Things to keep you busy

Or, what to do over Chinese New Year.

We were prepared for some down time the week of CNY because, for the first few days of the new year, almost  all the stores are closed as well as any tourist type venues .  So we planned for it with some stuff to do at home.  Puzzles figured pretty high on the list, books and furniture construction.

The start of the puzzle.  The weird dots are the reflection of the funky light fixture on the black marble table.

We have never worn our shoes in the house.  Mike grew up this way and it just keeps the house so much cleaner.  Here it is a must!  The dust that is ever-present comes in as footprints on the dark floors.  So the shoes come off before you set foot in the house.  We ran into a  problem with a very small front closet in the foyer......only the one seasons coats fit and now, during change of season it is challenging because as soon as you put the warm coats somewhere else the temperature drops and you need them again.  There is no room on the floor of the closet for the shoes because we keep the market bags there.  They sell many styles of shoe cupboards here, an item I never saw in the states.  We got a small bench with two underneath racks when we first got here because you don't even want to bring the shoes into the foyer to put on or take off due to the dust.  You keep them in the vestibule.  The rest of the shoes were just in a heap and getting covered with the ever present dust.  So we got a cupboard from a store nearby......It is a do it yourself cupboard.  Which is ok, we (really Mike)  have put together many things over the years.  This one and the one we got for the kitchen (from IKEA) presented a different sort of challenge.

It is all in Chinese!!

As you can see, this was not impossible to overcome as they do a good job of  providing drawings.

This is full of shoes!  And a bicycle lock!

 The kitchen provides less cupboard space than most apartments.  It makes no sense in a house this large. And the new cupboard for the kitchen helps with food storage because it takes the food out of the path of the heat vent.  A very poorly designed kitchen indeed!

Under construction.

 I didn't get any construction shots of the shoe cabinet.....but here is the kitchen cabinet.  Mike stuck in his earbuds and went to work.  It will have lower doors when IKEA actually gets them in stock, until then we get to see all our food stuff but at least it is out of the path of the heat vent.  When we get the doors I will do another picture.  Right now it looks pretty messy but oh so functional.

Love, fondly, sincerely,

zaijian,

Ramona