We Moved House!
I’m indulging in a little personal blog today because I’m poorly. Again. And I haven’t done one for a couple of months.
I’m currently sat on the sofa of my new flat.
It’s snowing outside - this is the end of February so I’ve no idea what the weather will be like in a week when this posts - but very likely more snow. I still love snow and I still have no complaints.
We had to move because Dr Chris had been in the previous apartment for two years and at that point, in Sweden, you get the right to stay indefinitely (I guess they could get rid of you if you murdered somebody or something). So instead of letting you accrue rights they just kick you out at the end of the two year lease. Luckily, we’re renting from a company who own or manage lots of the apartments around here, so they just offered us a very similar one a few minutes away and that’s that.
This is a fair bit smaller. It’s still two beds but the second bedroom is a single room rather than double and we’ve lost two storage rooms which we had in the old flat. We moved from a huge house in England (four/five bedrooms over three floors) to a large two bedroom apartment and now down into a small two bedroom apartment so it’s been a lot. But I actually find I love this apartment more.
When Dr Chris first moved to Sweden, on his own, he was in a fancy apartment at the other end of town but the landlord was a nutter so the move to the previous apartment was rushed and stressful. Although this was not exactly what we’d have chosen, it did feel like we had a choice and we were more aware of the area and what was expected of us.
We’re hoping to buy soon, so this isn’t a forever flat, but it feels really cosy and homely and I feel really lucky.
My Lucky Furniture Find
We really lucked out with this one!
The furniture in this flat is a little sparse, and the set up by the TV was… unfortunate. I don’t like buying new furniture - I much prefer second hand/vintage/antique anyway but the new furniture here seems to be either IKEA or super duper high end stuff. So I went to my local second hand store, which is really big and has had some great furniture in the past, but there simply wasn’t anything there.
I won’t buy what I don’t love so I was just going to cope, when I walked past this lovely lady in the old apartment block just waiting for somebody to take her away - she had a sticker on from the management saying something to the effect of ‘somebody needs to sort this, you can’t just leave your crap out here’.
So I sorted it.
There’s no way I’d have bought a Kallax from IKEA (I must have bought 80 or so for the shop - they make great yarn cabinets but I am over them) but rescuing one, taking off all of the sellotape and stickers and giving her a good clean up just feels so right. Now she gets a chance to do her duty again - very Marie Kondo.
She’s not absolutely perfect for the space, she’s a little beaten up but she’s perfect for now.
Doing It For Ourselves!
Because we only moved a couple of minutes around the corner, we decided not to get any help. The business is such that I can take a few days off (still waiting on that VAT decision…) so I just made sure to line up blog posts and newsletters and then got down to business.
Over the first three days, where I was carting everything over whilst Dr Chris was at work, I averaged 27,000 steps a day. Then we had to clean the old flat so I walked less but that took two days and by the end of it I succumbed to a cold. I am a coldy person, always have been, if I get run down I catch one - no matter whether I’ve barely been out of the house.
Anyway, we did what we had to do, handed the keys over on Sunday and now it’s just resting, recovering and doing little bits to make this new flat habitable. I need to work out the best way to lay out the kitchen bits - especially now we only have one fridge and one freezer (the horror!! We’re living like plebs!).
I am a generally disorganised-all-over-the-place person but my brain just loves organising big projects like this. So our belongings were brought over in waves according to how deep they needed to be stored. I’d organise that wave and then move on to the next wave, which means all there is left to sort is really the surface stuff, like putting together the desktop computer and reattaching mirrors to dressers.
But now, back to real life…
like this here, the social media, my college course (I had an exam last night and smashed it!) so that can be done over time.
So that’s my personal update. I’m hoping next week I may have something really meaty for you - fingers crossed and in the meantime, my newsletter this week is about some home organisation concepts which have made this move much easier.
