The House

Okay, so before you see all the pictures you have to understand my reason for being so excited about it. We moved into this country with very low expectations of what the housing would be like. Everything we had heard from other soldiers was that the houses were very small, no closets, minimal cupboards/storage, rarely a dishwasher, pretty old and dirty, and more and more negative stuff....

Peter went out with the realtor the week before the kids and I got here. So it was up to him to find us a good one and I think he did a great job! I really do love our house and maybe it's just because I had such low expectations coming in or because we haven't been in our own house for this last almost a year now, but whatever the reason, we love it and it works great for us! Keep in mind we have nothing here but our clothes....well, everyone else's clothes but mine! We don't have any of our own 'house stuff' here yet, so it doesn't look very homey, but it will eventually. 

Here is what you see when you walk in the front door...which doesn't have a key lock, it's all electronic number code entry. Once you are inside then there are several other bolts and chain locks and I don't think anyone is getting through is door! It's kind of a 'mud room' when you first walk in. To the right are some very large closets for coats, umbrellas, shelves for shoes, drawers and storage. To the left is our 2nd front door. There is also a full length mirror on the wall to the left of the door. 

I told the kids that everyone gets a shelf for their shoes because we are not suppose to wear our shoes in the houses here, it's a culture thing. Joy replied with, "Oma could fill all those shelves up in a second!" (Oma loves shoes)  :)

Here is the other side of the 2nd front door and there are more closets! A huge walk-in pantry, linen closet and another coat and shoe closet with more shelves and drawers.

Looking out through the 'mud room' door into the house is this view of the living room...

To your left after the entry hallway and closets is the kids bath/guest bathroom and vanity. There is a mirror above the sink in the bathroom as well as this little vanity counter in the short hall to the bathroom with cupboards above and drawers below. (Yay for storage spaces!)

The bathroom has cabinets above the toilet and a full 'American size' bathtub with shower sprayer as well. The walls and floor are all tile and there is a big drain in the floor so you can spray the whole place down and let it all go down the drain. The toilets here seem to be shorter and the sink is lower too. Perfect for the kiddos! .....Okay, for me too and those of us in the 'short' category.  :)

Next is the kitchen. It has a dishwasher! (The only home the realtor showed him that had one.) A big fridge, large sink, stove/oven and lots of cupboards! Through the door on the right is the laundry room with brand new full size washer and dryer, a rod for hanging clothes and lots of space for shelves. We put our garbage and recycle bins in there and there is a big window.  

So we have this monster American Supersize fridge but everything else is very little...

...And this is truly the only thing that has disappointed me about our home since we've been here. Our tiny, itty-bitty, very, very small oven.  :(

For someone who loves to cook and bake, this makes me cry a little. To give you some perspective, here's another one. This is a little 8 x 8 pan and it almost takes up the whole space.  :(  The thought of doing all my baking like this for the next 2 to 3 years is very sad for me. But only in America are we spoiled with ovens so big we can cook a whole Thanksgiving feast in them at once!

The living room is very bright and roomy, our favorite part. Lots of room to entertain!

One whole wall is sliding windows. The long blinds are actually between two sliding windows. Behind the second set of windows it is screened in so you can open the windows without buggies flying in and then, since we are on the first floor it is barred. I really like the windows, they are great for letting in lots of fresh air and light. The next picture is another view of the living room and our funky furniture! Some of our furniture came with the house and some is 'army issued'. Most of the furniture is brand new including all the mattresses, we watched them take the tags off! The Army is letting us borrow pots and pans, other kitchen stuff and car-seats until our household things get here too.

This is the view of the living room from the bedroom side of the room. There are lots of glass doored cabinets built in on both sides of the room. 

The kids bedrooms each have a set of bunkbeds. One room is the boys' and one the girls'. Here is the boys room. One wall has a built in closet/clothes organizer with lots of drawers and room to hang their clothes.

All of the bedrooms have the same sliding double layer windows with blinds in between. 

We put both kids desks in the girls' room so that they would be close together when we are doing projects, schoolwork, etc. We'll be putting our toy shelves in the boy's room and keeping most of the toys in there and all the art supplies and the kid's play kitchen and dollhouse in the girl's room. 

The girls also have curtains in their room but we'll probably be taking those down. To the left of their window wall is a walk-in closet!

Right now we have a dresser and tension rod in the closet but I'm sure things will be moving around after we get out household things and figure out the best place for everything. 

Our room. :) LOTS of space! More than we've ever had in any other house we've lived in anyway. 

Not at all what we expected for South Korea.

Another view of our room from the window side. There is a built in vanity with lots of drawer and cabinet space. Each of the mirrors opens up and has more shelves inside too! To the left is a big wardrobe with closet bars inside. Not much room for my clothes, but we'll figure that out when they get here. We may need to get another one of these to put next to it. 

Our bathroom. The shower is big! It's the size of at least 2 standard bathtub/showers and it has a bench inside and built in shelves. The water pressure here is amazing too. Even better than it was in Illinois....my hair is happy.  :)

Our room has the same double layers of windows with blinds inside but ours has space in between. Up above is a clothes drying rack that pulls down to hang clothes on and below in the floor is a door that opens up for storage beneath it. Peter says maybe I should just use the clothes drying rack as my closet bar and hang all my clothes in here....??? We'll see. There is certainly plenty enough room.

Well that's it for house pictures. It's not huge, but so much bigger than we expected to be getting. We've got A/C in the living room and in the master bedroom. It's pretty hot and humid here but we have been opening up all the big windows in the morning and trying to cool off the house that way before it gets too hot in the day.  

:) Now you know what our South Korea home is like and where we'll be for the next few years.