Best. House. Ever.

Andrew will be turning one next week, so we decided to invite 40 of our closest friends, i.e. everyone with kids at post, to our house to celebrate next weekend. Now normally I wouldn't throw a big party for a one year old. He won't remember it, nor will he even care about it while it's happening. However, we decided that it was 1. a good excuse to throw a party and invite everyone to our house, and 2. great motivation for me to actually get the house in order.

So that's what I've been doing, and it has been a slow painful process that I've been taking room by room. And it's finally done! Okay, not really. There are no pictures on the walls (except one that I personally think is hung too high), and it definitely does not look like a page out of the Pottery Barn catalog. But, I did manage to get pictures of every room in the house before the toy box could throw up in them--again.

This is our front door which is within the 10 foot cement wall topped with barbed wire. For safety reasons, I will not post pictures of the outside of our house, which is very unassuming anyway. It's basically a garage and a big door. This is such a warm, inviting picture, isn't it? Nothing says welcome to our home like bars on the windows.

There is a small entry area with a half bath to the left and an office to the right. I have no pictures of these because 1. the camera really couldn't capture the entry way, 2. it's a bathroom and you know how those work--sink, toilet, etc., and 3. the office is under construction, meaning all of our papers exploded onto the floor in there.

Next you enter a great room of sorts, which we have made a library/dining room. I don't think the room flows right yet, but I'm pretty sure Chris will kill me if I ask him to move the furniture around again. There is one step down into the living room space, where all the major television watching takes place. 

Before anyone criticizes my horrible taste in furniture, this house is furnished by the federal government and someone in Washington really needs to watch more HGTV. I've decided to just embrace the ugliness of our couches for now, and I'm holding my breath that Congress will pass a budget so that my ugly couches won't be decorated with a husband on furlough.

 

To the right of the living room are the dining room and kitchen, which are both beautiful. Never in all my speculations did I ever imagine a kitchen so elegant and functional with more storage space than I can fill. I actually have empty drawers and cabinets, and I have done my best to spread out all my gadgets, which inevitably leads to me never being able to find them again. I have one of those cool magnetic strips for hanging my knifes, the stove has a built in griddle for tortillas, my refrigerator easily holds four gallons of milk, and I have a dishwasher. It's amazing.

Lest you forget that kids live here (you probably noticed the toy box in the dining room), a picture of my monkeys climbing the stairs.

At the top of the stairs is the most wonderful family room. I've always wanted a room spacious enough for the train tracks and any other toys the kids want to strew about. This is where the boys watch TV and where I have my computer set up.

Surrounding this amazing room, are three bedrooms. To the right is Andrew's/the guest room. Don't worry guests, Andrew's bed can easily be rolled into mine, and I promise to buy a pillow before you arrive. Please come visit.

Then you have Jacob and Benjy's room. To clarify, this is our furniture. We decided to bring the bunk beds and dressers that were already so lovingly decorated with markers and spare ourselves the expense of paying for lovingly decorated State Department furniture at our departure.

And then there is our master suite, which is enormous. I'm thinking of renting out the unused half of our bedroom, because I'm pretty sure it could accommodate another family of five. So see guests, plenty of space for Andrew's crib. The room is so big, I really don't know what else to do with it, even though this picture does little to show its massiveness. I'm pretty sure the suite is bigger than our entire house in Georgia. Our bathroom features double sinks, marble tiles, a shower with a seat, a separate toilet area and his and her closets.

Best. House. Ever.

As long as you only experience it with your eyes. Not your nose. Don't smell it. Unless, of course, you like the smell of litter box.

Which brings me to the last room in the house-- the laundry room.

When we first moved in, all we smelled was fresh paint, but after about three days, there was definitely a more pungent odor infiltrating the entire upstairs. I sprayed down all the furniture, installed Glade Plug-ins, mopped, vacuumed, but nothing could touch the smell, and it was getting stronger every day. I did finally figure out that if I shut off the laundry room, the smell wasn't as strong in the other rooms, but oh-my-goodness I did not want to do laundry. The smell was so pungent it brought tears to my eyes.

We had noticed a pet odor/cat urine smell in our furniture when we lived in the apartment. One chair was so repulsive that Chris threatened to use it as the punishment chair, which made GSO snicker, but ultimately convinced GSO to switch out the chair with a new one. What we hadn't realized when moving into this house and bringing the furniture from the apartment was that we were actually bringing the furniture back home. How lucky for us. One more reason I don't like cats.

Dear potential guests, please disregard the previous few paragraphs. Our house smells like roses--and bleach, which I've been pouring down the drain in the laundry room. Please come visit.