To Flohmarkt, To Flohmarkt...

To buy a fat...

Wild boar's head!

There were so many cool and fascinating objects at the flea market today... Here are just a few photos of our trip.





The one thing on our actual shopping list: a moka pot!



Aw, it's a pile of little leather shorts!

Makes me wish I had a boy. Not to worry-- look at this little vintage coat from the Netherlands!!

(Yes, it was very cold and rainy.)

Can you guess where I'm headed?...

Of course! Unfortunately, it was much to0 big to fit in our car.


Lots of fun today! We came home with quite a few items, which I'll show you soon!

Home Snippets

I really do want to take you on a complete tour of our home, I promise, but it's kind of a wreck. You wouldn't enjoy it. There is no furniture, our living room is just our recycling center with piles of cardboard and bubble wrap. But we do have some cute corners and consistently-tidy areas. I'll show you some of those, so you get the general feeling without all of the riffraff.

I always start with the kitchen when I move somewhere, so this one is more doable. As I wandered around the house just now, with my toothbrush in my mouth (don't know why inspiration seems to strike mid-brush!) and camera in hand, I chose to spare you the unwiped counters and the open dishwasher. There were a couple of angles, however that were eager to be shown off.

We have a ton of counter space! It is so nice, and makes cooking much easier, being able to spread out a little.
By the way, those brown apothecary jars and the glass cloche are from Ingrid.

Next was my favorite corner in Amelia's room. I thought about this nook long before we moved here-- a cozy little spot for her to sit and read. Of course, I was in complete denial about the fact that Amelia would never actually choose to be in a room alone. Maybe this corner was really for me. I should have made it in my room...

And let's get real for a moment here, folks: will her room really ever be much more photographable than this? I don't clean her room for her any more. Her bed will be made by her after her nap, but it never really looks great. She's a kid! It's pure vanity for me to want it to look pretty for my friends.A real bed would sure help, though! By the way, I am thinking of getting this wallpaper to put in the alcoves in here, and painting the inside edges a pretty light pink.

Our bathroom is HUGE. Huge! There is so much open floorspace that we could seriously put a queen sized mattress on the floor in there for guests. (Any takers?) The bathtub is awesome, and Jeff tells me the shower is just fine.
The door goes into the laundry room, and then goes into our bedroom.
Our bedroom holds some of the only furniture in our house, we were that determined to "do it up big" after sleeping in a tiny attic space where we couldn't even fit a box spring, let alone sit up in bed. Of course, our bed is now covered in laundry (that's what happens when you have the laundry room a few feet away!) but you can see our furniture and cool light.

This, in my opinion, is some of the only IKEA furniture that doesn't look like "IKEA furniture." and they discontinued it. This is sad, but it also meant that it was less than half-price!

There's another armoire on the right, but, toothbrush in mouth and camera in hand, I didn't feel like tidying up that area.I love it. It casts the perfect shadows at night, too.

So, now you've seen at least a bit. There will be more.

This weekend I died and went to Flea Market Heaven.

I am lucky enough to have already made a friend here. She is an older woman named Indgrid, and we got connected with her during the first week we arrived in Amberg. There was a woman staying in our hotel who spoke English, and through Amelia's charms we quickly befriended her. It was great to have someone to ask relevant questions, like "Are there thrift stores here? Where can we buy cheap stuff?!" Although most of the facts about 2nd hand wares were discouraging, she was still able to help us out. She called Ingrid, who was downsizing and moving to a tiny studio apartment. She gave me Indgrid's number, and we went over there and bought a lot of her stuff! It was such a huge blessing, because I was able to get cookware, houseplants, platters and vases and that sort of thing from her-- it saved me SO much money and work! She has been really kind and helpful to us-- she spends the cold part of the year in Australia, so her English is excellent and she knows what it's like to be a foreigner. I have been able to call her and ask her cultural questions, and she has given me lots of helpful advice on where to find various items, when it's OK to haggle, etc. She called to tell me that the very best flea market in the area was in a town called Neumarkt, and it was being held this past Saturday. She assured us that there would be plenty of antiques, unlike the "flohmarkt" here which was mostly people selling their junk on card tables, like a neighborhood yard sale (although that was not so bad-- we came home with a drill-- it wasn't what we'd hoped for.)

We are still lacking SO many household goods-- even as people who like to live minimally. So we ventured out, and were very well rewarded. The size of this market was surprisingly big, and the stuff was all amazing. I just walked around, smiling-- it was all so beautiful, unique, interesting and cool! We didn't even get to see everything, there was so much! I swear I could have taken one of everything there, but I was very happy with what I walked away with. Five euros seemed to be the magic price of the day, and it certainly helped that we were there right before everyone was packing up, and eager to unload a few more items. Here are all of my Five Euro Finds:

Isn't this the coolest little tea kettle?

I had been hoping to find something like this, and I had seen some on various websites, but of course for much much more.

This is solid iron and super heavy. It's hard to see the size from the picture, but it's big-- about a foot wide.

I could have seriously gone crazy with all of the beautiful table linens-- embroidered, striped, etc., and all pure linen. This one was a good bargain, and just the right size for our tiny dining table.

