Another New Home

A few photos of our new home.  We live in the Østerbro neighborhood of Copenhagen.  Our apartment was beautifully renovated before we moved in, with newly polished floors and fresh white paint on the walls.  We haven't figured out how old the building is yet, but we think its probably late 1800's to early 1900's. 

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Our little home is nestled between the three large parks toward the top of the map, just off Sølvgade.  Østre Analæg is my favorite park for wildlife viewing and natural landscaping.  Botanisk Have (botanical Gardens) looks like a Monet painting.  Copenhagen does parks very well.  We are a 10 minute walk from shopping areas and tourist hotspots like the Little Mermaid and a 20 minute walk from Tivoli Gardens.

 Our living room before our shipment arrived.  I always like a place better before we clutter it up with stuff.  So clean, so full of potential. 

 Ornamentation around the ceiling light fixtures.

 Other side of the living room.

 Looking toward the park and the Danish National Art Gallery.

 Bathroom, obviously.  How does a country that is notoriously cold and dark not make
a bathtub standard?  I do love the heated towel racks, though. 

 My favorite room.  This is the kitchen of a queen (hmmm...queens don't usually cook) compared to our tiny little workspace in Tokyo.  I love the window, the full size built-in oven, plenty of cabinets and the bright wood counters! And a dishwasher!

 A huge refrigerator and freezer.  And an annoyingly slow and inefficient washer/dryer combo.  Glad we don't have to share a laundry room, but, really, 3.5 hours for a load?

View from the kitchen window.  Most buildings in Copenhagen have a shared courtyard with other apartments.  Many have picnic areas, playgrounds for kids and clotheslines.  Ours has a dilapidated bike storage shed (with no room for our bikes) and a large trash pile that hasn't been removed in over a month.  Each apartment is also supposed to have pram storage (nope) and basement storage (still waiting on that).  Our rental agency isn't the most efficient, but one bonus is knowing that in the Great Storm of Summer 2011, our basement didn't get even an inch of water.  

The apartment is 77 square meters (roughly 800 square feet), about 50% bigger than our home in Tokyo.  Still small by American standards, but considerably more living space than before.  I forgot to take a picture of the bedroom, but it basically looks like the living room, only smaller.  Woody sleeps in the living room.  There are no closets and storage is a challenge, but we love the natural light and the watching the trees through the windows.  It's a lovely home.  Once it's all in place, I'll give you a tour of the "after" look.