Long overdue flat photos

Just let me preface this by saying these were taken very hastily late at night (we were in a hurry because our landlord had to preform his evening prayers and the current tenants were there so things were a little awkward).

Here is our front door (we are on the top floor so you can't see our windows but that is the door):

 This is the stairwell, which is the first nicely lit stairway area I have seen in an old building since I got to Edinburgh:

 This is the first thing you see when you walk through the door (excuse the mess, it isn't ours) a large 70s chest of drawers type thing and then this hallway which is inexplicably covered in magazine pictures (which are going to be the first thing we get rid of, they are really ugly)  the second thing we are going to do is get some more lamps, the place is very dark and gloomy (hence the blurry photos). 

The kitchen, the door is on the right of the fridge (it is painted with blackboard paint which is really cool) and to the right of the door there is a sitting area with couches and armchairs of which there are no photos because the current tenants were sitting in it.

 The kitchen has the usual accouterments, stove, oven washing machine...

 ...scary looking hot water heater/broiler thing

 If you look at the hallway picture the doorway where Nikki is sitting is going to be Naomi's room and my room is just out of frame, I was really rushing at this point and didn't get too many pictures of the layout but here is what I have.  This is my desk and the built in bookshelves above it (they are the reason I chose this room) where I am standing taking the picture is directly underneath the skylight and the door is just out of frame on the left side of the picture.  Behind me is my bed which is a (queen sized) loft bed which I did not get any usable pictures of :(

 However, I did get a photo of this wardrobe which is under the bed (this thing is massive, as tall as I am and as wide as the bed)  you can see the bed's supports and the underside of the bed behind the wardrobe.  I am thinking about putting a comfy chair under the bed as well just to the left of this picture so that the room has a little more seating.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed that little tour, sorry about the quality/quantity of the pictures, once we have fixed it up I will take you on a proper virtual tour of the place (and some roomie photos, I know you want to see them but I have to ask permission before I just go around photographing people).

Love ya!
(and for some of you I will see you soon!  I'm heading home on Tuesday...ack, gotta go pack! [hehehehe, that rhymed])
(also the spell check correction guesses for hehehehe are hilarious "Scheherazade" anybody? [also, nerd points to anyone, other than me, who knew who Scheherazade was without using google]  How about "vehemence" or perhaps "Bethlehem"?)

So my card reader is really and truly lost...

...but another one is winging its way to me from Amazon so the pictures should be up soon.
I have to go to class now but I will blog again soon and tell you all about how busy I have been (I promise there are some embarrassing stories to tell as well).  So I will talk to you soon.

Love ya!

Sorry...

...I won't be able to post my pictures today like I hoped to, I have lost my card reader.  I will get them up as soon as possible.

In the mean time, I am off to York and then Newcastle for the weekend.  I'll catch ya on the flip side to tell you all about it.

Love ya!

I offically have a place to live next year!!

After a rather upsetting few days of apartment hunting my new flatmates and I were feeling rather downtrodden.  Between the massively expensive place that was half an hour away from anywhere we would need to go and the cheaper place with a kitchen the size of a coat closet we approached our last viewing of the day with trepidation (especially since there were no pictures online).  We were happy to find that the flat was in a nice neighborhood, very residential and not heavily student-y.  On a funny side-note, we had walked by the street where our new flat is earlier and (not realizing that it was the street we were visiting later) I said "Hey, I'd like to live on that street!" and all my future flatmates agreed with me so we were pretty excited when we realized that that was where our next viewing was.  Despite this fortuitous coincidence we were still pretty nervous about this place, mostly because it was rented through a private landlord and not a letting service and also because of the lack of pictures online.  We also wondered about the place because it was significantly cheaper than all the other places we looked at so we thought it might be really awful inside (but the outside was really nice so we were cautiously optimistic).  Then our future landlord arrived, he was a lovely older Middle Eastern man with a long white beard who complemented us on our punctuality and pulled togetherness and lead us into the house...and it was lovely.

There was a nice well lit entryway (and we have seen some pretty creepy/dingy entryways in our search) with an almost spiraling stairway up to the flat we were looking at on the third floor, so far so good (in fact better than anywhere else we had looked) but we sill hadn't gotten inside yet.  And when we did, it was pretty great, the flat is old with massively high ceilings and impressively detailed moldings.  There were 5 bedrooms of varying size, from absolutely massive to rather small but they were all nice and the smaller bedrooms have lofted beds which are nice and make them feel much larger than they are.  There is a kitchen/lounge that needs some work but it is a lot larger than any of the other places we looked at so that is very nice.

We are signing our lease tonight and (with the permission of the current residents) I am planning on taking some pictures so stay tuned!

Love ya!