A Blank Slate

We moved into a wonderful apartment the first part of October in a quiet peaceful area across the river from the main part of town.  It has two bedrooms, two Juliette Balconies, two bathrooms, a lovely living room and a very cute kitchen.  

The bottle of red wine given to us by our Landlady's boyfriend.

Guest bedroom

Living Room

View from my kitchen window

The Tech installing our internet and television.

 Where do you begin when you have a blank slate? There are so many choices of styles, colors, fabrics, furniture, dishes, bedding and on and on.  My notebook became pages of measurements, lists for each room for our trip to IKEA.

The Alpha Pendular high speed train to Porto for our trip to IKEA.  

At one point it was traveling 155 mph.  

This was part of the view to Porto from the train.  We could see the Atlantic Ocean.

Four trolleys and two carts.....yes, we were exhausted.

Thank goodness for the App for IKEA on our phones.  It took more time in the store than we thought and we were running from aisle to aisle pulling boxes of beds, night stands, tables, chairs, stools, mattresses, lighting, dishes and numerous other things.  We were lucky we didn't miss our train back to Coimbra!

It took about a week to put it all together and we are very happy with our choices.  We still have some rugs to get to feel like it is complete.  And Vince is finishing putting up our light fixtures.  In Portugal, like most other countries, you need to supply your own lighting.  So we bought 4 ceiling and one wall light.  Thank goodness we didn't need to buy a refrigerator or stove.  We will be posting pictures of our finished apartment very soon.