In July 2005 we finished our third year here. Nancy's income had become fairly steady and the kids were fluent in Norwegian and had friends around the neighborhood. We were on our second house rental, giving our hard-earned money away instead of gaining equity. It was time to get off the pot. So we began watching the listings in the paper and going to the occasional showing. We bid and lost on a couple places out by Jonsvatnet -- nice country living, but just as well we didn't get them because we would have had to drive a lot more. We really wanted to stay in our same neighborhood or at least school area if we could, but it seemed to be a bit pricey for us, unless we wanted to squeeze into a row house (like a condo) and find someplace else to put the kayaks. But finally we realized that if we refinanced the house in Vermont we could get some extra cash for a down payment and open up our options a bit. Rick had heard that his colleague Karl Erik Zacchariassen would be selling his house just a few hundred meters from where were living, and at first we assumed that it would be out of our range, but the extra cash brought us just within range of the asking price. So we made an offer, which Karl Erik graciously accepted. And here we are! -- at sunrise (around 10 AM) on Lille Juleaften, Decmber 23.
That's it, dead center in the photgraph above -- you can see the 2nd floor windows above the roof of a neighboring house. It's not much, really, a little cookie-cutter house in a neighborhood where the houses are only a few meters apart. But it has three bedrooms, a basement and a garage. More importantly, it's on the edge of Estanstadmarka, within walking distance of Åsvang and Hoeggen schools, and just up the hill from Moholt, where we have a choice of four food stores, a post office, a book store, and a good pizza joint, among other amenities. NTNU's Dragvoll campus, where Nancy has some work, is a ten-minute walk, Rick's office at the Gløshaugen campus is a ten-minute bike ride downhill, and the lawn only takes about ten minutes to mow. So we get many of the benefits of living in the city, but we can still ski out our back door.
The living room windows face south. In the winter the sun
never makes it up over the hill behind the house, but we still get a lot of
light in the middle part of the day. That's Foofy, the purple dragon
marionette, hanging from the bookshelf.
We have ideas for various improvements, but (unlike our last house purchase) the house is basically in good shape, so we can take our time. The kitchen is in good shape, with a fantastic view of... the back windows of the houses across the one-lane path that we use for access. Actually, we can see a bit of akkebakken, the local sledding hill, and the view of the neighborhood above is from akkebakken. The garage is one of a row of garages along a common parking area separate from the houses, but we can drive up to the front of the house to unload.
The bathroom had only a bathtub, which we moved into the corner so Rick could build a proper shower out of glass blocks. Norwegian bathrooms typically have a floor drain, so both the shower and the tub empty into it.
Zoe chose a sunny day/starry night color scheme for her room. (That's Sebastian, not Zoe, on the bed.)
Molly came up with a lavender/plum color scheme. (That's Molly, not Sebastian, on the bed.)