A blank slate...

living room

looking towards the dining room from the living room

looking towards our bedroom from the living room

I made the fatal mistake of just mentioning our apartment in the last post and have had several requests for photos. Somewhere in the back of my mind I'd planned to wait until we got all of our stuff (which means you'd be waiting until March or April?) and everything was "just so" before posting any pictures, but that's so not me. 

dining room

Let's face it, creating a home in any space is a process. I think it was just weeks before we left our Atlanta home that I started to feel like I had it how I wanted it. Seeing as how we will be here a full two years (longer than ANY residence I've maintained on my own, ever) I'm sure this apartment will go through several iterations. So I've decided that sharing the blank slate we have to work with would be a fun step in the process.

one corner of the kitchen

Another corner- the silver thing on the right is a water distiller

The other side of the kitchen

I've been pouring over http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ tours for new ideas and solutions. I also have quite the list of questions for our GSO (general services officer- i.e. guy in charge of housing) about whether I can paint, hang shelves, etc. I keep imagining items we own that are on a shipping container somewhere over the pacific (we hope!) and where they might fit best. 

Guest bedroom

 Some favorite things about the apartment from the start:

• Great windows with lots of natural light especially in the morning since our unit faces East and we can watch the sunrise (sunrise is around 7:15 each morning right now so with our jet lag and R's 8am-ish start time at the consulate, we are always up to greet it). 
• A kitchen that reminds me SOOO much of "the Villa"-the townhouse I shared with 4 other incredible women in 2009-2010 in East Asia. Thankful for a dishwasher and plenty of countertops and cabinets! Not to mention a real oven.
• A dining room. This room makes me feel so grown up. We haven't actually eaten a meal at the table yet but I feel like it's the perfect space for a holiday brunch or dinner party. I'm excited to fill the china cabinets with (gasp) my fine china (so glad I registered for it and we ended up in one of very few lines of work where we will use it)!
• I'm kind of in love with the guest bedroom and I'm not really sure why. Maybe because I am very excited to have guests actually come and stay in it. 

Entryway- my one "challenge"- note the carpet, the pictures are permanent

All of the furniture is provided by the GSO and here in Shenyang they are really great about giving you more if you'd like it (we might be asking for more bookshelves depending on how many of our boxes of books we ended up getting shipped over) or taking some away. Right now I'm trying to play with what we have to see how I can make it work.

Office

 I've loved experimenting with http://www.floorplanner.com/. Have you ever been on their site? I was able to do a rough layout of the rooms that really have some flexibility in decoration (dining, living, & bed rooms). To start, I'm mapping everything out the way we got it. I'll play around with putting different pieces of furniture in different spots before I get R to help me move the actual furniture.

Master bedroom 

Master bedroom

Master bedroom

So much more goes into a home than just what furniture you have and what paint you throw on the walls.  Hopefully in a few months I'll have some updates on how we've settled in once our stuff arrives and we're more at home here. We're all going to have learn patience on that because it currently looks like our UAB (unaccompanied air baggage) won't be delivered till the end of January with our HHE (household effects or "everything else) being much further behind. womp wahhhhh...