Rearranging the sofa: 4 times a charm!

I think we've solved the sofa problem.
At first I tried putting a different rug in front of it:

But the husband grew up with this rug and was sick of seeing it everywhere and doesn't want it in the living room. It's also thin and not as cushy/comfy as the red ones. The Afghan rug also left the rest of the room's floor bare and empty and we just need more coverage. (we agreed that if we'd had more rugs we'd just do a casbah thing, but no such luck) So back go the red rugs:

Then we moved the couch trying to face the fireplace:

But this was just silly since there was so much room between the couch and fireplace. So we moved it again. Every time we move the rugs we get these piles of white grit. Great, the overpriced rugs that were perfect in the last apartment are not only no longer perfect in this one, they don't really work in any space, we're sick of them, and now they create the Gobi desert. See?
Anybody know how to deal with this carpet grit? We have tried vacuuming both sides many times to no avail. Stupid rugs. At least we felt really happy with the last couch switcheroo:
We get the enjoy the blue wall that we thought we'd never really see from the couch (remember our storage delima?) and we feel closer to the fireplace while feeling like we're not missing out on the window. Having the chaise section of the couch be far from the fireplace helps keep the space open, while also helping to define the seating area.
Putting both red rugs in front of the couch keeps a main traffic area behind the couch trip-free while keeping the hang-zone cushy, comfy, and contained. We like how the room is so huge and open to the dining area, but we didn't want the living space spilling over too much, so this is nice. Our inspiration photo for the blue wall opposite the couch is courtesy the Domino Book of Decorating (which I highly recommend):
We thought about doing this art arrangement around our big nautical map back when the sofa was against the wall, but we like how this will look with our two armchairs. Ideally we'd upgrade the armchairs and add a small table and lamp between them, as well as switch out the coffee table for something else. We'd also like to find real endtables, put a small bookshelf in the far right corner, and get the wall over the mantel decorated, but for now we're happy to have at least this much done!! We can live with this until we get the other rooms set up.

Seriously, any ideas about the gritty rugs??

Corner View: the weekend

This week's corner view is of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7:45pm. We happened to spend the weekend visiting friends down in Bavaria. I actually have no real pictures of our evenings or anything we did in the evenings. So for this week's corner view you'll have to close your eyes and imagine 2 couples sitting on a giant, overstuffed, beige micro-suede sectional sofa, often smothering hysterical laughter so as not to wake the baby who just went down. For a photo's sake, here's the baby sitting on said sofa in a non-evening shot:
We actually tried watching a movie on two different nights, but didn't get anywhere with that idea because we had too much fun talking and laughing. We are SO blessed to have dear friends from the US whose work sent them to a location near us!

For more Corner View weekends, head over to Spain Daily.

Pueblos and a German schoolbag

This week's entry in the Traveler's Inspiration Challenge is based on this photo of a pueblo in New Mexico, USA. Honestly, most of the people doing this challenge are scrappers, so when I saw the inspiration photo I thought, well shoot... But the cool thing is, it makes me keep my eyes open for a pattern of color during my week. Here's this week's entry:This morning we unpacked this huge red chest Stefan lugs along to each new home. I thought it just had old kid magazines and his old riding gear (including tattered crop and moldy black velvet helmet) inside. Today we found a few more fun things, one of which was this leather backpack. Here's the back:This was his first schoolbag as a little boy. He grew up in a few different countries and was living in Ghana, West Africa when he started school. The style of this bag is typical for a German schoolkid. Today they are usually neon colored with huge reflectors on them; pretty hideous I'd say. His parents had a local artisan make one from leather since there were no typical German schoolbags in Ghana back in the 1970's! It definitely looks both African and German. It's darling and we want to put it on display somewhere in the house.

Corner View: the unveiling

I'm a an American girl who loves the beach married to a German who wishes all vacations could be had hiking in the Alps. Here we are before a hike:

Here we are at the top of the Kreuzeck down in Bayern:As you can see, we like blue and red. For better or worse, it's a theme. We also often find ourselves wearing unintentionally matching outfits, which is really embarrassing. Usually I'm the one to go change. However, hiking pants are hiking pants. Red coats are intentional because we ride our bikes so much here and red coats help us to be visible to others on the road. So in a sense, our matching also reflects our lifestyle =)

To see more of the folks participating in the Corner View series, check out Spain Daily.

Hiding the storage mess, developing the Diele

Aside from finally being able to just chill after the passing of the end of school year stress that has been plaguing our home for the past month, we've finally been able to tackle some more projects. First up are the doors on our dining and living room storage units.
We had some open areas in these units at our last apartment, but decided that the shelves were really too deep to display anything properly. This time around we bought a few extra door panels and to keep the lines clean and mess hidden. Happy.
We also snagged a cheapy wardrobe from Ikea to replace the built-in hall closet we'd enjoyed in our last apartment. I'm happy all the coats are off the floor of the little yellow room, but wish we had a prettier closet solution. It works for now, but I may alter the piece depending on what we end up doing in the main hall.
The important thing is that coats are now off the floor and out of the way. That had really been bugging me!! Our next step is to assemble the furniture in the yellow room and figure out where to put it. Then we have to settle on a longer-term living room couch location. And then, and then.... I'm glad we're getting things done here, but am really looking forward to our Thursday departure. We're going to visit some friends in Bayern and maybe take in some waters... =)

