Inside Our Dutch House: Once Upon a Time

I'm in the middle of cleaning and getting our place ready for the move, but I thought I'd make time to post a few photos of what our place used to look like... in the late 70s/ early 80s. These photos all come from the Utrecht Archive. If you are interested, they have plenty more photos of the city (from all different periods in history). Just click here. The Dutch are very meticulous about collecting and keeping information!

The kitchen (for present day pictures see this post):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

The living room (see this post for present day pictures):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

 The downstairs toilet (read more here):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

The stairs (just as steep):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

 And the garden (which I showed you about here):

Photo from Utrecht Archive

I think some of the photos may have gotten flipped when they were scanned, but you can definitely tell the building has had some major renovations since the early 1980s.

Inside Our Dutch House: The Bedroom

The last room inside our Dutch home is the bedroom. One major issue we had when we first moved in was storage space (at least after our shipment arrived) since the room has no closets. It did have one wardrobe, but that had to hold all of our clothes, the extra linens that came with the house, the extra linens we shipped when we originally planned on a 2 bedroom, the vacuum, extra computer parts, etc.

We quickly invested in an extra wardrobe, which we will donate to the house when we leave. This one extra piece of furniture saved the bedroom from looking like we were in the process of moving for the whole year.

In the picture below you can see our new white wardrobe, the old wood colored wardrobe with mirror, the drying rack, and the corner of our bed.

Bedroom Looking Toward Back of House

Here is a photo looking at the room from the opposite side. You can see the bed (in all it's lumpy glory) and some built in shelves in the corner (mainly used for shoe storage).

Bedroom Looking Toward Front of House

Other than the storage issue and a very lumpy bed, the room is adequate with some interesting idiosyncrasies. The shape of the room (with the sloping wall), the placement of the radiators, a built in shelf that blocks the door from opening all the way, and a shortage of outlets, all combine to make the rearrangement of furniture a bit of a challenge. 

During the winter, I actually spent quite a bit of time in the bedroom during the day because it was the warmest room in the house. I cuddled up under the covers with my laptop or a book and often ended up taking an accidental nap. Now that it is summer and the bedroom is still the warmest room in the house, I prefer to spend more of my time in the living room, since it is not quite as stuffy. Of course, we always have the option of opening windows, but storms can pop up without warning and the Dutch don't believe in window screens, so open windows mean lots of visitors of the insect variety.

Oh, and in case you are still wondering about the fish-eye photos, here are some pictures taken with a regular lens.

The Wardrobe

Part of Our Bed

Do you see how you can't really get an idea of the layout of the room with the regular photos?

Inside Our Dutch House: The Bathrooms

Inside our house, we have two bathrooms (at least according to the American use of the word). We actually have a toilet downstairs and full bathroom upstairs.

Downstairs Toilet

As you can see this downstairs W.C. is pretty basic - a toilet and a sink. I've often wondered how you go about fixing the toilet if the flushing doesn't stop since there is no access to the pipes/water tank. In the winter this room got very little use as it is drafty (being right beside the front door), has a cold tile floor, and doesn't contain a radiator. It was great, though, to have this extra 1/2-bath downstairs when company visited.

Upstairs, we have... Oh, first I should show you the stairs!

Stairs, Looking Down

Pretty steep, huh? These are typical Dutch stairs. Even in buildings with more space, the stairs normally remain at this steepness. The picture below gives you a better idea of the layout of upstairs.

Upstairs

Upstairs, we have the full bathroom (well, sort of... it has a shower and no bathtub, but I think that's pretty typical for a smaller European house).We have a shower, washing machine, toilet and sink all crammed into the tiny space. I actually think the use of space is really good.

Upstairs Bathroom

I also like that there is no step up to get into the shower. It seems like it's easier to clean the long drain if it gets clogged than the normal bathtub-type drains.

