Our Finnish home

I swear, arranging all the details of moving is a full-time job. Hardly a day goes by that I don't wish I had another me to take care of it all on my behalf.

But! Things are looking good and finally coming together for our arrival in Finland within a month. For starters...WE HAVE AN APARTMENT. It's not a 100-year-old wooden house, though. (Sorry, everyone who was hoping we'd get one of those.) Our long search is over. In the end, it came down to two new-ish apartments of about 80sqm each (860 square feet).

Apartment 1 was in an area of Turku called Luolavuori (Cave Mountain!!!!). It had three bedrooms, two bathrooms (actually a powder room and a bathroom with sauna and shower), a kitchen big enough to put a table in, and a balcony. It wasn't right in the city, but it was within bikeable distance of work and church. It checked all of our boxes except for the commute to the girls' school - they would have had to transfer buses (schoolchildren ride city buses to school in Finland). Still, we were serious about this apartment and made an effort to secure it.

But at the same time, we were trying to get Apartment 2. It is in the Kupittaa area (right in the city), and right on an easy bus route to the girls' school. Same bathroom situation as Apartment 1, also a kitchen big enough for a table, but only two bedrooms instead of three. And it's our new home! I can't wait to see it in person.

I looked at hundreds of housing listings in detail during our housing search, and I'm happy with what we got (I hope I feel the same way after we're living there). In the end, with our budget, if we wanted to live in the city, we needed to give up the idea of having three bedrooms. So we did. I don't at all mind moving to a smaller space, but I'm hoping having all three kids in the same bedroom doesn't cause too many problems.

Here are a few pictures of our new place.