domdavis.com

…or, if you’re going to be really picky, my flat. Anyway, I had my camera out today and thought I’d take a few photos of the house for people to see. Few things to note, the odd angles are the wide angle lens I used to get the shots, my walls are all straight and parallel Also this is actually how I live (just ask anyone who’s been to visit), I haven’t been through and tidied up (although the cleaners had been since I was last in), I came home, unpacked, put out the new stuff I bought over the weekend, grabbed the camera and wondered about. You may call it anal, but I like living in a tidy house. Oh, usually there is a clothes horse with washing on it in the main bathroom (running joke with people who visit). Since the cleaners came on Friday I’d put the clothes horse away. It’s back up again now

OK, so, you come in through the front door into the hallway. With the exception of the en-suite you get to all the rooms from the hallway:

In the first photo the two doors on the left are to the master bedroom and livingroom. The door at the end is the spare bedroom, the far door on the right is to the main bathroom and you can just see the kitchen door on the near right. In the second photo the front door is at the end, bathroom and kitchen doors on the left and living room, bedroom, closet and airing cupboard on the right. The two bedroom doors, the living room door and the kitchen door tend to be kept propped open to get some air in the house. Not a great photo but the wooden thing on the wall in the hall is a display cabinet my step dad made for me many years ago. I’ve got some Myth and Magic figures in there, some Warhammer figures and some wooded, hand carved chess pieces from Nigeria.

As you come in the first door on the right is the kitchen. I would have designed things slightly differently if I’d had a choice, but I didn’t. It’s not a bad layout but I would have put a thin, high cupboard above the sink, made the tall end cupboard wider and the space for the fridge smaller (it’s a full size space for a small sized fridge). I’d also have picked a different hob and tiled it. Since the kitchen itself isn’t bad I think all I’ll end up doing is replacing the hob and getting it tiled.

The butchers block on wheels is great. It gives me more work surface to use and I can move it out of the way when I need to get into the bottom part of the tall cupboard, of if I need to get into the washing machine. I tend to do all my food preparation on the butchers block looking out of the window. The work surfaces either side of the hob are taken up with toaster, kettle, cooking oils and I rest my cooking utensils on the space that’s left when I am cooking. On the sink side the door covers a lot of the work surface (plus I’ve got a microwave there), and I tend to put stuff to be washed on the other side so having a clear space to work on is ideal. The other cool thing about the kitchen is the cooker hood which you just pull out and it turns the extractor fan and lights on

Next door on the right is the main bathroom. I tend to use this for drying washing and (apart from every other Friday when the cleaners come) there is generally washing hung up on one or two clothes horses. I don’t do baths so I haven’t used it yet. Others have though Guests get their own cotton towels and matching dressing gowns. If you’ve not bought shampoo, conditioner and soap then there is Molten Brown stuff provided. Just like in a hotel, if you nick any of this stuff I charge you through the nose for it

Oh, those are rubber duckies on the window. They’re iDucks and they light up when they’re in water.

Next round (the door at the end of the corridor when you come in) is the guest bedroom. This has my slobbing sofa in it which also turns into a double bed. The computer desk is temporary and I will replace it with a nicer one. The idea is that the 30″ monitor will be more central and it can be used as a TV when we’re using the slobbing sofa. It may be a few months before this comes to fruition.

The huge wardrobes in that room are not for clothes, that’s where I’ve hidden all my stuff to keep the house clean Oh, and that is a Fast Aeron chair. It’s wonderfully comfortable, and very expensive. If you do stay round please don’t sit in it, it’s set up for me. Also there is a perfectly serviceable towel rail in the bathroom so don’t hang towels over the chair

The spare room has a balcony which overlooks… the car park the balcony has a couple of chairs on it and the remains of my garden. If we bear in mind that I had a slightly larger garden before you’ll understand why I have a bird bath.

If I’m honest, I don’t use the balcony all that much, but it’s nice to have somewhere to go sit in the sun if it’s a warm day. Usually it’s just used by my friends who want to have a cigarette. Be warned, on a hot day the balcony gets very warm so wear shoes

Moving round the furtherst door on the left when you come in is the living room. The rear half of the room is the dining area where I can entertain up to 4 guests. I eat all my meals at the table but I can see the TV from it so I’m not being all that civilized. During the summer the juliet balcony doors are usually open to let air in. The other half of the room is what I refer to as my ‘cinema room’. Two reclining seats slap bang in front of a 46″ HD TV. People claim it’s too close to the TV but because it’s an HD set you can sit quite close to it without your eyes hurting. I spend a lot of my time sat on that sofa watching TV, films and playing games on my games consoles. The right hand side of the room is dominated by my large book shelf. Only 3/8th of the self is actually used for books, 1/4 is for CD’s, DVD’s and games, and I also have my alcohol stock in it (I don’t drink, but guests do).

The feature piece of the room is the Japanese table. It lacks the bonsai tree (I killed my last one, but I have another, fake,one being delivered to me) but it does have the nice bits of glass, many of my candles (which I need to move as I’ve just noticed the cleaners didn’t put the white ones back properly) and my two real swords. There are actually 6 swords in this room, 2 real, 2 replica and 2 wooden ones.

The last door that leads to a room leads to the master bedroom. Not much to see in here as all the clothes are put away and I really just sleep and get changed in this room. I do have my two pieces of art up here and a few more swords. We can ignore the two fakes on the big chest of drawers, they’re not great, however, I also have my training sword in this room which is actually my favorite one (despite, or perhaps because of, its lack of sharpness).

The keen eyed among you will have spotted soft toys . The bear is almost as old as I am and is wearing a pair of dungerese with a T on them made by my mother many years ago. My brother and I also had a pair with a D on them (for Dom and Dan).

The door in the second photo leads to the en-suite. For an en-suite it’s quite large and it has the best shower I’ve ever owned in it. It almost makes 5am bearable

So there you go, a guided tour of my flat I still need to get my photos printed and hung on the walls (I’ll take a selection from here) and some nice lights, but it’s pretty much all there.