Our House!!!

We have finally gotten all the boxes unpacked, stuff put away, and photos taken of our house!  Hooray!!  So, obviously this first one is the front of our house.  It's a one story single family house in a newer suburb called Gunghalin (emphasis on the 2nd syllable.  That confused us for nearly the first month.)  The bay windows in the front of our house look into the master bedroom.  It's a little strange to have a bedroom in the front of the house, but it does mean we have incentive to make our bed every day.

Our garage!  That's right, we have a garage - grown-up stuff.  All those boxes on the left are nearly everything we had to unpack before we could take these pictures.  That's why it's taken this long.

This is the view from our front door.  The interior of our house is very white.  We'd planned on painting , but didn't get approval to do so until the day before the movers were coming.  Since unpacking, we have lost our enthusiasm for painting.  We will probably just add color with our furniture and artwork.  We definatly hope to pick up a few new art pieces while we're here.

But back to the photos.  The door to the right leads to the master bedroom.  To the left (which you can't see) is the door to the garage.  Straight ahead is our very open kitchen/dining/living room.

The master bedroom!  I discovered it's almost imposible to get the whole room in one shot no matter where you stand in the room.  Oh well, you get the gist.  The door to the right is our bathroom.

And here's what our bathroom looks like!  Yes i know, not too exciting, but you're getting the FULL tour.  It's very neutral, but quite nice - full floor-to-ceiling tile walls and floors.  Also we have sliding doors all over the place - bathrooms, closets, hall.  We were surprised as first but actually it's really nice.

Yep, this is a view of the shower in our master bath.  I did tell you it was the full tour.

Ok, if you if keep walking down the hall it leads you to our open kitchen/dining/living room.  It's basically just one big rectangle and spaces are defined by furniture layouts.  We weren't so sure how this was going to work at first, but we really like it now that we have all our stuff.  This is the kitchen portion.

The dining room!

Library???  The chair in the corner will be replaced by some sort of lounge chair at some point.  It's a work in progress.

Living room!

And if you keep walking past the living room you enter our patio.  The patio furniture and bbq were generously provided by the Embassy.

Me enjoying our patio in my big, floppy hat.  The weather's getting really nice now - sunny and hot - so I expect we'll be spending a lot more time out on our patio.  It will be weird being able to comfortable grill out during Christmas.

Our bbq!  It's giant!!  Greg is trying it out tonight.  We're grilling chicken, potatoes, and veggies.  It should be delicious!  Mmmm I'm hungry now.

  Moving on.  This is the rest of our tiny yard and our clothes line in action.  Clothes lines seem to be very popular here.  People still have dryers, but they often opt for the clothes line if the weather is nice enough.  I guess Australians must be more energy conscious than most Americans.  It seemed strange at first, but it is a nice option to have. Oh also, that big cylindrical thing to the left is our rainwater collector.  The water collected is used for our toilets and outdoor taps, so that you can minimize your water usage.  Australia has been in a drought for the last 10 years so a lot of homes have these installed.

Back inside!  To the left of our living room is the 2nd half of our house.  It can be divided off by the sliding door shown.  That is it could be if our kitties hadn't figured out how to open sliding doors.  This can be quite the surprise when you're in the bathroom.  Kitties do not like closed doors.

This is the guest bedroom.  There was no way to get a decent picture of this room, but it's pretty basic anyway.  We're hoping to but a bedframe soon so that we may trash the cheap metal frame and boxspring that came free with the bed.  Kitties also hate boxsprings.  You probably can't tell but it has been shredded at every corner.  Apparently corners are the worst parts and invoke their most destructive desires.

 This is the guest bathroom, emphasis on bath as there is no toilet.

HERE's the toilet.  That's right, it's in a separate room.  I guess it's meant for convience so that one person can't completely take over the bathroom.  I saw this in Finland as well when I studied abraod back in college so it must be a European thing.  I like the convenience, but I still think there should be a sink anywhere there's a toilet.  But maybe that's just me.

This is our laundry room.  I have to say, it is really awesome to have a laundry room, as in a dedicated space not just a closet.  Very convenient.  The door leads out to our clothes line so you don't have to walk through the whole house.  Also very convenient.

This would (and will) be another guest room, but we don't have furniture yet.  For now it is kitty sanctuary.  We probably won't change it until we have plans for people to visit who will need this room.  It's actually used quite a lot as is.

This would be another bedroom, but we are using it as our study.  It would be a pretty small bedroom, but works perfectly for a study.  This is a shot of Greg's desk.

And this is my desk/bookshelf.

And that's it!  Thanks for taking the tour with us.  Hopefully some of you will be able to visit in the next 3 years and will have the chance to see our new home for yourselves.  We miss you!!