A Tour of the Casa

Welcome to our new (rented) house! This is the patio and garden, otherwise known as a yard. I finally got some city landscape workers to mow the yard yesterday but think I got totally ripped off because I'm a woman and not local. Still a little steamed about that but at least the jungle is down for now.

First stop inside is the living room. And yes, "Cars" is nearly always on our TV. Thank goodness Ben chose a good movie to become addicted to because it's really cute and I can watch it over and over.

Up a few steps and you're in the dining room. I love the recessed ceiling lights in here!

Behind the dining room is the kitchen. It's probably my least favorite room in the house because it's small and old, but it's still functional and we managed to fit a cabinet in here to use as a pantry. Coming from our huge (by Singapore standards) kitchen in the condo we had to make the most of every inch in this one.

Up the stairs and first stop - Alex's room. It's a lot bigger than his old one so we can actually play on the floor in it.

Next door is Ben's room. It's a bit smaller than his old room so we don't do as much playing in here since the bed takes up a lot of the floor space. But no worries, because just down the hall is our...

...playroom! It's a big open room over the dining room that looks over the living room. It's hard to tell from the picture, but we had to put black mesh across the entire railing to keep toys and children from falling downstairs.

This is the other side of the playroom that also serves as our study. Still a bit of a mess because we have pictures to hang but it's coming along. This space is great because it's sunny and open to the rest of the living areas.

Now, up to the third floor and our master bedroom. It's kind of an odd shape so I can't get a decent picture of the entire thing but our furniture fits really well. The movers weren't quite sure they should believe the crazy woman that wanted the big armoire on the third floor but they took my word that it would fit and five men hauled it up. Our only complaint here is that we have no closets, only two wardrobes that hold about half of our clothes.

The master bathroom. It has beautiful moldings and tile designs so it's probably the prettiest bathroom I've ever had. And lucky me - it's all mine! Matt has been using the guest bathroom across the hall so he can make plenty of noise in the morning if I'm still in bed while he gets ready for work. Every bathroom has its own water heater so it's even better because we can shower at the same time and each get hot water, as opposed to the way we'd race one another to the shower to get in before it got cold.

And here is the guest bedroom. As you can tell, we're still working on it! We have a bed on the way soon so don't worry Grandma and Grandpa Kirkham - we'll have everything ready before you get here. We'll make it a welcoming retreat to lure other visitors this way sometime this year.

Here are Alex's favorite things about the house (and my biggest worries):
The stairs in the living room that are impossible to childproof but oh so fun.

And the other two flights of stairs. We have three gates so it takes a while to get from bottom to top in this house but will hopefully keep little boys from tumbling anywhere. We don't have a gate at the third story since the kids don't really go up there. Alex was making me laugh today because he kept putting toys inside the gate then taking them out. You never know what will be the entertainment for the day!

So that's it! We'd love for you to come visit and see everything for yourself...our door is always open.