House Tour

September 2, 2012-

August is finally finished!!!!!!  Move over August and let's welcome September!  And September, would you mind bringing some cooler temperatures with you????  It's been too hot and sticky outside the past week.  Blech!!!!!

Today it's cloudy and drizzling.  It just feels like a stay-inside-and-watch-movies-and-work-on-a-blog-post kind of day.  (hee hee)

***************************************************************************

Did I ever take you on a tour of our house???? I know you've seen bits and pieces of our house in various posts but have I taken you on a tour of the entire place???  

Well, even if I have taken you on a tour of this place….get ready to see it again!  ;-)

WELCOME!!!

  Come on in…..

My pretty coleus is a cheery welcoming party. That's one lovely solid wood door.

Our arctic entry way…. 

A common view in our arctic entryway….one or two scooters belonging to the girls. (this one is Ava's)

Come on in! Find a hook to hang up your coat. If the ayi is here you'll need to take off your shoes. If she's here then you'll need to take off your shoes (it's customary to take off your shoes when entering a house).

Throught this door is the ayi's room:

This is apparently a special bed in the ayi's tiny room.

I'm not exactly sure what is so special about this bed but it does look beautiful with all the carvings.  The landlord asked we be extra careful with it.

Downstairs bathroom:

Our washing machine (bottom) and dryer (on top) in the downstairs bathroom.

Why we can only use either the washing machine OR the dryer (not both at the same time). Only one outlet to plug the appliances in to! (I could maybe get an outlet strip to plug them both in to but I'm afraid of blowing a fuse by running both machines at once!)

Our water heater…can you read it? I can only understand the 68C.

The "pantry" at the end of the hall. We turned the spare bedroom in to "pantry".

So glad and thankful for all the goodies we managed to bring with us.

Looking out the "pantry" door ….and there's the curved staircase.

Our kitchen and dining areas.

Our living room. Check out the spinning bike I bought at DaHutong! All the furniture belongs to the house/landlord- the plants, rug and pillows are mine.

Annika's lovely piece of artwork. And my cookbooks!

The dining room….it leads out to the solarium and then out to the backyard.

Sigh. Our daily reminder that we aren't in the USA…. our drinking water supply = water cooler.

Kitchen #1… the tiny oven and tiny dishwasher are located in this kitchen plus the refrigerator and a sink.

Check out how tall these upper cabinets are! I can barely reach them!!!!! Whoever thought of putting them so high up????

Door to Kitchen #2:

This second kitchen contains the cooktop, larger sink, microwave, sanitizer (which I've never used…it's that thing that looks like a stainless steel oven in the photo) and other miscellaneous small appliances.

The cooktop- only two burners but boy can they put out some HEAT! They are massive burners! Perfect for cooking with a wok!

 Let's head out to the solarium…. which is also bike storage:

And it's also my plant storage room. And projects-in-process storage. Check out the sunflower heads. Our ayi cut down our sunflower plants. Funny, I don't remember asking her to do that. Oh well. I wonder what our ayi has in mind to do with them!?

A few tired flowers, veggie and herb plants needing to be revived.

The trampoline, grill and smoker in the backyard.

 I think that covers the first floor.  How about we head up these stairs to the second floor:

The curved staircase. Do you see that light fixture in the corner? It's nearly impossible to reach up there and change that bulb! Why oh why would they intentionally put a light fixture in such a terrible position?

Amy, your pennant is a bright spot in our house! Check out the box houses the girls have carved.

Here's our master bedroom. It's an unusually large room but the bed is VERY nice!

Ummmm…..oh yes….it does look like we have a wee bit of laundry to put away!!! (the rug belongs to us)

Here is the master bedroom "closet". Funny, for being such a big room it seems that this is the only "closet" space.

Our bathroom.

Check out the huge tub! The girls love taking baths in it!!!!

Bathroom supplies we brought with us (thank goodness we did!) and that's the shower room on the other side of that window.

The girls say hello!

the girls' bedroom….

The girls have their own bathroom. Hooray!

We decided the girls should sleep together in one room- and that meant getting them a bunk bed! Annika sleeps on top and Ava has the bottom bunk.

Their tiny wardrobe unit and the vases of lucky bamboo (still haven't killed them off yet!).

The girls' odds and ends collections plus the little aquarium. Annika actually cleaned up the shelves. YAY!!!!

Looking out of the girls' room and across the hall to the spare bedroom….or should I say the girls' closet????

More boxes (we brought our air mattress bed from the USA but decided not to put it up- yet. See those little wooden knobs under the stairs??? That's our luggage storage "room".

How many dressers and wardrobes can you fit into one room??? At least four! This room is used only as a guest bedroom and the girls' clothes closet.

Oy, oy,oy…..the girls have a lot of clothes and things. I sure wish there places to put all the stuff! We brought with us two dressers and the rest belongs to the house.

Oh, and can't forget this tiny room off to the side- it's a dedicated clothes drying room.

Time to head to the third floor:

The super steep staircase that will lead us up to the third floor….which also happens to be my favorite hang out.

Uh oh……check out the disaster I'm wading through. You'll usually find me up here trying to get some work done. Right now I'm working on sorting through the girls' old school work and art work and trying to catalogue it. I hope to start creating photobooks for the girls soon!!!!

More of my mess plus the cabinets…oh how I love those cabinets! So much storage space for all our arts and crafts supplies!

Let's meander over to the kid play area.

and more… 

I love all the toys we brought with us. It's so awesome being able to entertain lots of children. Plus, all the toy and book storage is the best!

The view out the third floor deck door:

Can you spot the clock tower?  Looking out the right from the door.

Looking out to the left of the deck door. Honestly, we don't ever come out on to the deck. Not sure I trust the railing to safely hold up!!!

my favorite room:

Four walls of cabinets!!!  I know, I know….a room filled with cabinets is my favorite room?????  Well, storage comes at a premium here!!!!

More storage!

Looking out the storage room into the kid play area.

The third floor bedroom (located just to the left of the kid play area):

Mark's weight machine (I bought this at DaHutong with my Chinese language teacher's assistance).

My treadmill!!!! (that big white rectangular box in the left corner of the photo is an air conditioning unit).

The quilt I'm attempting to get started to make. Just need to find more fabric…which has proven to be more challenging than I'd expected!

Wardrobes in the spare bedroom….plus boxes filled with toys and other odds and ends I'm not sure what to do with.

Our lovely doll house and the bathroom off the guest bedroom.

Guest bedroom bathroom with shower stalls. Check out the pink flower tiles covering the wall AND the pink ceiling. EEK!!!!

Don't need to explain this, do I??? This wasn't purchased in China even though it was probably made here!!!!

Outlets…. we have several different choices to choose from. (these are two kinds….and there are different kinds around the house).

Time to head back downstairs….oh my- those are STEEP stairs!

So…that's the house.  The weird thing …. it doesn't look very Chinese, does it???

I'd like to show you more quirks of the house …in another post.