Saved by a free printable

Last night my husband informs me he's supposed to decorate four wine bottles as part of a farewell and thank you gift by the next morning (today). Four part-time workers were leaving on this last day of the school year and he wasn't supposed to present just a plain bottle. Normally this is not a big deal, but the untypical last-minute-ness of it combined with the fact that all of the decorating type stuff is still buried in a box somewhere.....not happy. But I managed:
I googled 'wine bottle decorate' and came up with this image. Wheels turned since just the day before I'd seen a darling free printable offered on Cameron Blazer's blog, The Cottage Industrialist. Dare I say wheels turned a tad more because I knew I had something thin and sparkly and thought I could meet Tina's Traveler's Inspiration Challenge. This past week's photo had been of a row of shimmery, brightly colored Morracan slippers. So in an eleventh hour submission, here we go:

Herzlichen Dank = something akin to Thanks so much!

To download your own copy of these cute, customizable flat cards, click here.

DIY end tables, check! Now where to put the couch??

So I really wasn't kidding about slipcovering a box to make an end table! You may have seen a new end table in yesterday's Corner View post. Here's a close up:
U-Haul size medium box + 2 mismatched white pillowcases + 2 matching trays I already had = substitute end tables until we can find/afford a replacement. I know actually slipcovering the whole box would look much better, but since that would mean buying fabric and a sewing machine, I'm going to have to say 'not right now'.

It is a bit of a mind-bender to have oh-so-American U-Haul boxes stacked up around our oh-so-German home, that's for sure. We had one ex-pat guest go up and hug one once because he missed the US so much! German guests usually just find the boxes amusing. For now I'm embracing them because once they're empty then I have to deal with the next problem: where to really put the couch? *remember how I said we do a lot of blue and red?Here you see our couch, whose chaise was perfect in the last apartment, but not so perfect here. The real problem, however, is that this room has two major focal points, first is the huge window and glass door to our balcony. The second is the 70's fireplace which we hope to kick into action during the winter. They are on opposite walls, so for now we've compromised and put the couch where it is. But what to do with that weird small-ish spot in front of the fireplace?
If we face the couch towards the fireplace we lose the view we love so much. If we face the window - well that just looks silly. You can't ignore the fireplace! What to do?? This really the only space in the living room to work with as the other side looks like this:

and this:

It really is messy isn't it? Only 2 more days of school and then my honey will have 6 weeks off to help with my eternally long Honey-Do list!! Can't wait! (um, neither can he... ha ha!)

Instruction Manuals

Apparently I haven't figured out all the bells and whistles (read: timer) on the new oven.
So much for that black frisbee - I mean, pizza.

Corner View: A place to just be

This week's Corner View theme is the place you go to 'just be'. Right now it's my living room. It's full of light and is the most open and spacious room. It's one of the main reasons we chose this apartment.Even though we're still surrounded by tons of boxes and general disorder, this room is the best for it's comfy seating and heart-of-the-home feel. We hang out and have our best conversations here, with each other or whoever is on the phone. We like to look out and see the tops of the lilac trees off our balcony:
or watch the sunsets amidst our crazy German summer weather. We had friends visit on Monday night and it was nice to have some good fellowship here as well. That's the sort of thing that fills up a room and lingers days after the people have left. We look forward to making this room more cozy and having more people over!

For more Corner Views from around the world, be sure to visit Spain Daily!

Corner View: German food staples

I've decided to join the "Corner View" series that Jane, over at Spain Daily, started. Fun glimpses into various 'corners' around the world. This week's topic is 'staple foods'. I think one of the top staples of the German diet is pork anything. Here we even have Bärchenwurst, (little bear sausage) that the kids I babysit love. They'll have a slice on their buttered bread for dinner. See him below, next to a bunch of other pork products?

Even MORE pork products, and there are so many more! *as a side note, back in '98 I did a 3 month internship in Germany where it was pork everywhere, then went right on to Israel for 4 months of study, where you could find no pork! I liked that b/c by then I was so sick of pork! =)

Here's an old shot from a Metzgerei (butcher's shop) down in Bavaria we went to last fall. We love Landjägers for a treat. A kind of smoked pork stick thing.

Bread and white potatoes are also staples, but I suspect others will do a better job of capturing them (edit: check out Allison's post on potatoes, a little history lesson), so I will just post a picture outside of our local bakery.
I wanted to focus on cherries (Kirsch) though. Summer, and the school summer vacation here, really kicks off when the cherries are ripe for the eating. Yesterday at the bakery I got the seasonal special, which was a cherry and custard pastry.
Before I left for the bakery I went to finally return the plate that Frau Tille had used to bring me our wedge of ice cream pie. I ended up meeting Herr Tille in the stairwell who promptly sent me back upstairs with the plate again, this time full of fresh cherries! He'd received a huge pail of fresh cherries from a friend and wanted to share. Yes, we have awesome neighbors! So this was our dinner last night. It was too hot and humid to do much else anyhow. I have another huge bag of cherries in the fridge, too!
We won't talk about the giant rain storm meeting our open kitchen skylights when I was gone to the bakery and the three huge towels I needed to fix that problem...

For more staple foods from around the world, click here.