Up today is a tour of our friend’s Daniela and Miguel’s flat in Switzerland. It  is so welcoming and has been the place where we got lots of first hand experience in Swiss culture! You might remember seeing Daniela before on here from our jam making, bread baking and many Swiss adventures. I first really started to get to know Daniela when I took her a meal after she had her baby. I’m sure she thought I was so crazy bringing this American tradition to Switzerland…but in the end she agreed to let me bring the meal and we  got to chat on her porch when I stopped by. Daniela taught me so much about thinking practically about my home. I loved that she wasn’t concerned about things being just so, she was concerned that people be comfortable and feel welcome.  So make a cup of hot chocolate and have a read!

What makes a house a home?

When Kristen asked me if I would blog for a day and send some pictures of my favorite spaces in my house, I was a bit surprised. Our 70-square-meter-three-room-flat in the first floor of an old Chalet style house near Bern, Switzerland, doesn’t strike me as the kind of living space you would publish pictures about. But then I agreed. Even if our little flat isn’t stylish or modern nor decorated in a very special way, it definitively feels like home to us. And about this I’m happy to blog.

Our Kitchen Table

This table is the very heart of our home. The kitchen is in the middle of our flat, and much of our living takes place here. Peeling potatoes and paying bills, chopping veggies and wrapping gifts… As I don’t have a writing desk I sit here with my laptop or school work too. Here we have individual breakfasts and joined family dinners, and if we have guests, we mainly sit here. The table extends, and we have placed up to eight people around it. I like the old wooden make of it. We found it on my grandmother’s attic when looking for furniture for our first flat and have had it since.

The hook

You maybe wonder why this hook could be important enough to blog about. It’s our faithful babysitter. Not on its own, of course. But this beam runs through the middle of our kitchen, and for the first seven months of Anna’s live we had a baby hammock hanging on it. With a string from my foot to the hammock I could rock her gently when sitting at the table or standing at the stove. It saved us many hours of crying.

Later Kristen lent us a baby jumper, which again, Anna LOVED, and in which she spent many happy and very active hours. The third thing was a little swing. We took it away now as Anna feels too grown up for it, but soon the hammock will be put up again for our No 2. 

My bed

I think anybody’s bed is what makes them realize they are back home after a holiday or some time away, sleeping in different ones. It’s just not the same. Often when cuddling into my blanket at night I’m reminded of all those people living in the streets and under bridges, children sleeping in cardboard boxes, refugees without any shelter, people who’s houses have been bombed or shaken by an earthquake, and then I send a prayer and am just  filled with gratitude for my warm and cosy bed. During day time we cover it and make it extended living space for reading or watching a movie. Anna thinks it’s a trampoline…

Anna’s room

This is probably the room I like best in our flat. Although it’s mostly very untidy. It was originally our lounge, and Anna sort of grew into it. First we just put in her bed, later the changing table, then the “baby cage” (there must be a proper English word to this, but I don’t know it J ), and eventually she conquered the bottom two rows of the book shelf for her toys and books. I like the little couch, to watch her play, but also to sit and chat with other ladies while the kids play on the floor. And I like the corner behind the door where the bed fits perfectly. It makes for a snugly little nest, and as our flat is not very big,it’s only five steps away from where we sleep. So Anna is on her own but still close, and we can hear her without a baby monitor even at night.

Squares

Looking at the bookshelf in Anna’s room and this favorite piece of furniture in our bedroom, I realize I like squares. Those handy draws hold everything, from ski socks to medicine to jewellery to passports… they’re great.

 Personal space

I think part of the “home” feeling  is made by a space which you can arrange and decorate to your own taste, where you can put or leave some personal items: the toothbrush in the bathroom, a postcard on the fridge. That’s different when you live in somebody else’s home for a while or in a shared flat with not very friendly people (not that this had happened to me…)

In a family it’s important for each member to have their personal space too, not necessary their own room, but a cupboard, a shelf, a draw or a box, maybe a desk to themselves. Even though our place is rather small, I like for Miguel to have his study corner and sound studio rather than us having a very elegant living room.

Having guests

Further, home is home to me if I can receive guests. The room I was given by my boss when going to work in a restaurant in the mountains was as small as a cupboard. My first thought was: If my room is not big enough to put a mattress on the floor beside my bed, my brother cannot come to visit, and so I don’t want to live here not even for a month (I found another place then, and my brother visited about six times in four months, bringing different sets of friends with him to go skiing. It was great fun with all of them).

Also now I prefer to have a bed for guests rather than a fancy couch.

 And also this next item is essential if I wanna be a young and trendy host in urban Switzerland. Of course not only our guests enjoy a proper cup of Espresso, we both are big coffee drinkers too.

Tadaaaaa… our balcony

To finish let me show off  the one thing that is really special about the specific house we live in. It has a view. Not only a splendid, 180degree view over the valley, on the close hill to our left, some villages and church towers at mid distance and the very impressive Bernese Alps with eternal snow on top in the background, it even has a big covered balcony to sit, put your feet up and enjoy it all.

When we sit there with Anna we call the view our children’s book, animated and in 3D. We discover cows, horses, lorries, post cars (the yellow ones, if you’ve been to Switzerland you know what I mean), motor bikes, bicycles, tractors, more cows, and we’ve observed rainbows and spectacular sunset reflections (it faces south east, so no direct sunsets), thunderstorms with lightening, and fireworks… it’s amazing.

and with a bit of zoom at noon and in the evening. No kidding, this is real. No photoshop! Really this balcony and the view on the mountains would be the one thing I would very much miss in a different place (as well as our lovely neighbors and landlords of course, but that is another topic).

So yes, our flat might not be very modern, or very elegant, or very clean and tidy (hardly ever…), but it definitively is home to the three of us, we love living here and hope to stay much longer.

Thanks, Daniela!! Makes us miss you all so much as I read this! Thanks for sharing your home!