The apartment hunt in Wien was tricker than we thought. In the end, we also got so tired of looking at apartments that didn’t tick all the boxes. Out favourite altbau had the disadvantage of being on the second floor and on a corner site, meaning you heard lots of noise from two busy streets. One street was a street with trams. Trams that run from 0500 to 0000hrs. On arriving for the second search, the relocation agent informed us that she had no altbaus to show us! It was interesting sitting in the back seat of her car to watch SK digest that piece of information and although he stayed calm and although he expressed mild dissatisfaction, you would have to know him well (which I do) to realise that he was really ticked off. This information could have been shared earlier and we could have widened out the search area accordingly. We kept an open mind and hunted all day friday and saw eight apartments, too many. I fell in love with one of them a dachgeschoss in a beautiful altbau building. The building really is spectacular. The problem with dachgeschoss though is they get warm. You’d be as warm as a cat on a hot tin roof in them in the summer unless you can find one that is northish or eastish facing and doesn’t have the sun beating in all day long. We are used to living in a warm as toast timber frame that gets warm in the summer and are hoping the northish/eastish (definitely the less sunny sideish) facing dachgeschoss that we chose won’t be too toasty. Even if it is, it has a roof terrace. When the list was narrowed down to the dachgeschoss in the altbau building with the roof terrace and the quiet bedrooms versus the altbau on a corner site with the tram noise, the dachgeschoss won the day. I was shocked by how taken I was with this dachgeschoss. I was shocked by how I was seduced by the terrace. But being practical about it, people with newborns don’t get out much at night. In Wien, you won’t want to get out much at night or in the evening for dinner because they don’t have a smoking ban. In the summer, obviously you can sit outside restaurants, but in the winter, the smoky atmosphere is really annoying. It’s the biggest drawback to Wien. A roof top terrace to sit on and drink a cold beer on a summer’s evening seems like a great idea. Austria has warm summers. An apartment has been found. With a separate kitchen.
Archive for January, 2010
plastic eames chair
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
You only have to follow a few design blogs and flickr through a couple of interiors to realise that the plastic eames chair is big. Originally it was made from fibreglass, but the polypropylene ones look good too.
Arnotts currently have them on sale at 50 euro off.
They also have the rocker version, on sale with sixty euro marked off.
moving on preparation
Sunday, January 10th, 2010As SK left for Wien today and I will follow in a number of weeks, the time has come to think about what we want in our Viennese apartment. I am all about altbau. I said as much to our relocation agent, but much to my dismay, when we went to Wien before Christmas to do an orientation tour and look at neighbourhoods, we saw three apartments that were all modern. The viewings of neubau were not a waste of time. They clarified the “nope, not interested in this” mindframe that I was in, and which SK, happily, on seeing altbau versus neubau agreed with. Let me tell you, in a city like Wien, or indeed any European city, where nineteenth century apartment blocks survive and thrive, new ones leave you cold. I once dreamt (before the property boom then bust) of living in a large Georgian apartment over one or two floors in inner city Dublin, I dream of living in an altbau in Wien. I love altbau. To the extreme that, when shown an apartment overlooking palace gardens in Wien that was neubau and not altbau, SK and I turned out noses up. Yeah, it had a beautiful view of a park, but it had a kitchen/diner/living space and worse again still it was much smaller that the altbaus, with no interesting quirks like two WCs (one for the family, one for the maid) and no maid’s quarters off the kitchen (we saw altbau apartments with these sorts of things) and no pantry. Altbau is just so full of character. They have high ceilings. They have parquet floors. They have double doors. They have things like SEPARATE KITCHENS. Whilst I am aware that it has been all about the kitchen-diner in the recent years there’s a lot to be said for a separate kitchen. I live in a kitchen-diner taken a step too far. It’s a kitchen-diner-livingroom. I have come to hate it. It is not pleasant. You have to turn up the volume of the TV programme you are watching or the music you are listening too to deafening levels if someone is cooking in the kitchen and has a noisy extractor fan running. If you are cooking, you have to be careful not to do things like fry or grill fish because you will be stunk out for days. It can only be baked or poached. Who likes a fishy smelling sofa? You have to take care when choosing what to dress your windows with. Curtains and fabric blinds were out for the obvious reason that they would harbour the aforementoined cooking smells. It’s venetian blinds or shutters, which we installed. We didn’t want curtains and blinds anyway, as they just didn’t fit into the design of our kitchen/diner/living room space. I don’t like curtains much. I love blinds and shutters. Living in our current location has taught me a few lessons about what I will look for in a house when we come back to Ireland. SK and I don’t see ourselves moving back to where we are. For a number of reasons. The main ones being we have had a succession of neighbours from hell and we don’t think our apartment would make living with a baby very enjoyable. A toddler would be a nightmare, given all the steps. It’s good timing that junior will be living in a Viennese apartment, with no steps and will be free to toddle and there will be no worry about stairs and gates. Better still, I won’t have to haul a buggy up outer steps to a front door, all the while cursing the fact that under the steps which would have made suitable small item storage is completely bricked off. Was the architect a complete idiot? Why did buggies or golf clubs not occur? Under the outer concrete steps have perfect spaces for storing these things. Better again still, when I get to the front door, I won’t have to haul the buggy or child up another flight of steps and even better again still, I won’t have to haul the groceries all the way to the kitchen while wondering if junior is ok where left downstairs. (It’s a upside down design). I’m looking forward to our apartment hunt next friday. But even more than that, I’m looking forward to moving away from outer suburbia (which I have come to hate) and into a city proper. Austria, baby! Wien here I come. I was so jealous of SK heading off today. How I wished I was going with him.