Lots of work in the apartment

We have done a lot to the apartment in the month of October. We started with purchasing the china hutch, which we showed in the last post. Remember when I said that we don't usually make just one improvement at a time? Well, this holds true for October as well. We added a carpet to the music room. This carpet was actually left in the apartment by the previous owners, but I couldn't think of a good place to use it. Bobby finally convinced me that it would work in the music room. After some maneuvering, we found the perfect position for it.

We finally placed some photos and random art work on the nook table. We also hung some curtains.

Bobby said we needed the curtain (and rug) to help dampen the sound of his piano practicing. He's been doing a great job at practicing daily since returning home in August. I'm quite impressed with his progress. You can also see in this photo that we've hung up a world map. My paternal grandparents used to have a similar map, where they had pins sticking out of all the places they have visited. I loved looking at the map as a child and would wonder if I'd get to visit as many places as they did. I'll still not sure that I'll reach all the places Grandma and Grandpa went to, despite my best efforts, but I still love having my own map with pins in all the places Bobby and I have visited together.

I think the guest room is finally finished (at least until we replace the old closet unit in it, but that won't be for a long while). I touched up the brown wall, added a bed-side table (which Bobby found in the trash! Gotta love Denmark for all of its nice furniture in the trash), and then added a lamp (this one purchased at Ikea).

We also added a desk to the room so our guests have a place to write their postcards. I'm pretty sure this desk was found in the trash, as was the lamp on the desk. Both the chair and closet were left in the apartment by the previous owner, similar to the above-mentioned rug.

Our bedroom was the big task this month. The room used to be painted the same yellow color that the entire apartment was one painted (the only rooms left yellow now are the kitchen and Bobby's office... we've painted the entryway, guest bedroom, part of the guest bathroom, dining room, music room, and bathroom). It also had a huge but completely non-efficient closet unit that took up the entire side of the wall. We decided to replace the old closets with new ones from Ikea. These are also huge units, but they actually take up less space than the previous closet, and I love the mirrored doors! These behemoths took us 16 hours to make over the course of two days. 16 very, very long hours. It took us about 4 hours to break down the old closets and take them down to the large trash bins in our central, communal courtyard. We live on the 4th floor, so that's a lot of stair!

In addition to replacing the closet unites, we also painted the entire room. We thought we had bought a gray color, but in the room the paint turned out to be more of a blue-green-gray. Though it's not what we were expecting, we actually really love the color. It reminds me of the ocean. We also hung up new curtains. Funny story about the curtains - they block out so much more light than our old curtains that the first week with the new curtains we kept oversleeping because it was so dark in the room!

Last but not least, we added a shelf above the bed. Man, this was a giant pain to install. Not as bad as a 16 hour closet installation, true, but still a pain. But I think it looks great. The white bureau was one we used to keep in the guest bedroom. It was something we also found in the trash! Add some new sheets and a new duvet cover and violá, we have a brand new bedroom!

China hutch

 Our home improvement bug has yet to flitter away. After scouring Den Blå Avis (dba.dk, the Danish equivalent to CraigsList), we found this awesome china hutch (vitrineskab in Danish). The original owners bought it new two years ago from a fancy design shop in Copenhagen and it is in perfect condition. It's also a heavy SOB, which makes me happy since that means it's a solid piece of furniture (no offense Ikea). Luckily for us, the original owner had a car and was kind enough to rent a trailer, so he delivered it to our apartment! He and Bobby carried the two halves up while I carried the shelves. It's really nice to have a hutch where we can display our wine glasses and alcohol collection, plus have the storage space for our serving linens, candles, and other odds and ends.

This black piece is what we used to use for a hutch. It has now be relegated to the front entrance, where it stores our winter hats and gloves, ping pong paddles, and umbrellas.

Hurray for new furniture!