This is a short story about why I was grouchy this week. It has a happy ending.
This Tuesday, I took my first hot shower in my apartment in a week. That’s the reason I was grouchy – ice cold showers, no matter how quick, are not fun.
Shower and sink in our bathroom
It all started last Tuesday, when our hot water heater failed to ignite. We fiddled with the ignite button and dials, but no luck. We realized that we have a gas heater, and that we had never paid for a gas bill. Something similar had happened to a friend of ours, so we quickly contacted our relocation specialist to have her check things out for us. She was out of the office for the next 4 days.
As soon as she got back, she reported that everything was good with our gas – it was combined with our electricity and we’ve been paying it all along. She suggested we talk to our concierge and see if she could check if our meter looked okay. Our concierege only speaks French, and my vocabulary does not include hot water heater, meter, ignite, so we used google translate to print out our questions.
This is the happy ending. The concierge sent her husband up to our apartment and he fiddled with the heater and finally got it going. We were trying reignite it incorrectly, though I don’t know why it went out in the first place. Anyway, he showed us how to do it right, and hot water flowed forth. Yay!
I also realized that I’ve never posted photos of our toilet and bathroom. Toilets are usually in a seperate room that the bath here. Our toilet room is just big enough for one person to barely stand in. It also has the hot water heater, the breaker box, and a tiny sink that doesn’t really work.
Our toilet room
Our bathtub room has a larger sink, a small bathtub/shower, our washer/dryer combo, and a couple cabinets. I should mention that these photos were taken with my wide angle, which really distorts things. It’s a small room. We use the heater in there to warm our towels on. Unfortunately, there is no fan to suck out the steam after a shower. Both of these rooms have skylights to make them brighter.
Sink and washer/dryer in bathroom
When I lived in my house in Atlanta, the master bathroom was a constant complaint. I thought it was too small, and I missed having a big soaking tub. In fact, it was double the size of the bathroom we now have, and one of three in our house. It’s funny how your perspective can change…
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Hooray for hot water!
glad you don’t have an overdue bill. no fun. also cool to see photos of your USA house. kind of a glimpse of the American versus the Belgian Dallas!
.-= Reid´s last blog ..My Crafty Friends =-.
Yeah, I’d never realized how tiny rooms could be till I moved here. And they’re worse in the Netherlands, from what I’ve seen. Although I love those heater/towel heater things. CB had never seen one till after he installed the radiator in the bathroom or else we’d've done that instead.
Also, I’m not sure if they have one in your commune, but they have one in Gent, so it’s possible, but when our heater went out in November, we used the public baths at the major swimming pool in Gent. If there’s a pool in your area they might have baths for people to use for a small fee (less that 2€), if you ever have trouble again.
.-= Lilacspecs´s last blog ..Let’s All Be A Little More Human, Shall We? =-.
Oh, I grew up in the tiny bathroom like this, maybe even smaller. And a separate toilet? That too. I remember that in times that we didn’t have hot water due to repairs or something, my mom would run an empty washer and we would have a pipe that would empty into the tub. So the washer would warm the water and we took warm baths as kids. Sometimes we even shared the water between my sister and I. Glad you have your hot water again.
.-= Michaela´s last blog ..First quilt in 2010… =-.
Our washing machine was originally in the bathroom, but we moved it to the bedroom to give us a bit of extra space.
Compared to our bathroom, I think your bathroom looks fantastic. Everything looks bright and fresh and modern. This is what we are aiming for by the end of an extensive renovation.
.-= Lydia´s last blog ..Kitten Update =-.