The Charmen Eye for the Cat and Jon Guy

Much like the TV show on Bravo ("The Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"), we needed a little help with a make-over of our own; getting un-packed, settled and spicing up our new home. This is our first house to live in as a married couple and despite the appearance on the outside, it's quite spacious! We have a massive basement, a beautiful and open ground floor, four bedrooms upstairs and three (no, I'm not mistaken) backyards. It's quite different from our tiny and cozy 4th floor apartment in Wiesbaden. Although we do miss being in the middle of the action living on "Italian Alley," we are loving the fact that we have a driveway, two toilets and plenty of storage space.

When Charm arrived, so did the snow, which made for some beautiful scenery, but also very cold days. Although Jon was more concerned about showing her the sites and local area - Charm was all about business, and getting down to it. She was there to be a motivator and wanted to see progress at the end of her 11 days. And boy did she! Although I won't post the before pics in an effort to save space, I did include the after pics so you can get a glimpse of the transformation that occurred. I'm sure you can only imagine what it looked like before. Jon was the best and most understanding husband to move in our stuff while I was still in the States, and the first week alone was spent sorting through boxes and moving them to the basement. When Charm arrived, it was time to fill all the empty space with trips to IKEA and another fabulous find, RD4, which is the Dutch version of Salvation Army. The crazy thing is that because the trend is to go modern in Holland, you can find some really great antique-esque furniture for insanely low prices. We located one of these stores right around the corner from our house, which could be quite dangerous.

Although we were in "Extreme Home Makeover" mode,  we didn't work Charm to death the whole time she was here. We did manage to have some fun, mainly due to Jon pushing us out the door. The kick-off parade for Carnevale took place right around the corner from our house the first Saturday Charm was in town and we enjoyed seeing all the crazy costumes, hats and music that was played to jump-start the Carnevale season.

After church, we drove to the nearest castle, Kasteel Hoensbroek, which looked gorgeous covered in snow and surrounded by an iced-over moat.

Although the weather was overcast and rainy/snowy most of the time, we spent a day exploring Valkenburg, one of the most popular Dutch tourist spots. After lunch and meandering aroud the medieval town, we visited a chocolate shop that won the "Best Bon Bon Award" in 2009 for all of Holland.

As Jon hadn't started training yet, his days were pretty much free and he was such a good sport to put up with us day in and day out. One thing I didn't expect was how opinionated he would be about the color schemes, which furniture he thought should go where and so on. It made for some interesting discussions! He did manage to escape the women for a bit and have some guy time with his buddy "Snowy" on our terrace. 

However, "Snowy" couldnt' quite seem to keep up with Jon, and the next morning, we had a big surprise when we looked outside.

But, later that evening he was doing much better and was even able to help Jon grill steaks. I think Jon appreciated having guy time and was relieved "Snowy" was on the mend.

And now the house post-makeover shots;

Entry hallway

Living Room

Living Room

View of Kitchen/Dining area from living room

View of living room from kitchen/dining area.

Kitchen. Of course we did a lot of work to the upstairs and Jon has taken upon himself to transform the basement into his lair, but the living area seems to be where we spent most our efforts. Thanks again Charm for coming to see us and all your hard work. Seriously, we couldn't have done it without you! We look forward to hosting lots of family and friends in our home so please... plan a visit! I now feel we are somewhat caught-up on our two-month long hiatus from blogging. Needless to say, we've had a lot of projects to distract us, but we will be better about keeping you all posted on our adventures in getting acquainted with Holland. Tot ziens (later)!