Here's what you see when you walk in our front door. The hallway now has many hooks and cubbies for coats, hats, and scarves for all three of us seem to be wearing a lot of them right now, however my mom took these house pics for our blog before I was born and she'd rather play with me than retake them all. So if you want to picture the current status of each room, envision pictures hung on the walls and baby toys, burp cloths, and other baby paraphernalia strewn about in every room. :). My dad is now an expert electrician (All lights you see were installed by my dad since no German apartment comes with them), mason (stay tuned!), and Ikea assemblyman. He tried to add plumber to this list but he was 1 for 2 in this category, so mom says it doesn't count.
The first room on the left is our bathroom. It's got a toilet alley, washer/dryer combo (dad's successful plumbing installation) that mom seems to be using a lot more since I came along, and bathroom cabinets my parents bought, assembled and installed. * note: when German assembly instructions say it will take 2 adults 3 hours to assemble 1 cabinet, they're right!
The next room on the left is the kitchen. Uncle Pete helped us assemble the island and daddy got to install his dream of a wire lighting system that turned into a nightmare. It was his first, but not last, battle with German concrete. After this first project, dad began a rock collection from all the rubble that fell out of the drilled holes in the wall. Mom and dad also learned how to fix said holes once the drill bits grab a pebble and make the hole 2times bigger than they need: throw in the support and glue the heck out of it, wait for it to dry, then screw away! When all else fails borrow cement from a friend at work, fill the hole, wait for it to dry, and start over again. Both methods are successfully suspending our Ikea lights across our kitchen and we hope it stays that way for the next 18 months!
The dishwasher was an adventure in itself. Dad successfully navigated a German electronics website to order many thing for our house, but our dishwasher came without a front plate. The one on the website was stainless steel- where did we go wrong??? Went to ikea, bought a cover, got it home only to discover it would only work with ikea appliances. Nice. Mom, armed with 'geschirrspüler' - the German word for dishwasher- spent an entire day going from kitchen store to kitchen store trying to find a panel for their 80s kitchen cabinets. No success. Nice. Even our landlords tried to help by scrounging two different junky fronts they had lying around. Thoughtful, but no thanks. Dad was ready to give up but mom wouldn't stand for a dishwasher door that sprung up and hit you whenever you opened it because there wasn't the weight of the front panel to hold it down. A solution was reached: buy a piece of wood and drill it to the front. Have grandpa paint it after I'm born. Done and done. *note: this dishwasher is the aforementioned failed plumbing attempt. However, I would like to give my dad huge kudos for his perseverance with a dremel, quick action in response to the leak, and intelligence in understanding German water valves.
The only room off the right from the hallway is mine. I love staring at the sports balls on the wall over my changing table. Mom loves the "football" ceiling light she found while shopping one day. My room is big for German standards, so there was even room for a guest bed. Come on over and play with me! Usually mom and dad will have a sleepover in my room which is fun for all of us.
Thanks to dad's awesome friend Chris, we have a Slingbox, so my mom watches the today show in the late afternoons and dad watches Sunday morning "night" football over dinner. Mom really liked me being born during football season because Dad would always volunteer for night duty on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday so he could catch the games back home! Mom would like to extend a special thanks to coach Harbaugh for a great season, thus many extra hours of sleep for her and plenty of midnight male bonding time for us Zabel boys. :)
The hallway makes an 'L' and at the end of the turn is our half bath affectionately named the outhouse because it has no heat. Mom refuses to use it in the middle of the night because it's too cold, but my dad thinks it's a great place to store wine!
To the right is my parent's bedroom. All three closets in this room were purchased at Ikea (all rooms in German apartments are just four walls-nothing is ever built in) and assembled by my uncle Pete and dad. The tan closet in the corner was my dad's arch nemesis for awhile. My parents had originally purchased pretty mirrored doors for the closet, but seconds after hanging the doors and drilling the closet to the wall they heard the scratching, ripping sound of cement giving way only to see the entire closet beginning to fall out from the wall and onto them! It was like something out of a movie! Luckily no one was hurt. Dad disassembled the doors and mom pulled the boxes out of the dumpster oon the rain so they could make their 8th trip back to ikea to finish the house before I arrived. However, it took them over a week to fix the gaping hole of concrete on the wall (remember the previously mentioned masonry reference?) and make it back to Ikea because mentally they were d-u-n with it all. Nonetheless, it got done eventually.
I'm sure you are wondering what's behind the screen. . . Well, it's all the diapers and wipes my mom bought before moving out here. She's proud that she accurately estimated the number of level 1 diapers I'd use for I'm almost out of diapers as I'm almost ready for level 2. Dad is skeptical whether we'll use the 7,84746373 Costco wipes we brought over, but I'm doing my darndest to make sure mom's right on her estimate here too!
Hope you liked my tour. Feel free to stop on by and see it for yourself!
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