Home Sweet Home

We have been in our house for two weeks now and it's beginning to feel a little bit like home.  It's never really home until our beds arrive and we're sleeping in our own sheets again, but we're settling into our new place.

 

It's big.  And everything in it seems big.  I do think the movers are going to love this front door when they start hauling our things in, though!  We actually rarely use this door because we come and go from the service stairs into the garage.  We now employ a staff of people - a full-time maid, a driver (courtesy of the company), and a guard who lives here 24 hours a day.  It's actually two guards who swap off every 3 days.  There is full kitchen outside our kitchen for their use and in the basement there are two rooms for them, a full bathroom, and plenty of space for a couch and TV.  It feels a little weird sometimes to be in the house alone and have 3 people hanging out in the garage watching TV and eating lunch together, but that's very much the culture here.  I think we've been fortunate to find some pretty great employees, too, and they're all friendly, helpful, and seem to like one another.  The house is more interesting and busy with them around.

 

Looking down the front steps.  I guess we actually live on the second and third floors but everything here is ground floor, then first floor, so technically it's just a two-story house.  We have no doorbell, which is part of the reason we need a guard.  He's responsible for opening and closing the gate, accepting deliveries (which I have started using a lot - only $1.50 to get groceries delivered!!  forgot the broccoli for dinner?  hire a go jek motorbike to pick it up and bring it in 10 minutes for just $2!), and maintaining everything in the front yard.  The guards we hired have worked at this house for years so they also know all the people working in nearby houses and I was happy to see them catching up with their friends after being gone for a several months while the house was unoccupied.

 

So far, this is definitely my favorite space in the house.  It was rare to find an open kitchen with a bar, but we lucked out here.  We spend so much time together around the bar eating breakfast, doing homework, and playing games.  I love this spot.

The kids' favorite place - our own pool, finally!  It's pretty big by Jakarta standards and we even have a little patch of grass, which is rare in this neighborhood.  It means we have barely any front yard but this is what I look out on all day so I'm happy to have some greenery.  Next on the to-do list is to find some flowering plants to brighten it up.

The house has some pretty touches, like this tilework in the entryway.  It's going to be fun turning this house into a home.