The new flat

So Astrid and I moved into the new flat on Sunday Sept 29th. Its small, but its cute -- and its all we really need. We've spent a few nights out in the 'back garden', which is a definite selling feature of this place. The flat is on the top floor of row house, which is the most common form of housing it seems. Its funny how back home living in a duplex or a 'townhouse' is considered not as nice as living in a 'freehold', but here the entire city is made up of these row houses, most of which were built from 1850 through the early 20th century. Apparently back in the day the row houses were actually 1 single house, meaning it would have been quite large. Landlords picked up on the money that could be made here and bought up these 'mansions', chopped them up into 5 or 6 flats, and rented/sold them individually. In our flat's case, you enter the main door and there is a hallway with some stairs -- one flat is entered from the lower floor, and 6 have entrances from the 2nd level. Upon entering our flat (on the 2nd floor), you immediately climb another set of stairs -- so our living/dinning area is actually on the 3rd floor (and our bedroom is on the 4th!). Its nice being on top though since you don't hear any neighbours.

Here is a view of our street and our flat. Moving left on the map from Kinsgate & Gascony, we are the 4th flat on the north side (there are 2 cars in front of our place, one black and one white). The darker of the two skylights (the one on the left) is our bedroom.

The backyard (which is 3 floors down from our flat!) has a nice little patio, a small garden shed w/ a leanto that houses a bench where you can sit. There is an area about 8' by 12' which is ready for some plants/vegetables to be planted this spring.

Although we're about 7 minutes from the West Hampstead tube, we're also only 2 minutes from High Kilburn street, which is quite urban with lots of shops. Its a "lower-class" area and kinda feels like Kensington market -- lots of ethnicity and cheap deals to be found. This past Saturday we checked out a couple nice local pubs -- The Black Lion is so far our favourite (it's got gorgeous ceilings that are quite high.)

In a few weeks, Astrid & I will be converting back to our entertaining and hosting ways -- Nyla is in town for 10 days at the end of October / early November -- a few weeks later Mag & Ce are visiting for American Thanksgiving. We can't wait be hosts within our new home :)