Enough, already. Get out of my house!

Hard to believe that it could possibly take three whole days to tour this tiny flat. And here I haven't even offered you a cup of tea this whole time. That would be because I don't yet own a tea kettle. Some kind of hostess I turned out to be. But never fear; we're almost done here and then you can wander off in search of a cute little cafe. Hampstead's full of them. Before you go, though, let's take a quick peek into Julia's bedroom. It's amazing how clean I can keep her room now that she's in full day school and therefore never. ever. home.
Her room is huge and it took 2 shots to even attempt to photograph it all. That's a queen sized bed she's got in there, and yet she's still got a ton of floor space to play. I never did manage to capture the full wall of cupboards that are off to the left of this shot. They're basically the only storage space in this whole place, so if you're looking for anything from Paul's golf clubs to Julia's bicycle to spare bedding to my beloved ironing board, chances are good it's stashed in Julia's room.
The massive size of Julia's room is rivaled only by the minuscule size of Evan's. I certainly had no trouble fitting his whole room into a single shot. This is it, and in truth, I think it looks deceptively large in this photo. Thank God he's not old enough to compare or care. Another year or two and I would have been in big trouble...
Come out of Evan's room, turn to the left and there's the kids' bathroom and the door to our room.
The master bedroom's another hard one to capture in a single photo. That's our desk, there, which is where the laptop lives, as well as all of our other assorted junk. You can see all the crap we couldn't find a place for, including Evan's tricycle, shoved underneath it. At least I can't see any of the mess from my side of the bed! Those stained glass windows are really pretty, especially when the sun hits them just right. As you can see from the grey sky outside, that doesn't actually happen too often.I stood up on the windowsill to try to get as much of the room in one shot as possible, which is why this last picture looks so odd. Our bedroom walls are completely bare, and the vast expanse of neutrally unoffensive paint is making me nuts. But it's just a huge amount of space to work with (there are 10 1/2 foot ceilings in this -- and every other -- room) and I have no idea where to begin. In my suburban New Jersey storage facility, where I have some lovely framed floral prints that my father took several years ago? Why, yes! What a great idea. Alas... So there you have it, our humble abode. The only thing missing is family and friends. One of those plaid sofas opens up into a sleeper, folks... Hey, play your cards right and maybe I'll even buy a tea kettle before you arrive.