Thuis

Thuis means home in Dutch.  It’s been a while since I did some before and after shots of some of the renovations we’ve done so far.  So I thought I’d play catch up.

Our most recent is the dining room, this is how it’s looked over the years:

This photo was taken sometime in 2000, the year we moved in.  It wasn’t a dining room at all, rather a massive pile of computers.   Yeah, that’s me, probably playing Ultima Online at the time.  The pic was taken with a shitpot digital camera we had at the time.

This was in 2003 (I know because I can see the cage in the livingroom which means Bailey was still a puppy, and now he’s 5).  By that time we separated our computer desks for a bit of tidy factor and re-assembled the too ugly for words, massive, square dining table the guy who lived here before us left.  Together with some cheap Ikea chairs and some plants that are long since dead, we had an actual dining room.   Can you see the pink trim?

Then, in 2005, we bought the place and the real changes started happening. The first thing to go was the pink trim, which was replaced with ‘Lily White’ and the white walls were given a bit of color to warm them up.

In March of 2007 our dining room looked like this.  I’ve always wanted a table with a pedestal leg and I found one I loved at Ikea.  In this photo it was being used for cutting my quilting fabrics.   Together with Xander’s desk, and our rat cage,  it made for quite a bit of clutter sometimes.  Plus, I didn’t like having the rats so close to the table… err, not that we ever actually eat that the table.

This is the dining room today.   A new blind and some ikea curtains, my new hutch and Ikea table, together with one of my turtle tanks and terrarium.  It’s a lot of stuff to have in one room but it’s cozy and I love it.

That’s one part of Expat life that I think is extremely important.  Making your new house a home. Otherwise, you’ll always just feel like you are visiting.

Trust me, I know… I spent a lot of years (too many) just visiting.