No matter how many fancy ways I've tried preparing coffee, nothing beats a cone drip. I love the ceramic ones, and although it's hard to find them in stores here, there were plenty of vintage ones there. Now to find a matching Melitta coffee pitcher...

A little enamel bowl. So practical, so irresistible.

A couple other things were definitely worth a little more, but were still very good deals:

An antique Swiss military first aid box! This will be perfect for vitamins...

And, my favorite, a vintage educational poster on brassicas. Our walls need to be painted really badly, and this is not only wonderful to look at, but covers a very awful-looking wall in our kitchen.

Driving away with all of our new things, I felt so lucky! I really felt like was taking advantage of living in Europe, and although everything else seems to be much more expensive here, I had finally hit the jackpot. This market is held once a month, and I think Jeff and I will try to be there every time.

Getting Set Up... and a Tale of a Very Frustrated Shopper.

So, we have been here for almost a week now, and have one week left of being able to stay in the hotel. We are very very excited to move into our place, and are fortunate enough to already have bought our washer, dryer and refrigerator from the previous tenants. However, we don't have ANY other household goods.

Originally, I had imagined quite a different scenario than the one we're in. In that story, we arrived in Germany with a very large deposit in our bank account. This included our "buy-out"-- the money we received for not shipping anything-- our per diem funds that we would use for buying our meals in the next two weeks, money from selling our cars (the one that would fetch a substantial amount hasn't sold yet) as well as some sort of salary from Jeff's current job-- he didn't work for the last month in the US. As you may have guessed, none of this was in our account upon arrival! There had been a big miscommunication somewhere, which we are still trying to determine the source of. Of course, this was bad news. We managed to have some of the funds expedited, but we are not in nearly the same situation that we had originally imagined.

So, now we have paid a huge amount of money to our landlord for the deposit and rent, as well as the payment for some home repairs before we move in, and... We have no furniture, beds, or cookware. I had thought, so naively, that I would hop from shop to shop, just picking out what suited us best, not worrying so much about bargains, etc. I had expected to find plenty to choose from, as well. I was smart enough to have already ordered dishes and sheets and blankets from an online shop here in Europe that will deliver them to us this week. Whew! And they were a great price. What I was also quite unprepared for is how much our money would seem to shrink as we converted it to Euros! All of this was just my own ignorance, but it has still thrown me for a loop! We visited a huge furniture store here in town yesterday, and it was a little sobering. Not only was everything super expensive, but it was also... wide, square, short leather couch sets, like this one. The general aesthetic here seems to be 80s modern to very modern. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, but I just can't seem get into it. And, did you realize that IKEA is not a bargain store in Europe? The style has never particularly appealed to me, but I always could count on this store when I needed something cheap and easy. A co-worker of Jeff's kindly drove us to one an hour away, and we spent a couple of bewildered hours there. The prices are much higher here, and it didn't have nearly the same selection! The two curtain panels we would have liked for our room were over $70! We did buy a number of smaller items, especially for Amelia's room, but still no beds, mattresses, tables or chairs. Or curtains.

Oh, another thing-- our apartment does not come with overhead light fixtures. The ceilings are bare with wires coming out, so that is one more thing that we need to find for each room. Fortunately, ours DOES come with a kitchen-- most people take their whole kitchens with them when they move out of a place! Although I cannot imagine any other option than the "cash out" simply for the sake of having the money on hand to pay for our apartment, it is a little hard to think of all of the essentials that I loved and got rid of. Pots and pans! Our couch! Light fixtures! Long gone, and unbelievable expensive to replace.

There are a few German design blogs that I follow, and I was so fortunate to stumble upon a French shop that will ship furniture here for a reasonable price. Not only are the pieces beautiful and to my liking, but they were actually much much more affordable than what I found here. The only drawback is that it will probably take a month for them to arrive. I am hoping to find a little patio set that we can use on our balcony to ear our meals. And we will need to buy mattresses and have our beds on the floor for a while, just like we did all three years that we lived in Portland.

Amelia has the BEST little girl's room! It's on the far end of the building, with two huge arched windows that look out onto our neighbor's courtyard. It is long and has three pretty alcoves in it. I am having it painted all white this week, and then I'll paint the inside of the alcoves pink. I ordered a canopy-less version of this bed for her, and am looking for a cozy little chair and a bookshelf for to make a reading corner. Her room is bigger than both of our previous rooms put together.
I bought her some pretty floral bedding at IKEA, and a very pink blanket, as well as a little lamp she was smitten with.

So, we inch along. The other complication is the fact that we don't have a car yet. Jeff has to get his military license before he can drive. The test is very very long and tricky, and he almost passed a few days ago. He'll take it again tomorrow, and if he passes he'll get the license on the same day. We are shopping for a car right now, but the rules are very strict, and he can't even really test drive until he's licensed. Fingers crossed!!

I hope this post doesn't give the impression that I am not super glad and thankful to be here. I would be mortified to be perceived as complaining about all of this-- we are really excited to be here. It's just so much more complicated than I had imagined, and I am trying hard not to waste my energy worrying about all of the basics we need to get squared away. I am really looking forward to where we'll be at in a month or two!

