Introducing the pixieflat

Hiya folks

For those waiting with baited breath, behold the PIXIEFLAT in all its majesty.

This is the outside of our block of flats as seen from the side lane. There's quite a nice jungly garden thing between the two blocks.

This is the entrance to the pixieflat, aka the Flat With The Blue Door (Notting Hill fans anywhere?). While the area appears quite safe so far at least, the pixieflat's front door has a three point locking system that could be described as a trifle excessive.

This is what I am going to grandly title the Entry Foyer, ie. the space behind the front door. You will see it has been converted into a Buddhist cultural misappropriation site with the very nice Buddha mum gave me and Jen's pretty bromeliad. I am quite pleased with myself actually as I haven't killed the bromeliad yet (2 weeks and counting). Hopefully the Buddha will help the bromeliad's karma.

This is the quite large kitchen with no mod cons but some quite nice old cons including a gas stove. SWEET. We've now clocked up about 7 years of rental of gas-only stoves, which is about the only principle by which we select rental properties, as anyone who ventured into Mackenzie Street can attest. Note also the pixiefridge. So cute!

This is the view from the kitchen window to aforementioned quite nice jungly garden thing. Also good for watching the world go by, as everyone from our block has to walk past our window to get to the street.

This is the laundry, and this is the study. I think bananas in a study are a feature. By the way, not only do we get to live in a rather cool city, but bananas here are 40p/lb, or about $2/kg. READ IT AND WEEP, AUSSIES!

This area is immediately past the Entry Foyer and opposite the kitchen door. We'll call this the Imelda Marcos shrine. Also features billions of hooks. Despite contents of hooks it hasn't been raining very much. The Imelda Marcos shrine has recently been relocated 30cm closer to the door to make way for Grant's new bike, but that is a subject for a different post.

Now we have the bathroom, which is also coincidentally larger than the one in Mackenzie Street. You can see the Power Shower, a kind of a pump, to the right of the sink - due to extreme lack of water pressure in this fair city, this is pretty much the only way you can enjoy a good, water-wasting shower experience here. It makes a Godawful racket but we love it anyway. Or did love it, until it exploded - as to which see the postscript.

Next we have airing cupboard shelf 1 aka the Birdy Nest, and shelf 2 aka Misc/Drying. Jen gets points for working out the Birdy would fit in there. Suffice to say I will never have to worry about rust, as the Birdy will be toasty warm at all times. Airing cupboards are weird - it doesn't feel appreciably warmer in there, but it will dry your clothes to a crisp in a jiffy.

This is the hot water heater. Included only because:

(a) it has a cute little jacket; and
(b) it renders the central heating units you may have seen in the other shots (white ridged panels against the walls) completely redundant. Theoretically these work by channelling hot water from the heater through the panels, which you can turn on or off at whim. What actually happens is the hot water heater puts out so much heat that you never even need to turn them on in the first place. Basically, the flat is always at Oz early summer temperatures which results in amusement every day when we leave the flat in shorts and freeze solid within a few steps of the door.

This is the view from the Imelda Marcos Shrine down the hall to the lounge/bedroom.

This is the lounge/guest bed/traditional Grant and Lauren pile of crap zone (but we'll clean it before you come visit, honest).

This is the dining room, this is the second study, and this is the lounge room. With built in robe, of course.

This is the far side of the room with bookshelves (and auxiliary Grant and Lauren pile of crap zone) and the drawers.

And this is the bedroom, which at least has a new bed for us thanks to nice landlord. Under the bed is communication central. Communication central is only half working, as British Telecom happily informed us they had connected a phone line without actually mentioning the fact that it does not, you know, WORK. But trust me, one day it will, and then we have the world's coolest phone number for your dialling pleasure. In the meantime, the Internet is surrounding and bathing us with its light. So why haven't you got Skype yet? Huh?

Out the back window, we have this. Cool eh? I'm going to tinsel that puppy up come Christmas, yessir.

That be the pixieflat in all its 3 room, excessive storage space glory. Now taking bookings for the new year.

The full gallery can be found here.

Loz/Grant

p.s. this is what the Power Shower looks like when it is broken...