Finally: The end of chaos!

We have finally settled in our new house!  As we say in Afrikaans:  Ons het behoorlik nes geskop en in elke hoekie gepie-pie.  After staying in three different hotels, a self-catering flat (living out of suit cases) and then camping (as we call it) with a minimum amount of furniture and necessities for a few weeks in our house we are now officially fed-up with the word “relocation”.  Our consignment from South-Africa arrived safe and sound with all our goodies still snuggly cushioned in bubble wrap.  As Dirkie went a bit overboard with the wrapping of our possessions (ie. bubble and paper wrap) he never kept in mind that everything had to be unwrapped again, a process which took quite a while.  And a big apology to our neighbours as we filled our road’s rubbish bins for about two weeks with used wrapping paper.  What they did with their rubbish remains a mystery…
 

As we specified in our lease agreement that we want to rent the house as unfurnished we never realised that in Finland unfurnished means that the majority of the light fittings in the house are also removed.  Take a look at the following photo.

 

The lights in the rooms can actually be unplugged from the ceiling and unhooked!  So Dirkie had to go out to source and buy lights with hooks and plugs for the rooms in the house.
 

Anyway, here follow photos of how we nested in our new home.  We’ll start with a collage of some of the chaos that reigned for a week or two after our consignment from South-Africa arrived.

Chaos on the lower level

 

Chaos on the upper level

 

 

Now that those disturbing memories are out of the the way:  here follow the photos of what the inside of the house now looks like!

The garage

Luckily there is lots of storage space in the garage!

 

The lower level

Entrance and down stairs corridor

 

The guest bathroom

 

The laundry

 

The guest bedroom

 

The lounge on the lower level

 

Dirk’s study

 

The sauna and communal bathroom

 

The staircase

Underneath the staircase there is lots of storage space.

 

 

We still need to buy a tall plant for the pot on the stand but during winter time anything that is green and can be cultivated is hugely expensive.

The upper level

The corridor

 

Alex’s study

 

The gym / wardrobe room

This room was meant to be an extra bedroom but we use it as a gym and room to store extra clothes etc.

 

Main bedroom and en-suite bathroom

 

The upper lounge / TV room

 

The dining room area

 

The kitchen

 

So this is what our new home looks like!  We are very happy and privileged to have found this house as there are not many houses available for rent in Helsinki.  The rest of the open spaces on the walls will be filled with goodies that we’ll come across on shopping sprees in Finland.  The views from most of the large windows in the house are so spectacular that we decided not to put up any curtains except for the main bedroom.  All the windows are fitted with drop-down blinds anyway.  Any suggestions or comments about the house are welcome!