Shower and Washing Machine

In the picture above you can see our washing machine, next to the shower. Unfortunately, we don't have a dryer... and with good reason, where would you put it?... so once I wash clothes, I have to hang everything to dry. I don't mind so much for shirts and slacks, but the towels don't ever seem to dry and socks are a pain to line up on the drying rack.

Washing Machine Close-Up

On a side note, neither of our toilets are typically Dutch, because they don't have the standard shelf in place. Want to know what I'm talking about? Check out Tiffany's comments on Dutch toilets here and here.

Inside Our Dutch House: The Living Room

I started a series called "Inside Our Dutch House" back in January in which I show you pictures and talk about each room in our house. Unfortunately, I only completed one post in the series in January, but I'm ready now to buckle down and show you the rest of our home.

I thought since I started in the kitchen, the next logical room would be the living room. Recently, I joked with one of my friends that we were being trendy by having an open living plan or a "great room". What this really means, is in our small home we have to make do using the same space for a living room, an office, a dining room, and a guest bedroom. Oh, and did I mention this space is no larger than a small bedroom? If we were going to be here longer, we'd probably invest in some furniture more suitable/versatile, but here is the living room as is:

From the Front Window

In the picture you can see the office (to the left), the dining room (straight back) and the living room (to the right). The rug in the middle of the floor marks the space where the air mattress lives when we have visitors. The queen size mattress nestles perfectly between the sofa and the desk, allowing just enough space to still use the desk chairs (provided you are flexible enough to maneuver in and out). In the picture above and the ones that follow, I've used a fisheye lens. It's just impossible to capture the room with a regular non-wide-angle lens. You would be able to see only the dining table or only the desk. The one thing to note, however, is a fisheye lens does make the area seem a little larger than it is.

One challenge I've had with the living room is find a place to work on projects. Since Mr. Traveler occasionally works from home and often has to check in on his projects in the evening, the large table (which was originally the dining table) has been transformed into his desk. Originally I had hopes of sharing this space, but there is really not enough space for both of us.

Desk Area

Since the dining room table became a desk, we rescued a small table from the corner in the kitchen. Originally it was covered in a thick tablecloth and served as extra counter space. The problem was it was too low to be used effectively as counter space and it really just took up space. We moved it to the living room, where it became our two person table. I guess it's done its job because we sit at the table nearly every evening. Sometimes I use the table as a laptop desk or spread out a crafting project, but whatever is on the table always gets put away stacked somewhere else when it is time to eat dinner.

Crafting on the Dining Table in January

I've already mentioned that we moved the table from the kitchen to the living room. We also did another bit of rearranging in this space after we'd been in the house a couple months. We moved the sofa from facing the TV to facing this room. This helped open up the room, but made watching TV a little less comfortable.

View from the Kitchen

The sofa wasn't all that comfortable to begin with, though. It's lumpy, feather filled cushions make for an inconsistent sitting experience, especially when you have the pleasure of the sharp end of a feather stabbing you in the leg. While it is tolerable for the time being, I'm looking forward to our larger sectional at home, where Mr. Traveler and I can sprawl out and cuddle with the dogs.

From the whole room pictures above, you probably won't be able to see one of the other irritating things about this room that we are just tolerating. At first glance, the room seems to have nice hardwood floors. Well, they would be nice if they were installed properly without large crumb-catching gaps between some of the slats. (They could use a good polishing, too, but I'm not complaining about that!)

Crumb and Dust Catcher

One thing I really love about this room is the lighting during the day. Even on cloudy days, plenty of light streams through the windows on both sides of the room. The first thing I do when I wake up is open the windows to let in the natural light. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can even spot a cat sitting on the window sill.

Rainy Day Hideout

Overall, I've gotten a lot of use over this room for the past 10 months. It's served as my main hangout when I'm at the house, whether I'm reading, spending time on my laptop, watching TV, crafting, eating, or playing a game with Mr. Traveler. While I probably wouldn't choose to have a multipurpose room like this long term, it has served its purpose for our short stay.