Floor plan time

Before I plunge headlong into decoration rants, I think this would be an appropriate time to help you get a better sense of the layout.
Several followers on Instagram commented on how big the space looked. But I think it's mostly the impressive 4.80m ceiling height that gives this impression. Plus having posted mainly photos of the empty space certainly helps. Plus having posted mostly photos of the empty space certainly helps. But believe me, now that my equally impressive amount of stuff is in here, it feels much less spacious... According to the architect's floor plan my home is "only" about 75m² (that's 807 square feet according to Google). So I think we can all agree it's actually a rather modest size.

 

It has a classic layout for a Brussels apartment, in that it has 3 enfilade rooms - sort of a 19th century idea of an open floor plan - with a bedroom and a bathroom in a lateral annex (the bathroom annex usually being a later addition). One room flowing into another and those amazing doorways aligning with each other, definitely is a lovely feature. It does however present certain design challenges as well - the most important one being the lack of natural light in the middle room. But more on that another time.

 Let's start our tour with the front room (the one at the bottom of the floor plan). In previous posts it appeared in all its baby, ehem, light blue glory. It has two beautiful oak frame windows towards the street (the ones with the art nouvau flower patterns), an awesome white marble fireplace (sadly non functioning) and it used to have an original double door towards the building hallway, which I had moved to close off the wall behind them. 

If you're curious to see what this room looks like now, here's a little peek.

Like I said. Not so empty anymore.

Let's move on to the middle room, shall we ? It's about the same size as the front room and has the same original oak flooring. The original mantle also still lives here. Although in this instance I can’t say I’m too overjoyed with that, as - how would I put it politely - this fireplace tends somewhat towards the Victorian gothic (horror) style... (Nothing a good old black wall can’t fix though). Besides the lack of light, this room also presents another difficulty, as the entrance door to the apartment goes straight into this room. No hall. Not even a vestibule. You open the door and tada - you’re right in the living room…

This gives you a tiny preview.

Moving along to the back of the apartment (towards the garden), in the third - but much narrower - en-suite room, you will find the kitchen. This room has amazing cement floor tiles and the best light of all, thanks to large sliding doors to the outside. When I moved in, it was however nearly empty and I had to have a new/temporary kitchen installed. As it turns out, not as fun as it sounds… Definitely more on that at a later time.

Another IG glimpse.

 

Finally to the right of the kitchen, you access the bedroom and, through there, the bathroom. Yes, I know, for most people this might not be an ideal set-up, as guests have to go through the rather private bedroom if they want to make it the loo… But - not to boast here - I’m probably not most people… For years I’ve been showing bedroom, bathroom and various private parts (of my home !) all over the web. So “privacy” is a relative notion as far as I’m concerned. Anyway. Trust me. I already have some ideas on how to improve this layout in any case.

Hhmm. Apparently I didn’t take any IG snapshotes of the bathroom… I’ll try and remediate this during the weekend.

So here we are. Now you know exactly where everything is.

Renovations fast forward

I admire how some bloggers buy a fixer upper and then spend an amazing amount of time and energy doing all the renovations themselves. Learning how to tile, do electrical, rebuild whole parts of their houses via youtube. All the while, holding down a full time job and being generally super stylish all over the interweb…

Let me spare you the suspense. I am clearly not one those super humans ! Nor do I want to put undue pressure on myself in becoming one. I have exactly zero interest (or patience) in acquiring certain skills. Calling in the pros and having the job done in a minimum amount of time and a maximum amount of quality and perfectionism - that is my preferred way of tackling a building job.

So if you’re looking for blog content about grueling house renovations - move along ! The best I can offer you is this post, because, as mentioned in my previous missive, when I bought my new home it was pretty much in tip top condition. And that is just fine by me.

As you can see, the previous owner had already spared no expense doing a really good quality renovation. All the electricity had been redone and was up to code. The walls had been newly plastered and painted. The bathroom is brand new. She installed double glazing in the original front windows. She even hired a specialist to restore the “art nouveau” glass insets. And she paid special attention to maintaining all the original 19th century features that give this apartment it’s special charm (floors, doors, mouldings and mantles are all original).

I mean look at these pictures. It was all pretty much move in ready…

Remember these are only the “before” pics, right ? Right !

