Between paperwork and meetings and trying to get set up on Canadian systems and entertaining Cora and getting furniture and trying to remember to feed ourselves, we’ve been in Ottawa for 2 weeks already and every day has been full of something. I’ve been wanting to share photos of our apartment since pretty much the moment we arrived, but only this morning did I finally get around to taking some pictures.
But don’t get too familiar with our apartment as we’re moving in 2 weeks! I know, it sounds insane, but another apartment in our block became available and our very sweet landlords offered it to us as it is a bit different and slightly more suitable for us. I still want to share where we’re living now and where we’ve called home for the past two weeks, so here we go …
Our landlord [who is very creative, artistic and has a history in design] kindly emailed me sketched plans of the apartment when I first inquired about it in early August. It was a huge help as I couldn’t figure out the layout from the photos, so I figured it would be perfect to accompany this post as the layout can be a bit confusing to get your head around going by the photos alone.
The character and quirkiness of our apartment [and subsequently our next one] is completely what sold me and pushed us to take the leap of leasing an apartment without ever seeing it in person. Or while even being in the same country, for that matter. It was a huge risk but it paid off bigly, as Donald Trump would so eloquently put it.
Our apartment was completely unfurnished, which is standard in Canada. After sleeping on the floor for close to a week, I caved and one day went to IKEA and bought a mattress [which isn’t half bad TBH]. We slept next to the heater on Cora’s playmat for a week and while it was kind of rough [especially on my dodgy hips which are still bad since having Cora], as Robert put it, we’ll look back on all our floor camping and picnics fondly. I’m not complaining because I was wholly prepared to sleep on the floor, but it’s just nice to sleep on something soooooooft again.
Yes, those are grape vines growing across our bedroom window.
To give you an idea of the scale of our apartment, the dining room is bigger than the living room in our Dublin apartment. Now I understand why everyone’s furniture is so much bigger here; because it can be.
And don’t get me started on the kitchen. There’s a DISHWASHER and you don’t have to crawl on the floor to see into the tiny, non-existant fridge, like standard Irish rental fridges. The fridge is so big that all our food sits on one shelf. I don’t know what to do with myself, it’s so big [#ThatsWhatSheSaid]. And wait until you see the kitchen in the other apartment. It’s even nicer, if you can believe it.
And last but not least, Cora’s room. Which is the most ‘together’ room so far. I decided months ago that we would be bringing Cora’s crib with us on the plane when we travelled, so the moment we arrived she could sleep in her own bed and have something familiar right away. For some people it doesn’t sound like something to prioritise, but I’m so damn glad we brought it with us. Even though it was incredibly heavy and nearly destroyed us trying to bring it, but it was just awkward for one day. It was doable. Emotionally detatching yourself from a day like that also helps, but it was so worth it in the end.
We’ve picked up some furniture already [an old high chair for Cora and a second hand dining room set], which I’m hoping to share and update as soon as I can, as both need some work done to them. And of course, I can’t wait to move into and share our next apartment.
If you follow me on Instagram, I’ll be doing a walk through of our entire apartment on my stories some time within the next 24 hours, so be sure to check them out for more details!
