Hanoi "home"

It is difficult to define “home” if you are a nomad. Am I? Maybe not so. I have only lived in Jakarta, Depok :-), Warwick, Seattle, and Hanoi. I did stay in many different places, but that makes me a traveler, not a nomad. And in Jakarta I only moved ummm 3 times, I think. It is nothing compared to some friends. Some because of their work, such as diplomats, and some just because of the nomad blood. 

We, the nomads, have learned not to have too much attachment to a place that once we have to call “home” and –in a more practical way- not to have too much stuff in the house that you have to bring along every time you move. So everytime we move, we will create a “home”, as in: a place where we come home to our loved ones; a place where you feel comfortable.

So, I made our Hanoi house a home. We fell in love with this apartment the moment we saw it. We move many times so we know what to look for in a house: decent kitchen, decent bathroom, natural light, decent kitchen, and decent kitchen :-). The rest is always a work in progress, especially for me :-). I have this thing about design. I have to admit I am not really artistic. I just like learning something new and this is obviously new to me and very different with legal and political stuff :-). And the trial and error process excites me.

We are renting this apartment furnished. We did not bring anything from Seattle because I basically lived a student life there: no fancy furniture and fine arts. I got my basic stuff from a furniture rental shop and IKEA, as I started off there alone. It changed a bit only after finally FF – and later on melati :-) – joined me in Seattle. So when we had to move we decided not to bring any furniture. We sold most of the stuff on craig’s list and gave out small stuff (e.g. wine glass, vases, bowls) to friends. The ones that no one did not want, we donated to a charity-foundation-run thrift store. Then we shipped books, clothing, basic cooking stuff, and Jasmine’s toys via fedex. And the rest, we took in our luggage. 

We love this apartment mostly because of the location and the equipment. The furniture is just okay. They are not tacky, really, just “standard”. But they are definitely much better than the tacky ones we saw in some other places we saw (fake crystal chandelier, green bathroom lamp, tacky patchwork-like wall mirror, to mention a few :-)). The standard furniture makes it easier for me to make up the rooms. Also, the whole apartment is just so bright (FF knows really really well which direction to choose, window placement, quality of the building), so it doesn’t have many issues to solve. I basically just needed to add colours and consider that we don’t live here forever so I don’t need to invest too much.

Colourful living room

Our favourite place is the living room. We see the West Lake (Tay Ho) from here. I just use some lampions I bought in Hang Ma street in the old quarter for colouring the room, in addition to colourful cushions I purchased in "Uma" and matching photo frames on the wall that I created myself. The photos were all taken by FF in Hanoi, I just wanted to avoid potential hassle of buying some else’s photos (although later on I found a nice little BW Hanoi photography shop in the old quarter… oh well I am sure it is more efficient to use our own photos ;-)). I just had to measure the right size of photo prints and the frames. They came up just right. Especially that I found the clothes for the frame (what are they in English? Canvas?) that match the colours of the cushions in the frame shop. I am glad.

View from my favourite corner in the living room

Room for Melati is another project. I want to make it comfortable for her, of course. A play room and bedroom in one. I use lampions again for decoration. This time the small ones. Colours are important in a child's room, but it also needs a character. I chose green as the main theme colour. So I added white-green toy-shelves and green round area mat that you can see once you step in to the room. I use one narrow wall between the door to the balcony and the window to display her art work at the kindergarten and created a book corner. I want her to love books.

Melati's room with my ad-hoc self-made tent :-)

Melati's art display in the room

The book corner, with DIY book shelves and organizers

I did not want to do much to the rest of the house as I already spent too much time to play around with this :-). So I just hang two posters with Uncle Ho's face from the 2011 national election on the corridor wall going to the bedrooms and one picture (taken again by FF) of the Vietnamese water puppets to decorate the dining-room-cum-kitchen. 

Where is the "family touch"? hmm... nowadays I tend to think that putting too many pictures of the family is a little bit dated :-). But on the other hand, it is also important to make the house more "homy". So I just added some pictures using DIY jar photo display on the bar in our kitchen.

Jar photo display

Lastly, apart from much light, a home, I believe, also needs some natural touch. Living in an apartment is a challenge. Luckily we do have balconies. Two very very nice balconies where you can see the lake (they are next to the living room), one balcony in Melati's room where you can "peek" at the lake and see the street below, and one in my study room where you can see the Quang Ba Lake (pond, actually), a junction, and nice big trees (my fav!).

Sunset seen from our main balcony, after the storm 29 Oct 2012

I am also aspired to have indoor plants to make our Hanoi home homy. I learned quite a lot about apartment gardening because of this idea. I now have peace lily, aglaonema, anthurium, and dracaena indoor, in addition to one huge indoor plant, whose name I don't know until now :-), given by the previous tenant. They really make a difference in the house.

Peace Lily in the bathroom

I also have two bougainvilleas, bamboo palms, lemon grass, red galangal, and, of course :-), jasmine plant in the balcony. I nursed the lemon grass and galangal myself. The problem is that our main balconies face the west and get very sunny in the summer. I need strong plants that can stand under strong and long sun in the summer. I was stunned by bali gardens with galangal and lemon grass and learned that as tropical plants they indeed strong enough for Hanoi's hot summer. Lemon grass is also good to prevent mosquitoes and other bugs, while we cannot find lavender here (I had asked and looked around until I gave up). So I nursed them myself in my kitchen, which also overlooks the lake so it gets quite good indirect sunlight like a greenhouse.

My little plant-nursery in the kitchen :-)

Baby lemon grass was ready to go to the pot in the balcony

I must add that I learned from failures as well. I moved the small lampions several times to know where they fit nicely. I changed the lay out of the living room twice to get the most comfortable lay out. My anthurium and peace lily almost died because I did not know that they cannot be put under direct sunlight. I spent quite much time on the internet to read and see some pictures for inspiration. Anyway, I could go on and on and on about this :-), because I like learning new things, so I better stop here and enjoy my home....

Beautiful and nice smelling Jasmine