Our Home

It has taken me long enough to get around to this, but I have finally taken some pictures of our home!! Here's the beautiful building from the front yard.  Our apartment is the very top left one.  We are on the 4th floor and we get to do lots of stairs every day....but so far the girls haven't complained.

Here's our beautiful plant and basket for potatoes. They go bad really fast inside our apartment so we keep them here.  It's a good welcome to all visitors, right?!

Our lovely front door.  But we have to be careful...it locks automatically if the door is shut......we might have learned that the hard way when I shut the door one day with the only set of keys inside.  Whoops!!

In true Turkish fashion we have our shoe rack right behind the front door.

Here's the view when you walk in the front door.  It's our lovely red kitchen table.  In the background you can see our living room.

We have converted the living room to a bedroom for TJ.  They gave us 3 beds for the 3 kids and this is the only spot where there was room for it.  The suitcase sitting randomly on the floor holds all of our winter clothes - those fun coats, scarves, mittens, etc...we put on a few times every day. 

Between the kitchen table and living room we have our office/entertainment center.  I couldn't help but post a picture of Sofia holding TJ.  

Sitting on the chairs we're looking at our entertainment center.  Along with our drying rack...amazingly it's empty.  I must have cleared it off to take pictures....because it's never empty!!

This our kitchen.  It's small, but as all the essentials.

Our fridge is rather small, but holds the eggs and enough water for a day or two.  All foreigners tell us not to drink the water.  The locals say it's safe to drink, but there is sometimes dirt/debris coming out of the tap...so we prefer not to drink it.  So, James gets to lug home these 5 litre jugs most every day.

We purchased a toaster oven.  It's been a lifesaver.....I still haven't figured out the temperature, but it's worked pretty well so far.  You can see our stove and propane tank, too.  I've figured out how to light it without burning my hands off and not wasting too many matches!

Down the hall to the girls bedroom.  Sofia is fixing the Lightning McQueen sign to their room.

I'm sure you'll never guess who sleeps where.

Right next door is our bedroom.  Pretty boring, but functional.

Lastly is our bathroom.  We call it the stinky room, because of a stinky drain.  It's pretty big.  The beautiful toilet seat matches our awesome table.   

 

The shower has a mini tub that kind of works for the girls.  Unfortunately we have no shower rod, so water gets everywhere.  Oh well. 

 This is our awesome washing machine.  It's tiny...tiniest I've seen I think.  And it takes forever - with 2 hour cycles, but it gets stuff clean!!

Here's the culprit of the stink.  Any ideas for getting rid of the smell?  We've tried boiling water and salt with baking soda followed by apple vinegar.  White vinegar doesn't seem to exist.

Overall, our apartment is pretty nice.  It's bigger than we've had.  It's warm.  It stinks.  But it works pretty well.  Our living conditions are better than I had prepared myself for....and I'm grateful for that because living here with kids is harder than I planned!!