Indoors

Hi thar!

Well I couldn't be bothered waiting until the place was clean so I took some photos anyway. You may need to use your imagination to figure out what certain pieces of furniture actually are due to the clutter, but don't worry I'll help you!

In fact, I'm really supposed to be cleaning up the place and/or shopping for groceries and/or applying for jobs and/or a whole bunch of other less fun things than writing in a blog. I haven't managed to convince Rachel yet that the money I earn by charging people to read this blog is going to cover my half of the rent...

Speaking of which, if you're reading this, please send money to Ben. I accept cheques, or you can use your credit card via my phone service; just dial 555-SUCKERZ and follow the prompts.

Okay, on with the photos. Here is a photo of the boudoir, a queen size futon we bought at the imaginatively-named "Futon Shop". We figured we'd at least get a good night's sleep if nothing else. So far this is good, although we will eventually go out and get bedsheets that actually match. The doona cover is on semi-permanent loan from Rachel's boss (most of our furniture is also on semi-permanent loan, which had the advantage of including delivery for free).

The lamp, one of the few other things we actually paid for, is from Ikea and cost peanuts. The shades are plastic and come with fire-danger warnings, but we're using fluorescent globes which don't generate enough heat to worry about. You can get "full spectrum" fluoro globes now which make you less agro; the old ones which gave you the really white light actually only emitted a few wavelengths, and some studies show that they make people cranky. Other studies show that the new "full spectrum" globes don't make you cranky! Yay!

The flat has lots of shelves like the ones in the top left of the bed photo. They're in principle quite useful, but we need to store mostly clothes now and they're not deep enough.

The windows are double-glazed for insulation. This is a must in this sort of climate. Daphne and Charlie's place had triple-glazing! Venetian blinds cover the bedroom windows and do a pretty good job keeping the light out at night. BTW, the windows here are at the front of the house looking on to Part Street (East). There's a tall block of flats across the road that look a little dodgy. But I think they're okay. There's a reasonable amount of highrise apartments around here, and high-density population means decent shops and a chance at half-decent public transport. (The PT is indeed half-decent, but only half.)

You can see our suitcases in two of these photos - we have yet to get a proper dresser. There's some hanging space in the wardrobe - sorry, closet - but we really need drawers. One of Rachel's workmates is driving us back to Ikea on the weekend to see about that. We've discovered we can order stuff over the internet, but there's nothing like actually seeing the unit before handing over money for it.

The photo on the left shows our bedroom as seen from the bed end. One built-in robe and some more shelves. The desk is SPL (semi-permanent loan) item #1. Our landlord, Alex Gadamer lent us this. He said his father, Professor E A Gadamer, used to live here and use this desk in this room. He was a physics prof, so maybe there are good vibes here for getting back into physics one day. The initials E A G or E A Gadamer are written on things around the place, and on plaques in one or two places. It's kind of reverent in a way (is that a word? I mean the opposite of irreverent.)

The bedroom is long and narrow, but still wide enough for a queen bed. We'll probably get some furniture down the back behind the bed at some stage to make the most of the room. For now, the bedroom door is permanently open (we can't close it anyway because of the desk, and then we'd get no heat in there). There used to be a double door there once, but they've installed a bookcase to fill one door-space, and attached a wood/glass door to the bookcase. The door in particular feels very last-century drawing room. (I mean the century before...)

Oh, and the unit over the desk is an air-conditioner for summer when it gets muggy. We're sooo scared at the prospect of it getting up to a whopping 25 degrees during summer ;-P We hear it got up to 47 degree in Sydney last week, and my sister's plants got scorched.

Next, through the bedroom doorway into the living room. Looking left is the doorframe-bookcase (it faces into the living room not the bedroom) in the foreground of this photo. Across the room is the "angel bed" that sits over the stairwell. The mattress is wide enough for 1.5 guests. There is a pile of boxes there at the moment waiting to be used for something, collapsed and recycled, or stored in the basement. The funny shaped cupboard has some more hanging space but will probably be used for junk. The previous tenants left us SPL item #2, a fold-out couch. It's covered in cat hair at the moment, so we're using a borrowed sheet as a throw rug at the moment. I've discovered that the fold-out feature only works if you're prepared to scratch the hell out of the nice wooden floor, or else get like 3 people to lift the couch so the metal can swing past freely. I'm going to see about getting some bits of wood to lift up the couch (it must be missing legs or stoppers on the underside) to fix this. At the moment, it bounces when you sit on it, since the fold-out frame is what's supporting your weight.