Living in the present...

While I was showing you my future German kitchen, I was also showing my current Portland kitchen to a design blog I follow. They are having a little show-and-tell style contest on small kitchens, and mine has been entered! It's really fun to see it there, looking so official, and also fun to enjoy my kitchen of three years just before we go. This is the link.

You knew it was coming... I now present to you:
The Silver Lining

Well, the Terrible Leaking Pipe Problem is finally over with. It took about a week, and although I still haven't put everything away, our kitchen is 100% functional and a little 'purdier' than when we started.
Since our cabinets were all rotted and mildewy, we had to get rid of them. Instead of putting in more cabinets, I had the chance to do something I'd always thought about: putting our butcher block countertop on turned legs, making it look more like piece of furniture.
It was a bit of an ordeal to find what we needed, but we ended up screwing two legs together for the right height. I found a duvet cover for $10 at IKEA, and cut that up and turned it into curtains. I hope to find the right racks tonight for storage underneath. By the way, the whole fiasco ended up costing us much less than I had feared, and helped support some qualified neighbors who are currently out of work and thrilled to help.
I want to thank you all for all of your nice comments and support. The encouragement, empathy and prayers really did make me feel better throughout the whole lame ordeal. In fact, I had been wanting to do this part of the project anyway, and the upside was that I was forced into going for it. I'd like to put it out there that, should another unfortunate event such as this one happen again, forcing us into home improvements that we would otherwise never consider due to our precarious financial situation, please let it be the bathroom.

Taadaa!
(Alternate title: From "Yuck!" to "Wow!")

Of course I can't show you our new paint job until you fully appreciate how awful our house has been looking since we moved in. I also chose a photo with extreme weather contrast to today's glorious climate.

Seriously, who chooses peach and gray? Who?!

As most of you know, we had our house painted by the city of Portland, thanks to their lead paint abatement program. How wonderful! We just had to paint our doors and porches, they took care of the rest!

Aah, much better!

I wasn't really into bright colors when I lived in California. Somehow, enduring two long, gray winters here has completely changed that! When the weather allows, we eat most of our meals outside. Now we have a nice view!

An Improvement!

We had this old church nursery type of carpet that made it impossible to clean out dust and old cat pee-type smells in the extra room downstairs. When we pulled it up, of course we were hoping for some decent hardwoods that we could enjoy with some minimal sprucing up. As usual, it was much worse under there than we'd expected. The wood was in terrible shape, and it looked like at some point, someone let their kid go to town on them with a hammer and a bucket of nails. We quickly changed course and pulled the nails, patched the cracks with wood putty, scraped some linoleum up and painted them with porch paint. In spite of that extra work it was a very doable project that cost under $50, and we are loving the difference!

Doggy Amelia models the previous carpet.
You can also see more before pics here.

I love the way white floors (and rug) brighten all of the colors in the room!

A Moroccan Dinner for a Special Lady

I love to cook, but it's not often that I feel like I have a green light to spend what I want and pull out all the stops for a special meal. Maybe once a year or so. Jeff's parents have been such a blessing to us this year, so I wanted to celebrate Amy's birthday in style. Making food is probably my #1 love language, and it's especially gratifying when the recipient feels the same way about food. I only chose the menu the night before, so Jeff stayed home yesterday to watch Amelia so I could focus. It was so much fun! I thought I'd share some pictures, but I didn't remember to capture everything.

The Menu

Pomegranate, Orange, Mint and Rose Coolers

Chicken B'Stilla
(A filo pastry filled with chicken and egg, with almonds and cinnamon between layers of pastry)
I didn't get a picture of mine, but it pretty much looked like this one.

Vegetable Course:
Baked Pumpkin Stars with Caramelized Onion, Raisins and Almonds
Beets with Minty Yogurt Dressing

Lamb Tagine with Prunes
served with Fresh Baked Baguette
Garlic and Lemon Fava Beans


Homemade Baklavah
Fresh Spearmint Tea
White Coffee
(Hot water infused with orange blossom essence)

None of the recipes were very difficult, let me know if you'd like to try one of them!

Nice News!

A local kids consignment store wants to carry the pants and hats that I am making! I will take a bunch in this week, and so I spent a lot of time making tags and getting
Set.
them ready to go. It will be fun to see how they sell. I am aware that the wool pants season is going to be over in a couple of months, so I have been trying to come up with some other ideas for the felt I have on hand (plus materials that end up being too scratchy to wear. I made a little cube chair and round table for Amelia as a test. I like the little chair, and it was easy to make. The table/ stool was a lot more involved, and so I'm not sure if it would be worth the effort.

Here is a pair of my favorite pants:

Some of the items I'm bringing in, all ready to go.


Tags. H. Shack is actually sketching a lamb for me, so these will look even nicer soon.


Cube chair.

Poof table.

Set.


It's fun to try something new, and to take a little risk. I felt very anxious about showing the shop owner what I'd been working on, since I've never done anything like this before. It was really rewarding to just go for it. Now we have to see if the shoppers agree... Thanks, everyone, for your encouraging comments that gave me the extra confidence I needed!