I figured that before too much time passed, I should show you all where we live. As you may have noticed, I affectionately refer to is as our little ghetto. In England however ghettos are referred to as council estates. Although that sounds posh due to the use of the word 'estate', it's actually quite a slam. For instance, if you wanted to make fun of someone for what they were wearing you could say "wow, you like you just walked off a council estate." Supposedly it's where all the chavs live. Explaining chav, well...that in and of itself is another post entirely so I'll move on.
This is a council estate:
Pretty, don't ya think? No, thankfully, we don't live in a council block building. However I would much rather pay their rent per week than ours! To me, these buildings are high-rise hell but the rent is controlled and for some, it's the only way they can financially survive living in London. Instead of living in one, we live right next to one of them and there are about 5 more in the surrounding area. They are quite an eye sore but we've learned to see past their awful exterior and windows with bed sheet curtains. We've embraced the fact that we are roughing it in a very shi-shi part of London. Not only do we live right under one but so does Bob Hoskins, Sadie Frost, David Walliams. They all live right down the street somewhat near another fine work of architectural engineering...a council block. So, I don't feel so bad livin' in the ghetto. If they can do it...
Our home is considered to be a townhouse of sorts. It's not what you'd call pretty by any means but it suits our needs while we're here. We've got off street parking (HUGE plus in a big city) and we've even got our own garage. Not that we'd ever be able to fit our car into it, but it's the thought that counts, right?!
The house is a mere three stories: Ground floor is the kitchen and dining area with our laundry room, loo (aka bathroom) and access to the backyard. First floor is the reception room (aka living room), sitting room and playroom. The third floor has three bedrooms and two full bathrooms. It's quite spacious by city living standards and has drastically reduced my time on the stairmaster at the gym. It makes us laugh every time we walk up and down the stairs because while house-hunting, we avoided anything above a 2nd floor walk up. We didn't want to be bothered with stairs. Silly silly us.
So, it's not the tidiest of kitchen pictures but if I waited for a clean kitchen before I took a picture, I'd never include the kitchen in this post. So, deal with the mess...I do.
The following pictures will show you our reception room and sitting room. It's one of my favorite spaces in the house and is finally, partially rid of toys.
Next is the playroom. We've learned from living in the romper room for the past few years, that a playroom is an absolute must. When Avery was born I wondered what she was going to do with herself as she grew up because, at the time, we had no toys. Then one day, we woke up and found ourselves buried in Barbie, Legos, Playdoh, Crayola and My Little Ponies. I don't know how it happened...really I don't. Since, this room is totally a space for the girls, we rarely tidy it up because really, what's the point?
I'm not putting any photos of the bedrooms on here because, well, they're just that. A place to sleep and I'm not a bed maker...not even for pictures.
And our garden is our little piece of paradise. Yes, I realize that it in no way, resembles a garden. However, a garden to the English is a yard to the American. There is a slight difference though...a garden needs no grass to be a garden. It can be patch of grass, patio, cement slab, mess of bushes and trees. What it can't be is what we Americans call a garden. There is generally no fruit or vegetables inhabiting it. Better for me since I have yet to establish my green thumb. Anyway, our yard may be small but it is one serious commodity out here. This summer, all I will have to do is open up the door and the girls will have free reign. ..then I guess I'll have to learn how to use a mop b/c the ground never quite dries out from all the rain.Here's the view of our little heaven from our master bedroom and below it is some of our neighbor's pads.
Well, that's about it. Hopefully the pictures give you a pretty decent portrait of our home in Londontown. Until next post...
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment