square meter (667 square feet) rental apartment into our first home together. Here we’ll share our plans and projects and the every-day things we enjoy in our home.