Maybe You Want to See our Home?

Here are a couple pics of our cute new home in St. Paul. The house was originally built in 1875 (!!!), put onto the foundation later, and was possibly a grocery store at one time. Many, many people have made their home here in the past. I wonder who built it? (Thank you, whoever you were!)





Just this year the landlord remodeled some things. He replaced the windows (energy-efficient and much better than our terribly drafty Japanese windows), hot water heater and furnace (super efficient). It also has new sinks and stove, which I love. At under 550 square feet, we expect our little eco-friendly place will also save us on utilities! Yay!

We enjoy the neighborhood. Our block is full of young families, many working at the universities. Very nearby is an ethnically diverse neighborhood of whites, blacks, Hmong, Koreans, Somalians, and others. At the grocery store we sometimes see African women with head coverings, Central American men wearing skirt-like wraps, and everything in between. Hooray for American diversity!

In our apartment we have three very full bookshelves, several antique pieces of furniture (including a very cool red couch from N's grandparents), lots of storage, and plenty of art. We've hung several colorful obis (the belt-like thing that Japanese women wear with kimono), paintings from my mom, a mobile from South Africa, and a lovely print of the painting in front of which Nick proposed.

It's a nice little home.