Apartment Part I

We're been promising apartment photos for a while and since as of this week we have lived here for a month, I present the opening chapter of our apartment tour! (At some point, I want to put up some pics of our neighborhood. It might take another month. ; ) 

Like most Japanese apartments/houses, we have a small genkan (玄関）or entryway. It is great to have a place to leave shoes, umbrellas, etc. We are planning on printing out pics of our travels, family, etc. and put them up on the walls here. The idea is to keep adding throughout the year, then when we leave I can just put them in an album. Of course, we've yet to print out a single photo...maybe this weekend.

As you enter the hallway, on the left you see the bath/toilet room area. We have a sink and changing area, the door with the towel on it leads you to a tiny room with a toilet in it.

To the left of the sink is our bathing room. I love having the bath and toilet separated. Plus, the big bathtub will be great when the weather gets colder.

Continue past the bathroom area, through a door and you come to our kitchen. Against the window is a big sink, cupboards, and a two burner gas stove.

This is the view from our kitchen window. Behind the white wall with green stripe is a highway exit, the green bridge is a pedestrian walkway, and at the very top is the highway itself. Our apartment has great windows, so highway noise isn't really a problem. It's not the most picturesque view, but the passing cars are less of an annoyance than you would think.

Here is the big wall in the kitchen and the first of our adventures in washi tape decoration. We wanted to do a geometric design on the wall. It turned out a little more squat than we had originally planned (one version looked a lot like Optimus Prime, if you squint you might be able to see it still...), but we still like it. We're playing around with the idea of adding little shapes to the left, you can see I added one to test it out. Washi tape comes off the wall easily and is very cheap, so we will probably change it the design around. (There are more washi tape adventures in the living room, featured in Apartment Part II!) I want to find a bright table cloth, since beige is the default color for the floors, walls, appliances, curtains, and furniture. Any suggestions for our washi wall?

Here is another view of the kitchen. The open door to the far left goes into the living room and the door on the left in the hallway goes to the living room. This apartment is not lacking for doors. Each room can be sealed off individually, which is great when the air conditioner or heater is on, but makes moving from one room to another a bit like moving through a maze.

Next time we'll do the living room, bedroom and balcony. Stay tuned!