DIY: build a little family from scratch

I fix the narrow door to the wide cabinet and then try to drill my skull as a consequence

So, we’ve been busy this past weekend! We had company sleeping here! Yay! Our first guests! Santi, Kasia and Anja stayed with us on Saturday and we went all together to Peníscola on Sunday. Here you have the proof:

We think they took a couple of us together, but we’ll have to wait to see them!

While we were there we saw some amazing houses… in all of which we wanted to live! 

And now, decorating news. We bought there an amazing “snowball” made out of seashells. I think it looks beautiful next to our soon-to-be-full beachy frames.

The picture is a bit dark, but I think you get the idea. And handmade something for just 5€ is always great ;) 

Eric:

  Me: 

 We’ll behanging over our headboard someday soon. Like it? 

Well, with the huge cloud of pollution hoovering over the world’s best athletes, we could think “what’s wrong with people?” “why would you expose them to that monster?” But hey, that’s life money. 

We can’t really sweep away China’s pollution, but we can certainly do something locally, thinking globally. And with this in mind, we have tried to make some choices to make our lives a little greener. 

• For instance, we don’t turn on the AC until it’s 85F inside the house, and then we’ll set it to keep it around 79F, which is quite high for the standards around here, trust me.
• We both drive to work, and sadly there’s nothing we can do about that. My car will do 36 mpg, which is not so bad, but eventually I’ll have to get a new one.
• About recycling, we recycle all packaging, glass, paper and cardboard. We keep all glass jars and re use them when we buy nuts, cereal or dried fruits in bulk. Of course, we do a sensible disposal of batteries and oil, and try to reduce waste to a minimum.
• We’ve tried to switch to low consumption bulbs, but about 3 of them broke the moment we installed them, and for now we’re using normal ones.
• To store food we always use reusable containers.
• We don’t use paper towels unless we have many people coming over. If it’s just the two of us, fabric.
• We have a big box of reusable paper (paper printed on just one side, etc) that we use for notes, printing, etc. when possible.
• I use a mooncup, which has reduced my footprint as well as making much more comfortable “that time of the month”
• We got a Brita, which I hear is much better than buying bottled water. Yes, the filter is disposable, but apparently is much better than bottles and bottles.
• At work, instead of using plastic water cups at the water dispenser, I fill up my Nalgene. 
• We use our pressure cooker a lot. It dramatically cuts down the cooking time, since to cook, let’s say, a chicken with vegetables, it only needs to be 5 minutes on high and then 10 more at the lowest our stove will go. Way better than 1 hour on medium heat, right?
• We are really responsible for switching off appliances we don’t need or the lights in empty rooms (although for now, we don’t need artificial light until 9.30PM since our appartment has extraordinary natural light.)
• We only take showers (not baths) and turn off the water while we put shampoo and shower gel on, thus saving many litres of water.
• We swith off the oven a few minutes before it’s done, so it cooks with the remaining heat and not using up more electricity. The same goes for the AC in our cars, which is off a few blocks before we get home.

OTHER THINGS WE CAN WILL DO

• We have quite a few fabric shopping bags that came all the way from Germany (it’s hard to find fabric bags here in Spain!) and we should use them more often.
• We should cut down computer time and read or go out more (not easy being soooo hot here).
• We could buy more in bulk and cook bigger batches of food, and maybe try some recipes with more raw ingredients.
• Although we’re not vegetarian, it would be interesting to introduce a few vegetarian recipes into our menu.
• Explore the possibilities of buying more locally and organic.
• Start using a bucket in the shower to collect all the water wasted while we wait for it to warm up. This water could be used to water the plants around the house, clean, or even to flush the toilet the next time we have to.

When our friends visit us at home, they’re all really impressed by how settled in we are. It’s been barely a month since we got the keys of the apartment, and almost everything is done. In an 11 days time span, we got the keys, went to Ikea (200 miles from home, so we couldn’t forget a thing), bought all of our furniture, started an office job each and started working on a quite huge freelance project. This is how we did it.

First, since we knew the layout and the approximate size of the rooms in our apartment, we’d been the month before scanning the Ikea website looking for furniture. Our budget wouldn’t allow for much more than Ikea, and anyway this is a rental, so we rather not be stuck with an expensive piece of furniture that has no place in our next abode. So yes, when the day came, we had a shopping list with every single item we were going to buy. Every single one of them. From the dining table to some ziplock bags to bed linens, to cutlery, to tealights to bookshelves. We wrote down every single item we wanted, with its name, size, colour, price and number of units of it we needed.

As soon as we got our keys, we went in there and checked everything would fit in there with a measuring tape and all our notes with us. At the same time, we managed to squeeze in some photoshoots of how great and amazing we would look at home:

Here you can see me reading on our sofa: 

Eric in the kitchen: 

Me, taking a bath: 

And my favourite one. Eric, doing… yeah, well: 

So, armed with our list, a van a friend lent us and our car, we headed up north to Barcelona’s Ikea. That was Saturday, July 5^th, first weekend of sales. What a nightmare Ikea was. We got there at 11AM, but my mum had been there since 10.30 writing down the location of the furniture she knew we wanted. Then, we did the shopping (11 shopping carts, that was) and by 14.30 we were paying. Lots of hard work by Eric and my dad later, the van and our car were completely loaded (my parents bought a garden table and about 4 Ivar bookshelves!) 

