Moving Houses

After three years of living in our flat in West London, our landlord dropped the bombshell that her nephew was moving to town and she needed the place for him. 

So it was time to pack up and move on.

Per our lease, our landlord gave us the standard 60 day notice, but since we knew we would be super busy in May and June travelling, we decided  to start looking for a new flat ASAP.  Our letting agent wasn’t very much help in finding anything, so David got to work on his own and found a ton of great places just a few blocks away.  After checking out just two rental homes, we found an amazing little house just a minute’s walk from the tube station.  It only took us one day.  We were very, very lucky.

This house-hunting trip went so much better than when we first moved to London.  It helped that we knew the area, the various letting agents (we ended up going with Japan Services, since our area is full of Japanese expats because the children’s Japanese school is just down the street), and we were able to stretch our budget a bit.

We were also able to negotiate vacating our current place a lot sooner than the 60 days our landlord had given us.  So within just a couple of weeks after finding out the bad news, we had hired a moving company and bribed our friends and family with dinner to help us move.

Meike and her husband, Felipe, were in town that same weekend, but Meike was pregnant at the time (she had a baby boy, Maximilian, last weekend – yay!!) so we gave them a free pass!  Instead, they went out into the city that morning and came back to a new house that evening.

We had dinner with them the night before instead at Argentine steakhouse, Gaucho.  Yum!

We really like our new place, but it took a while to put it all together because there are no closets!  It’s recently renovated, so we have a clean, modern kitchen and bathroom and new paint and carpet throughout the house, but when the contractors redid everything, they didn’t think to put closet space anywhere.  So weird!  I don’t know how people in Europe live without storage or closets… so we had to buy a few new furniture pieces, and now it’s finally feeling like home!

The new house is attached on both sides, but the walls are much thicker than our old place (if you never came to visit, you can’t imagine how loud the children were upstairs).  

The house is also two stories, which is very different than our old ground-floor flat, and makes it feel much bigger.

In the winter, we’ll close off the door to the entryway and the door to the kitchen, which will keep the living area warm and cozy.

Another living room / dining room / office combo.

Nice new kitchen, and the best part is…

….we finally have a dishwasher!!  After three years of doing the dishes by hand, this is my favorite part of the new house!

Same as almost every house in England, the washing machine is in the kitchen. Unfortunately, there isn’t space for a dryer, but we’re used to line-drying by now. :(

The backyard is much smaller than our old one, which is great news for us (less maintenance!) but bad news for Kirby.

We have a garage and a coal shed in the back, which is being used as a storage area for everything that didn't fit in the house and can brave the elements outside.  

The second best part of the new place is the full-size fridge we found in the garage.  David quickly claimed the garage and fridge and turned it into his ‘man-cave.’

Master Bedroom

Guest Bedroom

Our one bathroom with lots of natural light but not a lot of storage

After trying to fit all of our clothes in the drawers and new guest bedroom wardrobe, we realized that was not happening and turned the third bedroom into a walk-in closet.  Much better! 

For our anniversary this year, I went with the traditional wood theme and bought David a liquor globe (the top opens up to hold liquor bottles and glasses), thinking he would put it out in his man cave.  He liked it too much to send it out to the garage, so the gift completely backfired on me and is now sitting in our living room. 

But we are displaying a lot of the trinkets we've picked up on our travels around the world.  

From David’s beer stein collection hanging on a shelf above the dining room,

to our Russian nesting dolls on the bookshelf that I picked up at the Christmas market in St. Petersburg,

to the ebony hand-carved elephant sitting on our coffee table that we bargained for at the Masai village in Tanzania,

the globe does tie our travel-themed home together, so I must admit that it is starting to grow on me.

We still have plenty of space in our new place, so if anyone wants to make any trips to London and needs a room, don’t hesitate to give us a call.  We love hosting friends and family!