Kitchen Sweet Kitchen

This is my soon-to-be new kitchen. Sweet! (I took the photo while standing in the living room.) Can you find the refrigerator and dishwasher hiding behind their wooden facades? It’s totally high buck stuff, Bosch appliances, and a touch control totally flat stove top. Hot dog. I love that the whole house is so small it cleans up in no time. I went over and finished cleaning it today while Kory completed the finish carpentry work for Odd and Turid. Kaleb came with me but he sat up in the attic reading books. He asked if the attic could be his “domain” since it’s so cozy up there and has the cool “secret staircase” leading to it (it’s one of those things you pull down from the ceiling.) The attic is unfinished but pretty large and it could be a good romper room up there. At least it will be warm in the winter and it adds at least 50% to the square footage of the house. Nice.

There are some interesting differences in houses here versus the ones in America. In Norway every room as a door threshold that sticks up from the floor anywhere from half an inch to several inches. It’s hard to get used to stepping over it to enter a room and it’s a great way to stub a toe. Bathrooms don’t come with towel racks or toilet paper holders. (They are stand alone items that you take with you.) Windows don’t have screens on them here – they pivot usually in the middle -- and open up so half the window is inside the house and the other is sticking outside. Everyone hangs their bedding out the window on either super hot days or super cold days as they say it kills the bugs (they all use down comforters so who knows what bugs may live in there.) No one has wall-to-wall carpeting – everyone has tile or wood floors (or linoleum) and they all take their shoes off when entering. Usually the entry ways have heated floors to dry the shoes quicker. And the most expensive difference (besides the fact that you have to buy all the light fixtures and heating elements) is that rarely does a bedroom have a closet in it. Everyone has to buy closets for each room! I think we’ll be OK because we can borrow closets from different places, but that’s a funny piece of furniture to be packing around with you when you move. Why don’t they just build them in since everyone needs them anyway?

Kaleb met the dog next door today and I must say he’s in heaven. He has found “The Norwegian Duchess,” as he says. Duchess is our old neighbor dog (brown lab) that he just adores and the main reason he didn’t want to go to Norway -- because he didn’t want to be without her. But God had his back covered and we will soon live next door to a 10 month old Boxer named Alfred. Kaleb and Alfred ran around his yard today for at least an hour before they wore each other out. Alfred’s owner, Matt, was thrilled Alfred has someone to play with. I met Matt yesterday when we were searching for “the lost boy” (Kaleb), and he’s a friend of Joseph Kloven… and as it also turns out, Matt is probably a 4th cousin to Kory! In talking to him today (he’s from California and his English is PERFECT – ha), I found out his mom is from the Østrem farm just up the street here. That’s where Kory’s grandfather is also from so once I get the family tree uncovered and connect the dots, I’ll be able to prove it for sure, but at this stage I’d bet money on it. How funny is that? We’ll be neighbors with another cousin! But around here, that’s not too hard. In fact, Matt told me that once he starts dating a girl, and before he kisses her, he has to get a bit of family history from her to be sure they’re not related.