Home Sweet Home

I t has been a long few weeks getting adjusted to life here in Qatar. Between trying to find a nanny, a car, and getting settled in at school, it seems that every second is taken up "taking care of business." But as always we have realized that the first step to feeling comfortable is to create a comfortable home an dafter a few weeks of painting, unpacking, and organizing we are nearly there! Although we are still about a week from putting up our artwork, photographs and organizing our trinkets, i thought i would post some photos of the metamorphosis our house has taken, from "Saudi Gaudy," to our home.

Let me start by saying that we have too much stuff, because we were not aware that we couldn't remove the furniture that came with the house, so we found it challenging trying to make room for our things, while finding ways to hide the furniture in the house. Let's start the tour:

This is the left part of the living, or the TV nook. These are the couches we could live with.


After some paint and a trip to the Carrefour, we now have our very own home theater, complete with a 37" LCD TV and surround sound speakers.

This the dining room. Before we left Malaysia we bought an antique Tibetan door turned dining room table, thinking that we could simply remove whatever was in the new house, but as I mentioned that was not the case. So we decided to shrink this table down and use it a a desk in the study and hide all the chairs around the house.

Here is our table and chairs. We are going to put a large mirror on the green wall later this week.

Kaia's room was so depressing when we first arrived. All she had was a pack and play and a few suitcases.
But a little pink and green paint and ten hours of mommy and daddy killing themselves with Ikea furniture and you have a splendid place to play.



She really likes to spend time in her room now.

Here is the hall/library wing before:

and after. Books have since been put on the shelves.

Here is a shot of the hallway going the other way toward the dining and living room.
We plan on filling this hall with photographs, I have taken from around the world. The frames have been cleaned and the images are being chosen as we speak.

Here is our bedroom before...
and after. Again the paintings and photos are not yet on the walls.



Here is the entire living room and the front door.

The right side of the living room or as we call the sitting room. that yellow couch is the bane of our existence. It is hideous and there is nothing we can do with it.

Abracadapra...and a few hundred boxes of our crap!

and voila!
The dining room from afar.


TV room looking into the kitchen.


Speaking of the kitchen, here is Mairin knee deep in boxes.
As you can see, the place has come a long way. you may be asking yourself if there are any bathrooms in the place and the answer is yes, there are three, but since this is a brand new house, we are facing some challenging plumbing issues at the moment and none of the bathrooms have been decorated for fear of flooding. That is part of Phase II in operation move in. The front yard is also a barren brick field right now. We are waiting for the summer to go away so we can buy some greenery for the yard. We will as always keep you posted. I am also working on a video tour of our hood, but with school starting tomorrow that may be a few weeks. Life in Doha is becoming normal and we are adjusting quite well. We are looking for a car this week, and maybe a few nights of sitting around and watching movies on our new huge TV!