New House

Hooray for moving into our new house.  It took us a little longer than usual to unpack this time around, due to some craziness that happened in the process of moving in, but we got it all done & unpacked within 9 days.  The kids were SO excited to finally have their stuff again.  The big girls didn't even get to see our house until after Girl's Camp & FSY.  We were completely settled & moved in before they got home.  They literally came home to a new house.

Our  new house is VERY unique.  It's a German townhouse that is 3 stories high.  It's the highest house in Hütschenhausen so the views from the 3rd floor are spectacular.  We have 6 bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms, & a beautiful farm behind our house.  Our 1st floor is crazy small, but we've learned to make it work.  Most of our walls are curved, or have jagged corners or slopes at every turn which has made for some creative furniture placement, but it's AMAZING.  I'm completely in LOVE with this house.

One adjustment we had to make was moving the living room into the biggest of the 6 bedrooms.  One of the bedrooms on the 3rd floor is quite large, & the space provided for our actual living area on the first floor is absolutely tiny & NOT big enough for a living area.  Once we made the decision to move it upstairs, the design of this room just magically came into play.  It's PERFECT.  We fit our couch & loveseat on one of the sloped walls & the entertainment center & TV fit perfectly between two odd wall rectangles on one side.  We fit our large shelf against the one flat wall in the room & put all of our board games inside.  We bought a large bookshelf from IKEA & added it next to the TV in another little hollow.  And the weird slanty ceiling area off to the side is the official game table.  The karaoke machine is there with a table for games, a dresser with crafts & coloring things, & some chairs for sitting.  It worked out to be the perfect living/media/game room.

Our master bedroom is classic German yellow which I kind of love.  The large wall in our room is completely curved so our bed doesn't quite lay flat on it, but it works good enough.  We have a bookshelf next to Trek's side & a side table next to mine & our dresser & TV across from us.

There's also a cute little nook near 2 windows in our room that is perfect for my antique rocking chair.

Our house is awesome because it has A/C in almost every room, ceiling fans in all rooms, & closets in most of the rooms.  We have a whole wall of closets.

We also have a master bathroom which is rare to have in Germany.  It's a wonky bathroom, but it makes me smile.  There is a TINY piece of glass "covering" the shower, but it doesn't do much.  Water pretty much shoots everywhere when I take a shower.  Oh well.  And we do have 2 sinnks, but they face each other which is hilarious.  Trek & I always laugh at each other as we brush our teeth.  It's hilarious.

Next to our room there is a door to a cute little balcony that overlooks the farm behind our house.  Our landlord owns part of the farm, along with fruit trees & bushes, 18 chickens, & 1 rooster.  Our neighbor down the road also has bees so we have fresh honey whenever we want it too.  It's done wonders for my families' allergies.  My kids love playing with the chickens.  There's also some fabulous trails around the farm.  Trek & I like to run & walk around it.  It's just so beautiful.

Our yard is small, but our trampoline fits & the kids have room to play.  We live on a "ring" (circular road) so the kids ride bikes all day long around the ring.  They also love the farm trails for running, tag, biking, & just playing.  It's such a perfect house location for us.

The boys have a cute little bathroom.  It's small, but they're boys & it's all they really need.  There's a toilet, a shower, & a sink.

We do have one extra bedroom which is our guest bedroom & our extra stuff room.  Right now, everything that we don't know where to put it goes in here.  As we get things organized in the garage & storage closets, this room will be more organized.  It also has a great closet so all of my homemade play & Halloween costumes have found a home in here.

The boys' room is the "bowtie" room.  It's like two rooms in one.  One side has their beds & their toy shelf. . . then it gets narrow right where the door is, but just behind that is a whole other room with a closet.  We use the one side for sleeping & the other side for playing.  The kids love to sprawl out all their legos on the floor & just build all day long.  It's a great play area.

My craft room is our "horseshoe" room.  It has a long center, but curves around both sides.  Since I took this picture we now have 2 nice reclining chairs in here behind the door in the right horsehoe alcove (by the chest of drawers).  It's nice because the girls like to sit in the recliners & do their homework in here.

All my craft things fit perfectly along all the crazy curves & hidden alcoves.

The view from my craft room is beautiful.  I love the rolling hills, the German red roofs, & the churches in our village.  I can see all three from this room.

On the left horseshoe alcove I have all my paper, craft supplies, some fabric, & a closet for the girls' shoes. . . because girls need space for their shoes.

The girls chose the highest, but smallest room in the house.  The view up there is the very best & they knew that meant more to them than actual space.  The ceilings in this room are crazy sloped, so sloped that when we got moved in, we had to take 3 days to take apart & re-build their triple decker bunk bed to fit in the room.  But we did it!!  Now their beds are like being in a cave.  They love it.

This room didn't have any closets so we put 2 wardrobes in it for their clothes, & they keep their shoes in my craft room.

But the wall opposite their beds is a full wall of windows.  The view is just gorgeous.

And the girls get the big bathroom.  They are loving having their own space to get ready in the morning.  It's been really nice for them.

Downstairs on the first floor is our kitchen, laundry room, dining area, & weird little sitting area.  We really like our kitchen in this house.  It's much smaller than what you'd find in the states, but for Germany, it has incredible storage.  I love it.  It fits everything I need it to fit & it's easy to keep clean.

I love that it has a bar with counter space.  Counter space is RARE in German kitchens so this is like finding a unicorn here.  It's SO nice.

There is a small dining area that barely fits our table, but it's beautiful next to the windows.  I love looking outside as we eat every day.

Between the dining area & the kitchen is this little corner that we decided to make the computer corner.  Since this picture was taken, we bought a perfect corner computer desk from IKEA that perfectly fits in that corner.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect fit.

When we moved in, there was a really big, awkward fireplace here.  It took up most of the space in the room & we just hated it.  We asked the landlord if we could remove it & they let us.  Now we have our piano here, which is a little weird because it sticks out on one side, but it's literally the ONLY place we could put it.  We also found a shelf at IKEA that fits perfectly behind the jutting out part of the piano that kind of squares off the awkwardness of it.  Everything seems complete now which is nice.

The "living area" is TINY.  It looks big here, but that's because there's no furniture.  It's shaped like a slice of pie & it's SO weird.  That's why we moved the living room upstairs.  We just bought a custom couch that fits perfectly along the long & short walls so we can have a small sitting area in here which is great for moms when I'm teaching piano lessons.  It allows them to sit comfortably while I teach their kids.

It's a great house.  I love it so much.  It's perfect for us & it's SO unique that I never want to leave it.  We're going to be very happy here.