Panning around to the right (sorry for putting the photos on the wrong sides, I imported them all at once into the blog program), there is an extendable dining table (SPL item #3 from landlord Alex) with chairs (SPL item #4 from Daphne's friends, Karen and Paul) underneath a hanging wood-shade light. This table is in probably on the most lopsided part of the floor in the house; the wall behind it is where the house has weight-bearing structures, so everything on the near side (and on the far side in the kitchen) slopes downward from there. You have to be careful which way you put your pen down on the table or else it will roll away!

In the corner is the gas heating unit (see the metal pipe going up to the ceiling). It's in good condition, but it's so old they couldn't get parts to replace it if it were to break. But it's from an era where they don't easily break anyway. It always has a minimum flame going, no matter what the thermostats tells it, so we have to turn it off altogether at night. We're told we would normally have it going full blast at this time of year, when it's normally -20 instead of +10.

Panning around to the right (so you're looking straight out from the bedroom door), there are a couple of coffee tables (SPL #5 from Karen and Paul), and two easy chairs that are quite comfortable (SPL #6 from landlord Alex). Two windows let in quite a lot of light, although the light quality isn't great at this time of year - short days of 8 or 9 hours and overcast mostly. No curtains, which may be a problem by summer. (It's sort of a problem now because we didn't bring our dressing gowns if you know what I mean...) The desk is a put-together job from Canadian Tyre - sorry I mean Tire - who used to sell car parts only but now sell everything like all the other hardware come homeware shops that are popping up everywhere. I carried home a 33kg box with this desk and a bookshelf in bits, and my back reminds me daily. I hate not having a car. The strip of wood on the right-hand side of the photo is another hanging closet.

The next photo is as seen from the other side of the room, so you can see the doorway-bookshelf properly, as well as the closet, computer desk and one of the easy chairs that all got mentioned above. There's also a 70's style coffee table in the middle of the room (SPL #7 from landlord) which might do for our dinner table once we get floor-cushions. The stairwell is on our right out of shot, and that leads down to our front door.

Next, if we go through the doorway behind us (at the top of the stairs), there's a small room that has door to the kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom isn't huge, and I found it hard to take a photo that got everything in. This photo is looking through the doorway, and you can see the bathtub/shower, the loo and a bit of the basin on the right. Not shown are more shelves, towel rails and a giant bassoon. (There is actually no bassoon, but I thought this bit might be a bit boring otherwise.) One day, we will get a second bathmat so we don't have to wash it and dry it all in one day. Oh, and there's a full length mirror.

The kitchen has a slight leaning problem as I mentioned earlier. The kitchen table (SPL #8 from Karen and Paul) is almost as lopsided as the dining-table. I think you can see the lean in this shot by the cupboards falling away toward the left. Everything is secure enough, it's just that everything looks funny after years of settlement. Panning left, there's more top cupboards, a fridge, a microwave (SPL #9 I guess, though they really come with the flat), a single sink, an electric cooktop and oven, and the window that looks over the river and footbridge out the back. Oh, and more built-in shelves where our kettle and chocolate supply live. There's a single drawer for cutlery and kitchen utensils, and some under-sink space for cleaners and rubbish.

This last shot is to show how skewed the place is. The door frame is a few degrees out of shape due to the settlement. This looks very strange. Although not as strange as the tilted room in the optical illusion gallery we visited in New Zealand in December...

Okay, gotta run to a thing at McMaster University. Rachel's group is having an afternoon tea and, as I haven't got any social outlets of my own at the moment, I'm piggybacking on hers. The walk is about 35 minutes at a march (45+ at a leisurely pace) and just that little bit too long. We're going to have to see about other transport options in future. Bikes? Buses? Cars? Lifts? Actually, I walked past a shop the other day that was selling elevators for less than a grand, I might get one! I wonder if it can get me around the place like Willy Wonka's glass elevators?

Okay, I'll write more when I have real stories to report, not made-up ones.
Bye!
Ben