Our Lagos Home

As promised, here are some photos of our apartment. I meant to post these last week two weeks ago but a major "link" went down (says our Internet Service Provider) and everywhere in Lagos was experiencing extremely slow internet, supposedly. Things have gotten better but I just haven't found the time to sit down and put the proverbial pen to paper to get this posted.

The apartment is still looking a little institutional with our bare, white walls and general lack of coziness. But it's getting there, slowly but surely. I need to venture out to a local market soon to pick up some decorative items and get some artwork framed and hung. And we're still waiting on a few more pieces of furniture (like a desk and entryway table) to arrive.

Our welcoming foyer....  I heard phones on the ground are gonna be the next craze in interior design. 

To the right of the front door is the dining area. Right now it's serving double duty as an office too. 

Our living room furniture. 

We certainly didn't intend for every piece of furniture to be brown. I think throw pillows will help tremendously to tone down the brown. Pillows will also help with napping as the couches don't have much give. Definitely no flopping down on these bad boys after a long day.  I think they kind of look like brown plastic outdoor furniture, but they are slightly more comfortable than plastic. The foam here must be very, very dense.

Also, part of a desk can be seen in the picture above by the window. Hoping to retrieve the rest of it sometime this week.

Another view of the living room.

Not pictured: a new-to-us red rug under the coffee table.

The short hallway on the left in the photo above leads to the guest bath and kitchen and the open door on the right leads to the bedrooms. 

Master bedroom

We don't have much storage here so Ryan and I have separate closets, the one in our bedroom is mine. 

Master bathroom featuring a never-before-used- jacuzzi tub.

Not pictured in the bathroom is the button for the hot water. I've never encountered this feature, but apparently it's very common in places where water and electricity are scarce. About 20 minutes before showering you hit the switch, enjoy the piping hot water, and then turn it off when you're done. It was a little inconvenient at first, but we've gotten used to it now. 

Guest bedroom 

Spare bedroom + Ryan's closet. When our couch arrives from America it will go in this room.

On the other side of the apartment, we have the guest bathroom and kitchen. 

 

Guest bathroom

The kitchen. This was taken before we had shelves in the pantry to store food.  

The other side of the kitchen. That weird contraption is a drying rack because our washer/dryer combo doesn't do a great job of drying in a timely manner. 

Washer/dryer combo and our only source of potable water. We use that water for drinking, making coffee, cooking, and teeth brushing. 

The most interesting part of our apartment is the view out of the back windows, especially the window above the sink. Here's the view:

The corrugated metal on the left of the photo is a toilet area. I'm actually not sure what's behind the metal, and I don't intend on checking it out, ever.  However, not everyone chooses to use that spot. Many people just go behind a bush, against the wall, or squat down in the field on the other side of the wall.  There's a dock to the left of us and I've seen people just go into the water too.

To the left of the "toilet" is a very popular hangout spot. I even see some oyibos there in the evenings enjoying pepper soup. We walked over there once to buy a loaf of bread but they wanted to charge us something ridiculous so we didn't buy anything. 

Beyond the "empty" lot is what I've been lovingly referring to as the cinder block factory. Guys are out there 24/7 making, carrying, and hosing down those blocks. Sometimes trucks come and pick some up. 

What you can't see is the big wall that separates us from the lot next door, complete with barbed wire and electricity. When we were choosing apartments, we never thought to really study the activities that we'd be seeing out our windows before making our decision. Next time, we definitely will. Saturday morning I was cooking breakfast and we saw a teenage boy, totally nude, showering in the middle of the lot. Just a couple of buckets of water and absolutely no attempt at privacy. I know it's a cultural thing, but a need for privacy is so engrained in us that seeing others' blatant dismissal of it is shocking. 

Luckily, the living room windows have a nice balcony that looks out over the pool area. 

So that's the grand tour! As you can see, we have plenty of room for visitors.  If you've got extra cash lying around for the plane ticket, visa, and required immunizations, we've got ample free lodging to offer!