So what did I really have to change here, you’re probably wondering ?! Well. Some things had to go for purely esthetical reasons. Blue and beige wall colours ? Not my thing. The bathroom and kitchen sinks ? Not my taste either…Having a surround build around the circuit breaker panel in the bedroom ? That goes without saying.

Other jobs - like extra insulation on the exterior bathroom walls - were however a real necessity. So was having the wooden floors sealed - with an extra mat finish (!). Because you know, when you live with an unruly cat herd who loves to wee, puke and occasionally poo where they’re not supposed to… you enjoy having floors that are easy to clean and do not stain… New gas and water line in the kitchen ? Also a must have.

Removing the double doors from the front room (the ones going out to the building hall) and rebuilding the wall ? That was partly done for practical reasons (less noise and more energy efficiency) and aesthetics as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had a large wall in that room against which to place furniture, decor and plants.

For documentation sake, here's a few pics of the whole process.

I’m proud to announce : none of the above I did myself ! Yes, I hired a building company to do all the heavy lifting for me. And like I said, that is just fine by me. I’m very pleased with the job they’ve done. If you’re in the Brussels region and in need of a serious builder, do contact BBCS sprl. I cannot recommend them highly enough.

Now that the boring (renovation) stuff is out of the way, let’s move on to the fun bits, shall we ?

Finding my new home

I finished last year’s record number of posts (ehem…) with an adieu to my old place. So let me start this year’s series of posts with an introduction to my new home. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve already been privy to some peeks into the new place. But I still think that nothing compares to (and I personally very much prefer reading) a good, old, detailed blog post to those little sepia coloured snapshots…

Ready for the long story ?

I had already vaguely contemplated moving a few years back. I even went so far as to check out a few ads on Belgium’s biggest real estate site (through which I’d already found my old place back in 2005 btw). But nothing concrete ever came of it.

A year ago I had however reached a point where I felt very dissatisfied with my living conditions. 10 years into that apartment, I think I had simply outgrown it. And in all fairness, quite literally as well, with a growing cat herd of then 8 (!) indoor kitties… It was not however until my Oma passed away in early March that I finally got the impulse to really move on. That terrible loss of one of the persons I love the most (and with whom I attach my fondest memories) made me consider some life changes.

So I did decide that it was time to find a new place. One that was a better fit for the needs of my raucous fur babies and my current more mature self. Head long and full of enthusiasm I plunged into a real estate search. I was not, however, prepared for the serious reality check that shortly ensued. Having lived for 10 years in a very nice and properly renovated flat, I could not have imagined the horrendous places I was about to visit. Over the course of the next two months, I searched through hundreds of real estate listings, visited dozens of apartments, experienced the utter lack of professionalism of the Brussels real estate agents, got acquainted with building conditions that I would not have thought possible still existed in the 21st century (pervasive dry rot all over Brussels, so called renovations that are totally substandard not to mention downright illegal, water damage that made you wonder how these places are actually still standing)… How the owners even dared to ask the sale prices that they did ?! I still can’t believe it.

And yes. I got increasingly frustrated with whole process. All the while being more and more relieved to come back to a beautiful home after visiting one disaster after another. I hadn’t seen one place that was better or even just comparable. And by mid-May I had reached the point where I actually decided not to move. Instead I would be content with what I already had and use some of my budget to do some further renovations…

And then I came across an ad containing these…

A perfect fit for ALL of my search criteria. A garden flat, spacious, but not too big, in my preferred neighbourhood and within my price range. And cherry on the cake : the place had been recently renovated, but with a keen eye on maintaining all the charm of the original 19th century features… Looked almost too good to be true.

But then I came through the entry door, and BOOM ! My heart nearly stopped… I immediately knew it was the one. I made an offer that day, I heard back from the owner that mine was the best, but she still wanted to have a few days to think about it. She then called me back and asked me to up my offer (slightly). I agreed… And that evening my offer was accepted. Just like that. In the end it took 6 days between the visit and sealing the deal. And then of course a few more weeks for my mortgage to get approved and still a few more months for all the notary stuff to be dealt with…

It still seems completely unreal. The universe aligning so perfectly. I feel incredibly lucky and blessed !

Now let me round up this already very long post with some additional pictures I took during the second visit of my future home, back in mid-June 2015. Of course, they’re pretty rubbish like all good walk-through photos tend to be…

Now that you've seen the "before" are you ready for the "during" pics ?