The long promised apartment "tour"

Hello, everyone! I know I've been promising a picture tour of our apartment for weeks. I actually took these photos almost two weeks ago, but then got a little gun shy about posting all the details of our living space for everyone to see. So, here we go with a bit of an abbreviated view of our new living space.

Our apartment is in a middle-aged building, but the apartment was completely remodeled before we moved in. The neighbor upstairs told us it had been empty for a year before we came. It's not clear if that was because they were unable to rent it before remodeling or if the remodel took that long....

Outside and entry:

Here we'll start with a photo of the outside of the apartment building looking toward the lake. The first picture was taken during our house-hunting trip in September. It doesn't really look that beautiful here in January/ February! Our apartment runs along the side of the building and is the second floor from the top. You can see the blast shields down in this picture!

Our building.

Entrance driveway: Door to our box (garage) on left, entrance to
building and apartments on right.

Not yet very organized entrance hall to our apartment.
You can see here and above that Swiss aren't too
concerned about presenting visitors with a
"grand entrance!"

Our main living space:

This is one of the first things that attracted us to this apartment. The living area including the living/dining area and kitchen is very large and open by Swiss standards. Laura always missed that we didn't have a "great room" in our old house, and I guess this makes up for it! We have so far done a lot of good family living in this area.

In this first picture, we're looking into the living area from the entrance hall. You'll notice Calvin wearing a hat from his school birthday celebration, which was during the week of January 23, proving these photos are almost two weeks old. You can see the art above the fireplace is still missing glass from when it fell off the mantel and shattered on New Year's Eve and narrowly missed killing Elliot. I still haven't even bothered trying to find out where you go to get a picture re-framed!

Living/dining area looking from entrance hall.

Looking back toward kitchen.

Part of kitchen and eating location. We always eat here;
we haven't even used the dining room table once yet.

Our "American" kitchen. We're in love with this kitchen.

If the great room initially attracted us, the kitchen nearly sold us. You just don't see kitchens like this in Switzerland. First of all, it was unusual to be open to the great room (and view). Most of the kitchens here to be stuck back around some corner or behind a wall. Secondly, it's big. Very unusual to have an eating space inside/attached to the kitchen. And, look at those appliances! Notice the refrigerator. Most of the apartments we had included a refrigerator with tiny freezer underneath that totalled the size of the freezer compartment on the left side of our refrigerator in the picture. You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm dead serious*. This kitchen prompted some expat visitors to tell us, "You're not living in a Swiss apartment, you're in an American apartment."

Our other main living space?


LeDeck: If the great room initially attracted us and the kitchen nearly sold us, it's the outdoor space that sealed the deal. In the summer we hope that we'll be spending most of our time out here. We think we'll eat most of our meals out here and also sit out here enjoying the fresh air. A note about the view: generally, we find ourselves with envy of other friends' views when we visit them. There are better views of the French Alps across the lake, or the vineyards terraced on the hillside over picturesque towns. We have more of an urban vista looking out across the lake toward Geneva. On the other hand, where but in Switzerland would we be living here and also exhibiting signs of "view envy?!"

Our slice of the French Alps across the lake. Most of our view is
overlooking the town and lake to the west. I don't have a picture of
that to share and today all we have is haze. Maybe another time....

Sitting area on LeDeck. The doors you see open onto the
TV/guest room (close) and the master bedroom (far).

Long view of the deck. I think we'll be eating a lot of meals at this table!

The rest of the space:


This is the TV room and guest bedroom. So, if (when?) you visit, this will be your base of operations. Don't worry, that sofa bed is much more comfortable than you're thinking!

Evidence of bad parenting: the boys are clearly watching
TV or a movie while dad does something very important.
(I couldn't find time to take the photos during school?)

Bedrooms: So, this is the area where I balked at posting for the world to see. However, here are a few bits and pieces of the boys' and our bedroom with some commentary....

View down hallway through master bedroom out to LeDeck.

Closets: More evidence of our "American" apartment. You simply don't see this kind of closet space in Swiss apartments. Most of the time you're walking through apartments looking at a lot of cheap IKEA wardrobes and armoires in every hall and room. It's not that expats refuse to spend money on decent furniture, but who wants to spend lots of money on wardrobes when you'll be moving back to a house with closets after your three or four year tour? Presumably, the Swiss have nice wardrobes in their apartments. We don't know whether this is true because we haven't been in a the home of a Swiss citizen yet. And, even when we do, apparently you aren't ever given the grand tour. You'll be lucky to make it past the living/dining/kitchen area of a Swiss citizen's apartment even after you've known them for years!

Master bedroom closet. Are we in Switzerland or Plymouth, MN?

Closets in boys' room. Looks big, but still overflowing with toys and clothes
we don't need....

* Didn't believe that I was telling the truth about the impossibly small refrigerators here? See below! Actually, having a huge refrigerator isn't as convenient as it seems. They don't use many preservatives in the foods here, so you can't save most things in the refrigerator past a few days anyway. But, American expats still leave our apartment with "refrigerator envy."

Refrigerator in another apartment we considered. That bottom
part is the freezer. This is "average" size -- we saw even
smaller than this!