Berlin in Frankfurt

We are just shy of thirty days of living here – minus my five day jaunt back to D.C. for a wedding – I can’t believe how fast the time has gone. It is very nice to finally be in our place after a total of thirty days of hotel living even if we don’t have most of our stuff yet. That said, we have all the essentials needed to do day-to-day things, sleep, do laundry, etc. and we are settling into some of our old routines: making hard-boiled eggs for the week on Sundays, weekend laundry, tea after dinner in the evenings, me cooking dinner and Jeff doing the cleanup – little routines really do help create normalcy and balance for us right now. I have also done a lot of reading – finished this once arriving back in Frankfurt and loved it:

And have read this series in just a couple days – super quick reads but engaging and fun:

Back to the apartment – the good things: bigger than expected, high ceilings, standard size appliances, built-in closet storage in both bedrooms, tan tile in bathroom instead of expected pink, light wood floors, lots of windows. The meh: the expected Drexel dark wood furniture, ugly drapes, and tan everything. But all of that was expected and manageable. I’m SUPER looking forward to the challenge of creating a homey environment using our belongings once they arrive plus integrating certain Drexel pieces.

For the master bedroom, we combined the two twins from the guest bedroom and we are having maintenance come and join the mattresses together using a banding kit.  We put a king size Tempur-Pedic mattress topper that we got on sale on Amazon. I ordered the white version of the grey queen size duvet we have had for the last few years, then I am planning to pick up some fun pillows at IKEA once I can get over there. I am hoping this will add some color and fun to a pretty neutral room.

Thinking of these pillows together on the bed – I usually don’t go for red but something about the pale wood and the white duvet made me like these together.

Beyond that, I have some other projects in mind and things to hunt for once the rest of our stuff gets here:

• Find covers for dining chairs, couch, and loveseat
• Find a fun rug for living room and maybe some sheepskins for the bedroom and guest room floors to make things cozy
• A use for our monster collection of wine corks – maybe an S like this for the wall?

• Plants for numerous large windowsills – so far I have a lone (but very enthusiastic) basil plant in my kitchen window. When my mom comes in November, one of my tasks for her is to help me find local plants for our place – get excited Mom!

Beyond scheming about the apartment, I’m also planning trips and activities for the three visitors we will have before we fly home for the holidays! Time will continue to zip by. ❤