For the past week and a half, I have been surrounded by boxes and boxes, but I can happily say that as of yesterday my house is box free (unless you count my ayi's random box of stuff on the third floor!!)! It took much longer than I anticipated to unpack and get settled. This was party due to the fact that I underestimated all of the "stuff" we have and also because this time of year is extremely busy! I am thankful that we will come back from the US in January to a house ready to be enjoyed!
The first floor is almost complete, the only thing I need to do is hang up pictures. We love the open floor plan, it is much better for our family! I also love the fact that the kids have a playroom on the first floor and my kitchen is wonderful! It is actually probably bigger than my kitchen was in the US! Danny loves his 60 inch flatscreen and his big, comfy sofa!! We have heated floors on all three levels which keeps the house nice and toasty - sometimes a little too hot! Our landlords are absolutely wonderful (so far anyway!). On our second night here, we had no hot water. Well, it turns out that our house is quite "green" so we run on solar to heat our water. This becomes a problem when the sun has been hiding for days at a time, so you end up with no hot water until the electricity kicks on at 5:00am. They taught us how to manually turn on the electricity to heat the water anytime we need it. You may think this is not a big deal, but here in China it is huge. Most owners are just thankful that their houses are rented and they don't go above and beyond to make sure the tenants are comfortable. These people genuinely seem to care if we are happy and comfortable - it is a welcome change to fighting over the silliest things at our old place!
You can see that all 5 of us can comfortably fit on the sofa!! Although the furniture is not completely my taste (even though I did help pick it out!), it is way better than the modern, uncomfortable look in our old house!
The dining room table has plenty of room for dinner guests - hint, hint. We are all ready for visitors if there are any takers!!
The fridge is direct from the US with an English manual and everything!! The English manual is reason enough for me to celebrate!! Actually all of the appliances except for the solar water heater have English manuals!
You can barely see my wonderful dishwasher!! Oh, I truly love modern appliances!
The kids have been spoiled with a large screen tv in their playroom. Eens immediately figured out how to turn it to Nickolodeon!
Plenty of shelf space for all of the kids books and games!!
We asked for a futon like sofa so if our ayi stays over she will have a room on the first floor!
Overall, we love our new house! The only thing we miss are our wonderful neighbors!!
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