It is now the second week of March and we have completed unpacking and setting up the house. It was quite a lot of work and we had to buy an additional bureau for clothes. Before leaving the US we had purchased a significant amount of new furniture and had it shipped.
One of our major purchases were several armoires. These were purchased from Ikea and it seems that the person who put our order into the computer at Ikea missed huge chunks of detail, such as the shelves, drawers and hanging rods. Fortunately, there is an Ikea not far from the house. Thankfully, Ikea has the same products in Germany as in the US and we got all of the parts we needed.
Additionally, our apartment did not come with light fixtures installed. There are 11 light fixtures in the apartment. 9 of the fixtures had bulbs hanging from a wire, one had just wires and the ½ bath had a simple light fixture. So far, we have purchased 9 light fixtures and with only the bedroom to get a fixture for, we want to have a ceiling fan as Germans do not believe in A/C.
With lighting over 90% accomplished, just about the last thing that needs to be completed is hanging pictures and stuff on the wall. This sounds pretty simple…..it is not. In the US, most housing has wallboard and that can be a major pain to hang things, wallboard is not necessarily the most stable surface to hang things on, especially on an older house. In Germany, they do not build houses using wood frame and wall board. They use poured concrete with some kind of hard surface over top. The place that we live in is an older building that was remodeled in the late 60’s or so (Mike Brady staircase). This means that part of it is concrete and part of it is brick, either way, beneath the surface it is hard! To hang a picture is an iffy thing. Can you simply hammer in a picture hanger and hang a picture, answer – sometimes. Sometimes, you need to use the drill and masonry bits and drill a hole for a molly bolt!
Overall, we are fairly well settled in and it is beginning to feel like home.
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