Home away from home

The other day I was on the phone with my mom when she asked me for an address. I told her I needed to run downstairs and grab my address book to which she replied, "You have an upstairs!?" This reminded me that I never posted pictures of the place we're renting here in Cambridge. So here it is, a photo tour of our home away from home...

The house is on a quiet street just a few blocks from the Chemistry Department and less than a mile from the center (oh no! My first inclination was to write "centre" just then...) of town:

As you look up and down and across our street, you see a lot of the same:




This probably explains why no two doors on the street are the same color - it's an easy way to recognize which one is yours!

As you walk through the front door (the stairs take you to the bathroom and the bedrooms or you can head straight through to the kitchen):


Off of the hallway leading to the kitchen there is also a doorway into the living room/dining room:


The living room is a really good size for the two of us. Jason hates leaving the curtains open (like they are in this picture), because he says he gets sick of people looking in at us, but I love how much light it lets in!

There is also a good sized dining room table although, admittedly, we rarely sit at it:


I thought about moving the bikes out of the way before I took this picture, but then I decided that wouldn't be very representative of how we actually live. Yes, the bikes have their own special place in the middle of the dining room. It's not ideal, but as you can see in the pictures of the front of the house, there's no where to lock them up out front and no access to the back garden so we don't really have any other option.

The kitchen is my favorite room in the house - it was just remodeled and is pretty much perfect in every way as far as I'm concerned. (Okay, it wouldn't be my first choice to put my washer/dryer in the kitchen, but that seems to be the norm here):


Heading up stairs, there is a small landing at the top of the stairs. The bathroom is located just off this landing. I wasn't going to include a picture because a bathroom is pretty much a bathroom, but then I figured it just wouldn't be a complete picture with out it:

Up a few more stairs:


...there are three bedrooms. Two "double beds" and a "single bed" as they are called here - the naming convention is based on the size of the bed that will fit in the room. As you may have guessed, this means that a "single bed" is tiny! I haven't even included a picture of ours here because it has become a bit of a storage room and I couldn't actually get the door open wide enough to snap a picture. In any case, below is the guest room (also known as the pink room) - where you can stay when you come visit!



And finally, our room, which I couldn't seem to get a very good angle of:


This room used to be bright blue with a neon blue accent wall - awesome. I probably should have asked for permission before painting it, but I didn't...I guess I'll just have to ask for forgiveness later!

So there's the proof - lots of room for visitors, just let us know when you'll be here and we'll be ready to welcome you!!