our little flat

we had a wonderful relaxed weekend – one of those where you spend a good, nice chunk of time just catching up on life -getting stuff done, but also just chilling out.

one project that has been on my list for ages was getting our flat’s last totally blank wall filled. i had suuuuch a struggle trying to decide what to hang on that wall! which frames, which pictures, in what arrangement… and finally i just buckled down and made some choices during the week and then on saturday after lunch the boy helped me create a little gallery wall! this was the last thing we had on our list as far as completely moving in to our flat and it felt great to check that off (yep, just over seven months after we arrived in london…).

i also did a nice spring deep clean of the flat while ian was studying for the cfa, and then i figured i should take some pictures of our little home while everything was tidy and organized :) we absolutely love where we live and how this small space has become so dear and beloved to us. now that we finally feel pretty much completely settled, we need to start thinking about switching things up to make a little room for baby boy – which will be an adventure!

we are both self-proclaimed minimalists and have really tried to be super conscious of how much stuff we have as we’ve moved abroad. we also both like simple, clean, modern decor. our little home sure isn’t anything fancy, but we are really happy with the way we’ve been able to organize it and make it our own.

  
^^ also among the final to-do items for the flat were clearing the fridge of christmas cards (which we loved having up through february!) and throwing away my old map. that large laminated graphic of the world has hung on my walls at wellesley, in new york and dc and provo, in san francisco and east palo alto and palo alto, and has long been one of my favourite worldly possessions. it is marked with little stickers to show all the places i have visited and lived. it was tattered and bent and outdated, so we got a new world map framed for our wall. i was sad to part with this item that has been with me through so many different seasons of life, but getting the exact same world map to replace it made me feel better :) ^^

our bedroom is pretty hard to photograph because it is very small and kind of a weird layout, but here’s what i was able to capture. we love the large posters that we found online to put on our bedroom wall that remind us of two of our favourite spots on earth, places that are significant to us. i told the boy i was sure i wanted to marry him in yosemite national park, and he proposed in olympic national park!


^^ i think this snapshot of the books on my bedside table are a good snapshot of my life right now :) ^^

the itty bitty entryway and the strangely shaped bathroom are also tricky to photograph… i promise there’s also a tub/shower in there! we had to get creative with storage space in the bathroom because there was absolutely zero built in – no shelves, drawers or cabinets.

  

our kitchen is just a little cubby off of the living room, and looking at this pictures makes me feel like it’s way too cluttery! but we love our magnet collection, which you can see on the hood of the hob and the water boiler, and having little things to make us happy stuck on the fridge (even after the christmas cards have come down). that stack of cinnamon rolls was another lovely part of our relaxed weekend – more on those later.


^^ the framed fork is a piece of gold cutlery that somehow didn’t make it back to the rental place from our wedding dinner. it’s a fun reminder in our kitchen of the best day of our lives. ^^


and our living/dining room will soon be a living/dining/baby room! we plan to do some shuffling around and stay in our one-bedroom (up two flights of narrow stairs!) until we really feel we need more space for our growing family. having had siblings live in one bedroom apartments in new york city with two and even three kids makes us not too worried and just excited for the closeness and adventure :)



truly, our dwellings shape us. i’m so grateful for this tiny home to share with the boy and the baby boy!

{pictures of our newlywed nest in palo alto here}