Here are some photos of our new house that I’ve taken soon after we moved in. When we move to an overseas post for my husband’s job assignment, we usually live in an assigned home furnished by my husband’s office. We live with what we call “welcome kit” provided by the office as well as the stuff we brought in our suitcases until we receive our shipment. (Welcome Kit consists of all the basic items you need to live such as bedding, linens, kitchen cookware, dishes, silverware, iron, cleaning items, etc. ) This living situation is much better than living in a hotel especially if you have young kids.
small stairway area between living room and dining room
dining room
master bedroom
our tiny den
kids room
guest bedroom
View from the hall way into the den on the left and master bedroom on the right. I took this photo after I painted the wall in the den. We use it as our kids play room.
View from the hall way into kids room.
kids bathroom
It is nice to live in an assigned housing in a sense that you don’t have to get stressed about finding your place in a new country where you are not familiar with the city, whereabouts, language, culture, and so forth. Even though I love the process of finding a new place to live and seeing many apartments or houses, I cannot imagine going apartment/house hunting with my two small kids right after moving to a brand new country while dealing with other challenges of getting adjusted to a new environment.
I wish we could move with our own furniture though. Our furniture is in a storage back in the States. If we stay overseas for 10 years, for example, that’s how long we will not see our furniture (there are some exceptions, but a majority of the houses are furnished) and that’s a long time to live without your favorite furniture! I understand that it is more cost-effective. The sizes of the housing we get at each post vary, so it makes sense to keep housing furnished by the office.
I explained my situation here as this is unique to our life. I find the housing and furniture we are provided with very nice, but it does not represent who we are or how we like our home to look like. I find it more challenging to create our home that articulate our taste if we do not have our own furniture to speak for us. I, however, thrive in this challenge. It requires more thinking and creativity (although I lack of skills in a creativity department!). I would like to reintroduce our home as I finish decorating or make changes and show what I have done to our house to make it look more like us over the course of the next several weeks (or months).
I plan on making my next post about a change I made in a small stairway area between the living room and dining room. I hope you’ll come back to see it!!
So many pieces of funiture look soooo familiar, including the iron bars on the windows. I know exactly what you are saying about being difficult to personalize your living spaces with provided funiture. Do you get some allowance to work on the uphostry so that you can reflect your own taste on sofas and chairs? We took advantage of that system in Surabaya and that made a big difference on feeling your house as your own space.
You will be busy decorating your house once you get your shipment. Exciting!!! Ganbattene!
Iron bars! They make me realize that I’m in SEA. You know, we don’t get an allowance on the upholstery unless the furniture is old. The ones we have are new, so we don’t get the benefit! Bummer! Yes, I went to two hardware stores to look for nails for concrete and they were out of them!! How can they be a hardware store and not stock them??? Thanks for your sweet comments!
I know how exactly how it is to move from all your furnitures and build a new home in a new country. I moved from Norway one year ago, and we sold all of your furniture before we moved. As I am very interested in interior design I wanted to decorate and buy new furniture even though we just lease at the time. It also makes it feel like a real home….
I’m so happy that you like my blog, and the community that I created. I hope to see you there:)
You show so many beautiful pictures in your blog, and I love the post where you showed all the outfits in the dressing room. I like your style!:)
Well, I guess I see you in class or in blogworld:)
//Nina
Nina! So happy you came to my blog although mine is nothing like yours. When I saw your blog, I thought, ah, I wish I could decorate our place with the furniture like yours!!!! Oh well. We live in a nomadic life which doesn’t allow us to bring our own furniture, but there are lots of perks. Thanks for the sweet comment! See you in the class.
なんにもなくても広くてうらやましいわ～。確かに今まで登場した雑貨屋さんのバリ・テイストのオリエンタルな感じとどうやってマッチさせるか、カホの力の見せ所ね！楽しみにしてるわ～。それにしても、昨日のファッション（ZARAは日本にもあるか…）にしろ雑貨屋さんにしろ安くてジャカルタに買い物ツアーに行きたいわ～～♪
ジャカルタツアー、是非するべし！！来て来て〜！バリテイストの家具欲しい！でも重いんだよね。やっぱり本物の木は重さが違うわ。次の引越しの時に持って行けないから、買えないわ〜。とうより、値段が高いから買えないんだけどね．．．
Woopie, home photos! Thanks for sharing… Your new home is huge indeed! Mine won’t be anywhere near yours, lol.
It looks like a fairly new residential unit? As the walls and bathrooms are kept tip-top condition. Mine has some pencil marks drawn on… GAH!!
I’m glad you thought that it looked new, but it is actually old. Hehe. The maintenance office did a lot of painting, I’m sure. I did, too!! Many problems surface as we live, but it’s okay. We have great staff. Pencil marks! Yikes!