Our Empty House

Right before the moving truck arrived, I took some pictures of our new house.

The front (including driveway and gate), with a small patch of grass, and a nice little patio:

Our front entry way looking at the wall (all also made of concrete) in back of the dining room, with the family room on the right.  The kitchen sits behind the dining room wall and has an "outdoor kitchen", too.  The backyard is nothing special, all concrete walls about six or so feet high with a full tile floor:

Space is a premium here in Singapore, so they build up and up.  We have no basement, but we do have three floors.  Not only is space a premium, but so is land.  The normal rent in this neighborhood for this particular house is $6900-7500 Singaporean dollars each month which translates roughly to $5500-6000 US dollars.  Can you guess what the electricity bill is?  Let's just say that the rent is indicative of the bill.  Okay, they spend about $800-1200 "sing" per month...

The master bedroom, standing in the doorway, plus a view of the "wardrobe" and into the bathroom:

 Madison and McKenna share this room and have their own full bathroom:

This is a view of the middle of the third/top floor, where we have this little patio/garden area.  When you open up the sliding doors, it creates an updraft from the downstairs.  And yes, it does get quite warm up there if you are not running the "air con."  Fortunately, each room has their own (versus a central unit) and therefore you just use it in the rooms are are using:

 

 Parker's room.  Poor guy always gets the smallest one...always:

This is the main bathroom on the upper floor that he shares with Allison:

 This is Allison's room to the left, and to the right:

And a view of the stairs from the top, in which most children will be looking at as they drop stuffed animals and such:

 We do have a small storage room under the stairs on the main floor.  Next to it, there is a bathroom that also has a shower.  Between that and the kitchen is the "indoor helper's room" (for those who have helper's and choose to have them live indoors).  Out in the back we have a "outdoor helper's room" and a "outdoor helper's bathroom" (for those who choose to do it that way.  We use all three as "storage"...  Next to the big sunny, outdoor room on the top floor we also have what they refer to as "the family room" but it is rather small.

 

*It'll be a while before we show pictures with all our "stuff" inside.  It's a big mess right now!