Successful move!

It's done! We managed to get moved with a minimum of trouble, thanks to Sebastian Espinoza Moving. This is our 4th or 5th exposure to him, a couple moves of things we bought from others and our two major moves. Highly recommended!

We sold our refrigerator and bought another (bigger) used one from friends and we also sold a lot of smaller stuff that we couldn't use (painted bench, rug, heater, dishes, etc). Now we have a bunch of little things left to sell.

An addition to our apartment!

Everyone knows how we love the views from our apartment, I mean the photos we share say it all. (Have you ever peeked at our SmugMug album, just for the views?) The light and views are a big part of this apartment and we hated to obscur that with curtains, even sheers.

When we moved in, we bought a room-darkening roman shade for the master bedroom from the former tenant. It has worked out well since the morning sun, especially in summer (NOW), a 6:30 sunrise can be a bit bright.

Well, we got a visit from the gal renting on the third floor, same apartment layout as ours. She is heading back to the states and wondered if we would be interested in buying her window coverings.

Although we still weren't sure we wanted anything, the bright afternoon sun was drivin us away from our desks every day. So we went down to her place to look. As soon as we saw them, we were sold!

When pulled up, you can't even tell there are window covers, other than the beaded drawstings. When you pull them down...that's where the magic begins. They work like roman shades but they have alternating panels of light and dark. Thus you can let some partial light in or not. Hard to explain and harder to show in photos but we LOVE THEM!

There is a smaller blind for each of the windows that open and a wider one for the rest of the window. Now the all the rooms except the kitchen have blinds AND a view!

Stu's Furniture Workshop - Round Two

Some of you may remember Stu attending the creativity-inducing furniture workshop back in April. Here is a photo of the bench he painted for me!

Well, he did it again! He started with a small round-top table and two chairs, all from Rotary Market. I had bought a small tablecloth to brighten the corner.

Here is the work in progress and the final results - pretty nice, I think! He even added the compass points to the map of Cuenca on the table. Oh, remember that tablecloth? Well it got used to cover the chair seats. Perfection!!

A Few Apartment Photos

Everything is unpacked, the boxes and packing material have been returned to our expat friends, ready for someone else to borrow and thinks are settling in. Today we hung a few more wall decorations and I snagged a few photos.

Still a lot to do but we need to buy a few more things for the walls first. At least the walls aren't completely bare in all the rooms. LOL! The dining room table still has the little baskets that I've bought for decoration, the bookcase is stuffed and needs to be spread out a bit, we want a wall hanging to put above the television and we want to put up a family wall behind my chair (oops, forgot to take a photo of that corner).

We plan to put sheers in all the windows except the master where we already have a Roman shade, purchased from the previous occupant. But no rush, it's not like we have folks peeking in our 6th floor windows.

Living - Office - Dining - Kitchen areas


Master Bedroom - Master Bath


Guest Rooms - Guest Bath

So that's a little peek into our new place...enjoy!

Getting ready to move!

Yesterday we went to see our actual apartment after the previous tenant moved out this past weekend. These first photos are from the landlord's father's apartment with the exact same layout.

This apartment is two floors directly above ours, same layout/size. And no, there is NO diswasher in our unit...we supply all appliances. LOL! Oh, as always, click any photo to see a larger image.

These photos are from the recently vacated apartment that will be ours, currently being painted, cleaned and any needed repairs done. Can't believe I forgot to take a photo of the master bedroom and bath. Cheated and used the master bath photo from the above apt. The master has a nice room darkening roman style window cover that we bought from the previous tenant. The other windows will eventually get sheers.

We will have a huge open living - dining - kitchen great room area. The three bedrooms are a bit smaller but we are pretty sure we can fit our king bed in the master, queen in one guest room and queen iffy in the third. Plan B will be queen in our room, main guest room and our single+ in the smaller guest room. It will all work out. We also have permission to put bigger, nicer mirrors in all three bathrooms (all FULL - yup, three showers).

The views from all the rooms are wonderful...a ton of windows in the main living area lets us see the city and the mountains around us. I have a window that opens over the kitchen sink (my only UGH is the size of the round sinks) so I can see the city. Then there is the full rooftop terrace! Oh my!! We can't wait to see the city lit up at night and watch the gorgeous sunrises and sunsets.

Many of the apartments have a bench or truck outside their doors, a place to sit things down when you unlock the door maybe. Since we have FOUR benches, one will be painted for just that purpose! As it stands now we will be busy PACKING most days. We get our keys the morning of July 2nd and will be meeting with our mover this afternoon to confirm a price and hopefully set up to move that afternoon.

When we left the apartment yesterday, we walked to the end of our street, around the corner to our bank. Just up the street is the Supermaxi we prefer as well. We will be going more often and buying less since we will be walking there and back. A bit longer is the walk to our primary care doctor and our pharmacy (although our landlords also own a pharmacy and we can have next day delivery) as well as the BIG mercado, Feria Libre. From our apartment we can head the opposite direction and quickly find us in El Centro. At the end of our street is the Rio Tomebamba which is the river that ran behind our temporary apartment where we stayed on our exploratory visit. Stu is looking forward to riding his bicycle as well as walking along the river.

So what are we doing now?