Weekend sees progress

Hello all;
I think it is time for my rant about the appliances in Europe. We have already replaced our dryer -- it was taking 2-3 hours for a single pair of pants. Our washer has lost its motor sensor to keep it balanced when spinning, and we have been without it for more than a week. These appliances are on loan from Schinnen. We also have a European large freezer and dishwasher. The large freezer should be more efficient than our American ones because it has coils into each shelf or drawer liner...but that means that we cannot have anything bigger than the European manufacturer wanted us to put in there -- no room for an American style turkey for example. Because we are shopping mostly from the local economy, we are not stocking the freezer the way that some families do, so that one is unplugged right now. The problem with most of the European appliances is that they run much hotter than the American ones, they take longer, and they have less capacity. I think that this has become a rant, when I merely meant for it to be illustrative. Our washer can handle about 2.5 kg of cotton. Anything else, it should be a smaller load (though they don't actually tell us how much smaller, and I don't have a washer scale). Same thing for the dryer. I think that means that I cannot wash a full set of two towels, with hand towels and wash cloths. The washer takes about 2 hours and can run as hot as 90 C. I have control of the temperature and won't set it above 60 C. The dryer is a condensation dryer, despite us having a vent hole for a dryer adjacent to the dryer. I think that that is what makes it so inefficient. I am constantly running the water tray to the sink to empty it. (Less so, now that I have to go to the base for laundry).

In other news, every box that is going to be empty is empty. All artwork is out of the boxes and we are starting to put it in front of where it will be hung. I am still looking at options for hanging things on the walls. We are missing some of the hardware from my piano and the wheels from a basement wardrobe. But, other than that all is here. Photographs will come soon.

I don't think that I have walked you through the house yet....here is the verbal rundown:
floor zero (which we Americans might mistakenly call the first floor): 4 tractor garage -- two sets of doors and two vehicles deep, large mudroom (where we have an American style fridge/freezer and laundry) with a WC off of it, vestibule to the kitchen contains a china cabinet and a large walk in pantry, kitchen, large front room with our dining table and a living room set and my desk in it (all of this space is tiled), stairway vestibule (there are other stairs from the garage to upstairs as well), large master bathroom with a bathtub so long that I can lie fully immersed on the bottom of it, large master bedroom, and another room -- Eileen's nursery.

floor one: large stairway landing with storage on one wall, other wall has a 3/4 bath, a guest room with a twin bed, then turning the corner slightly, a guest room with a queen sized bed, and a sitting room....oh and above the 4 tractor garage is a 4 tractor in floor space bonus room....and above that is even more storage (though we are storing things in the bonus room for now).

Dutch stairs are terrifying and ours don't have a handrail for at least part of the exterior of their length (though they are much less steep than at the bed and breakfast). Happily, Dutch doorknobs seem to hit me at about the sternum or a little lower, so we must just remember to close doors that lead to stairs.

We haven't yet hung our pots and pans, but I hope that that will free enough space from the pantry that I can store cleaning supplies there behind a closed door. Pictures will follow.