Bill's Blog

Mi Casa

I am going to change the format of this BLOG for a while. Until now, it has been more or less a daily log. I am going to try to organize the writing by topic. Today I will write about our house and another day I will write about buying a car and other transportation issues. If you want me to write about something specifically, just drop me a line at bill@sundstrom.us.

As I mentioned in my last entry, we were able to rent a house in the Ville del Parque neighborhood. This is clean, safe, working class neighborhood south of the Palermo Viejo neighborhood. The front of the house is about six feet from the street. There is a bit of traffic on the street, but not enough to be annoying. As you face the front of the house and moving from right to left, there is a small garage, the front door and the living room windows. The garage just barely holds the 97 Corsa that we bought. The front door has three keys. As in most large cities, they seem to be a bit overly security conscious here. And as I have seen so often, there is a lack of trust among people and institutions. Thus most doors have at least two locks. Behind the door is a four-by-twelve foot hallway with a large archway on the right that is open to the garage. Once through the next door, you have entered a small foyer about eight-by- fifteen feet. The first door on the left opens to a small living room with a wood floor. All the walls in the house are plaster on masonry. The living room is about twelve-by-twelve feet. Since it is on the first floor, it has the typical steel security shade. It is a nice room, but it will be a long time before we fill it with furniture. In fact all the rooms are going to be pretty devoid of furniture, unless we find some freebees or stone-cold cheap pieces.
In any case the next door on the left is a small bedroom that is about eight-by-ten feet. You know that it is a bedroom because of the wall of built-in closet and shelf space. And the last door on the left is our bedroom. Once again the built-in wardrobe is a dead give away that it is a bedroom. Thank goodness that it has a ceiling fan. One of the two doors to the bathroom is can be found in this room. The other door is out on the rear porch.

Back to the foyer, the only door on the right is to a tiny eight-by-eight atrium that mainly functions as a ventilation shaft and a plant room. It is open to the sky, so plants get sunlight and rain.
The doorway to the back of the house passes through to the kitchen and dining area. A stove and a fridge came with the house, so everything is pretty functional. There is ample cupboard space for us. There is a small washroom just beyond the kitchen.
There is one more room that is above the garage. A narrow, two-foot wide, stairway takes you to a small but very bright and functional bedroom or office. If you take right just before you enter this room, you come to an even narrower stairway – no more than eighteen inches – which leads you to the terrace. There is a storage room up there and old washing sink and a large open area. We are not likely to ever use this space. In reality the house is much more that we needed.
We have only gotten a few piece of furniture: a mattress, a dining room set and a television. We hope to get a couple of futon couch-beds for our expected visitors. The other thing we will do soon is add some color to the totally white interior.

Outside, a patio and small garden area behind the house. The lot and the house are about 24-feet wide. Thus the backyard is about 24-by-30 feet. As you look out the back door the right half of the yard is patio and the left half is something of a garden. We put in some tomatoes today, and will hope of the best. There is an orange tree there, some awful grass, a palm tree and some vines climbing the adjacent wall.

One of the nice things about the house is the quincho, or the little cook house or party room at the back of the property. It is quite large, maybe 24-by-15 feet. There is a bar and a sink, and best all a traditional charcoal fired parrilla or asador. If we had friends like in the states, we could throw a heck of a good party. I guess one of our goals will have to be to get to know enough people to have a hell-of-a-good fiesta before we leave.

We hope to make good use of the space in February, when some family may come to visit. When it is 30 below zero back in the states, this will be a great place to be living. Eat your heart out!

Back Yard and Quincho