Monthly Archives: October 2013

America

OSU vs Wisconsin

Leave a comment

Kay and I traveled home to Columbus a couple weeks ago to meet my future-sister-in-law, visit with my parents and siblings, attend and photograph a friend’s wedding, spend time with Grandma, go shopping (for curtain fabric!), meet with friends and take Kay to his first OSU game!

My little brother plays the flugelhorn in the marching band this year and we are all SUPER proud of him. It was doubly awesome that he beat his challenge the week we came so he would be playing in the game on Saturday AND before the game we got to meet him after watching him play in the skull session.

How handsome is he?? OK, both of them. I think Kay is pretty good looking too. 🙂

Kay was pretty pumped for his early birthday present to see the game. It was his first time on campus seeing a game and experiencing the crazy atmosphere that Buckeyes provide while tailgating.

We also went with my sister and brother-in-law who had access to a dentistry tailgate. Woohoo!

With food and beer in our bellies, we hurried to the stadium before kick off to make it in time before the band would march onto the field.

The game was great! OSU was playing Wisconsin, the same team they played on our wedding day two years ago. We were a little busy that day, but just like two years ago… we also won this year! Woohoo!

Listening to an OSU professor’s advice, we took selfies and I took panoramas of our crazy huge stadium.

It was a little funny that OSU was holding a “red-out” asking everyone to wear red, but red is also a color for the Badgers, so all the Wisconsin fans had red on too. It made them look a bit silly to be honest, blending in with all those Buckeyes fans! 😉

We were at the highest row of seats in C-Deck but we had a pretty unobstructed view of the field, even if it was not optimal viewing the halftime band performance sideways.

I *might* have spent more of the game spying for my little brother in the band section, but I have to say that watching football with binoculars is way more fun than playing eye-spy from way up high.

Kay got really into the game too and was cheering for OSU. I was SO proud.

I would have been cheering too but I happened to get laryngitis from my mom that week and it was the first day I lost my voice so my “WOOHOO!” was all “………………………!”


Kay thought it was really ridiculous that I was sick on holiday again, but we still had a great time before my awful cough developed the next week. The OSU game was really a blast!

GO BUCKS!

Home

Grimey Floors

1 Comment

Our second and last repair day for our flat was last Friday finally. Kay worked from home again and let in the repair men, who already started coming by 7:30 when I was eating my breakfast.

We had a couple things repaired in the bathroom, including the grey grout crosses around the holes for the towel holders! Woot woot. And we also finally had the parquet guy come to repair some damages on the wood floor we noticed during our inspection.

When I came home from work, the hallway with the damages from the workers was repaired but also looked so new and fancy… I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Once we moved in, we actually doubted if the smoked oak was a good choice, because to be honest, it has just looked dusty and gross since we moved in despite vacuuming and washing. But the floor the guy repaired looks pretty good!

He told us that our floors need oiled, like… badly. They are not supposed to look as dull and washed out as they do now.

See below is another spot in the living room that he repaired and he just oiled the repair patch. Look at that difference!

Here you can see how bad our floors actually look at the moment, but I am hoping we can oil them up soon and they’ll be much better!

The worker also repaired a couple defects below the table, but I’m not totally happy with how they turned out. And you can totes see that our IKEA dining table is wearing a little thin. I need to touch up the parts that are wearing away!

So basically I feel kind of like a dummy… we just thought we have brand new floors and this is how they should be. I’m really hoping that oiling will fix our problem because I feel like I constantly have to clean the floors if anyone walks anywhere.

Do you have hardwood floors? Are they varnished or oiled?

Home

Einbauschränke – Wardrobes

2 Comments

Since July we have been living with two clothes racks and the rest of our clothes in suitcases and boxes. It is starting to drive me a *little* bit nuts. We’ve driven to Germany twice now to investigate about building some built-in wardrobes (otherwise referred to as Einbauschränke in our household) in our bedroom.

The whole idea of a built-in wardrobe is actually more in line with an American closet system. Typical Swiss bedrooms are rectangles with no closets, which dismays many Americans, including my mother. Swiss usually have a tall wardrobe for hanging things and sometimes a dresser for storing other items.

Wardrobes are by far more popular than dressers and just like you move your light fixtures with you from apartment to apartment, the wardrobe usually comes too… unless you are lucky enough to sell it so that you do not have to move them!

We thought that the idea of building a built-in wardrobe would be better because we can avoid using anything for the back of the wardrobe, thus avoiding mold problems in our fresh new build. It would also be a more permanent solution that hopefully adds to the value of our home.

After visiting a few different places, I’m almost sure we will work with Möbeldick after seeing all the Noteborn wardrobes in their store.

Noteborn has tons of options for built-in and standalone wardrobes, with finishes in wood, glass, with frame or frameless doors and all kinds of inside options.

It was a little overwhelming trying to figure out what we want inside the wardrobe.

After living with our other wardrobes for four years, I was sure that I wanted more drawers! The problem is that they are pretty darn expensive! Each drawer is about €250 or $337 a piece. Ouch!

But I do not want to live without some drawers and this is pretty much the cheapest we can get for built-in wardrobes, so we are a little stuck.

How much money would you put into your clothes storage system? Do you have fancy American closets I can be jealous of? Tell all in the comments. 🙂

(All images via Noteborn.)