Eric and I headed back in to spend our remaining money and have lunch, and my parents left to buy some tools. That night, we unloaded at the apartment with the help of Alfredo, a friend, and went home to have some rest, since Sunday was going to be a busy day. On Sunday we loaded the said van and my car with the two sofas, the TV, the kitchen table and several boxes of kitchen utensils, Eric’s clothes, etc. That night my parents left and we stayed at the apartment (with no water or electricity service!) until it was too dark to keep assembling ikea stuff. We slept in Eric’s old apartment, and the very next day I started working at a new company. On Tuesday we finally had water, and since then we slept at the apartment and kept working on it every single afternoon. My parents came 3 times to help us assembling the biggest pieces and hang lamps and curtain rods, and besides 2 lamps and 2 naked windows and some frames we’re still not sure about where to put them, we’re done. 

Of course there are lots of things left to do, like cleaning the windows properly, now unpack all my stuff, putting the kitchen cabinet knobs, painting a little chest of drawers we have in the bedroom, etc. but it already feels like home.  

THINGS WE LEARNT WHILE MOVING: 

• Create an assembling area. Put down some of the packaging from a large piece and use it as a base for all the other things that need to be assembled.
• Have a box in which to put all the nails, screws, allens, etc. You’ll find later that you actually needed them.
• Label all your boxes.
• Unpack by priorities. First, toiletries and clothes. Then, books, DVDs, etc.
• Music helps.
• Keep a list with every single little thing that needs to be done. You’ll find yourself in the middle of that huge pile of crap your future home looks like and, at times, you really won’t know where to start. Having the list helps. Also, if you’re working and/or have people helping, everybody will know what to do while you’re not there. Just take the list, and do something from it.
• Expect to spend a LOT of money on anchors for walls, paint (even if you’re not painting walls), special thingies that need to be put somewhere, bolts for whatever thing you bought and didn’t come with them, etc. Trust me, it’s crazy.
• Try to at least finish one room, and keep it clean. That’ll be your sanctuary. You’ll need to look at a place that looks like a real home and not like a madman’s joke. Also, it will help you relax. It’s not easy to stop and rest in front of a bookshelf waiting to be put up.
• Decide which room will be the last one, and use it as storage. That’ll help to unclutter the rest of the house, making it easier to move around doing things, since all the big boxes will be in the storage room.
• Make sure you have some sitting area. Moving, assembling furniture, etc is exhausting.
• Always have some cold drinks available, and some snacks or take away food.
• Having friends help you is great, but too many friends may turn the whole thing into a chaos and you’ll end up not knowing where is anything and wondering why are the kitchen cabinets fixed to the guest bedroom wall.
• Besides labelling all boxes, it’s useful to pack following a certain logic. Eric’s system of putting part of his underwear with the box of dictionaries and the rest with the winter clothes proved to be not so useful.
• Calm down. You can’t do everything in just one day. Not even in two. Not in a week. But, eventually, it’ll be done.
• If you have somebody helping you with the drills, make it easier for that person by marking with a pencil where will every hole go. It’s much faster than if you have to measure all distances, check horizontality etc for every hole as you go. Also, leave on the floor below the marks the frame or whatever you’re hanging, so that great friend (or daddy, in mu case) of yours can check what type of anchor will be best, etc.
• If you have plants, leave them at somebody’s house until you are 100% settled and ready to take care of them. All the dust and dirt from the move will not benefit them. (Thanks mum and dad for taking care of all of our plants!)

The house is a mess. Again.

Yesterday we went to my parent’s to pick up all my remaining stuff. C-R-A-Z-Y. I feel like some kind of perturbed rubbish-keeper, shopaholic and maniac. Sort of. We took both our cars with their specially huge trunks, and that wasn’t enough. Besides all my clothes, my remaining books and all the folders with my class notes since 1998, we had to carry a couple chests of drawers and about 5 plants. We left behind a couple of boxes and my class graduation photographs, but I believe we could say it was a successful trip.

Now, as I was saying, the house is a mess. Eric got quite mad at me last night saying there was no way we could fit so much stuff in our home and that most of it should go to the storage room in the basement, but I managed to make it look like it wasn’t so bad and he agreed that it may fit in our home. I’m not so sure, but I’ll give it a try this afternoon. I’ll be back home around 2.30PM and he won’t come back until around 9PM, so that should give me enough time to welcome him with to a nice tidy house. Will I be able to do it? Who knows.

Oh, by the way, on Saturday we finally gave a second coat of glossy white paint to our kitchen table! Now it looks great, and you can’t beat the feeling of finally finishing a project.Here’s a picture of our table before the paint:

And here it is in its glorious whiteness, with our tiny Aloe Vera on it (and waiting for some touch-ups):

It looks good, doesn’t it?

Now, there are good times ahead in the life of Gràcia and Eric. From Aug. 14th until the 17th (yes, we know, it’s just 3 days) we’re going away to Andorra! If you don’t know Andorra, it’s a little country in the heart of the Pyrenees, full of beautiful valleys, mountains and little villages. I’ve been going there on holidays since I was 6, and it’s about time I take Eric there, since he has never been there. You’ll see pictures as soon as we come back, we promise!

So, you may be wondering (or not at all) how are things going here. Well, things are good, but kind of awkward. We’re not regretting at all having moved together, we are really enjoying it, but there’s been way too many news around here, and it’s taking a while to adapt.

I began working the day before we moved here. Eric began at another company 6 days later. Then we’ve still kept our free lance jobs, so all our evenings have been busy working besides trying to clean, tidy up and arrange everything here. We’ve been going to bed at 1AM and waking up at 6:30AM to go to work.

I guess we just need to get used to all this, maybe set back a little with the free lancing, and give ourselves some time.

For now, just a few more pics of how our home is looking, but first of all, our very first Saturday breakfast at home:

What we’ve decided will stay on the Expedit: (Now, is there somebody out there to help us pick some photos?

 The kitchen shelves, ready to get some clean-up!

The Spice Corner

The Keys Corner (and yes, I’m making up all names)

 And the Molger in the bathroom: