Unpacked....the official manzil tour!!!

So now that we are on post three, it seems only common courtesy to give a tour of our housing like I did in Suva and Tbilisi. It's also a little "pay it forward" as once assigned to a post you try and find as much information as possible about a post....especially about housing. So if I can give someone else an idea of "typical" housing, then mission accomplished.....and hopefully once we get our next assignment in two years, I'll be able to find some information about our future housing. So what's in a name? Manzil is the Arabic word for home. So it seemed perfect for the title....

In talking to others, now that we've been here a few months, it appears we have won the housing lottery! Singles and couples are typically put downtown in a high rises. After that there are two main housing compounds, one closer to the school and the other closer to the embassy. We ended up closer to the embassy. Thankfully, sharing one car and having to pick Richard up sometimes I'm happy it isn't too terribly far away. So with out further ado....off we go!

Your standard entryway with stairs to the side. I would say the only thing that we are missing is "big item" storage (i.e. your holiday bins, SCUBA gear, camping stuff, etc). So I took one of my Fijian curtains to hide it from view and we are using the under the stairs area for storage. I heard from someone else in our compound their area has actually been closed in, almost to play house style with windows and everything.

We decided to use the stairwell as "our travels" art gallery of sorts. Displaying our retro travel posters and one of our tanoa bowls.

The downstairs has a "very open floor plan" (too much HGTV on home leave...lol). It's almost as if everything is one big room - but there is a den, dining room, and kitchen (which is a tad closed off).

So nearly all our embassy issued Drexel heritage couches were a lovely shade of pale gold.

Or as I like to call it, stain attracting yellow! It was such a light color it would show every stain and attempting to clean off a stain - if the cleaner would bleach - would show as well. Not good with kids! So I made some custom slip covers for downstairs. While not perfect, they are machine washable and unlike the store bought ones, these go over each cushion so it is easy to tidy up the couch.

Nearly every seat in the house gets a view of the TV, but the side chair can be a reading chair.

Our little tiki mask/parent wall...lol.

Our dining room. This is the first time we had enough cabinet space in the kitchen that the china cabinet is not being used for storage and we can actually display items as oppose to cram everything in!

So while making the slip covers for the couches, I over tightened a screw on my sewing machine. I didn't have the necessary screwdriver to undo my mistake. So, we had to go downtown to the Singer Shop to get it repaired. The Waze navigation app sent us to a parking lot, unfortunately, when we pulled in there was a sign - Customers Only. So we headed into the shop to look around. Much to Richard's joy it was a houseware store with a huge selection of rugs....which were on sale!!! So we got this beauty under our dining room table. While it is machine made, it is for underneath a table...accidents will happen. That fact made it much more affordable!

So we are really starting to accrue quite the Starbucks "I was Here" mug collection. So we are using these display racks to show them off.

Our kitchen. Lots and lots of cabinets and counter space! It has a small table, which is where we typically eat. It also has an American size oven!

Bedrooms are the main feature of the upper floors....so up we go!

The master suite is huge! Plenty of room for our king size bed. We finally got the series of sunset paintings that Richard bought at the auction on our Australian cruise framed and hung up! We picked up an inexpensive rug at Ikea to help with the cold tile floor in the morning moments. Even with that rug, we still had room for one of our Georgian rugs.

We have a bank of closets en route to the bathroom (I'll get to that later).

Mason pretty much decorated his entire room on his own! We have entered the teen poster/artwork phase.

He has a huge bank of closets with a built in desk, which are great for tucking away clutter!

Now to the little ladies room. Clarissa decided she didn't want her heart comforter anymore after I made this elephant blanket for her. I had intended it to be more of a be snuggle on the couch blanket, but she wanted it on her bed.

Clarissa's room does not have a built in desk, so we gave her the one we were issued from the embassy. It is perfect as a bookshelf for her books as well as display trinkets from her travels and her birthday dolls.

And of course there is her Barbie House in one corner...a regularly played with area as you can tell by the hot mess that it is.

We have her 'CLARISSA' letters hung above some windows. Below these windows, we have an extra mattress and box springs on the floor (since we brought our king size bed we ended up with an extra mattress set that needed to be stowed somewhere). This project is not complete (and currently a catch all), but we are going to make it into a day bed for reading....but then she also has the perfect sleepover set up!

She has less closest space than Mason, but plenty for her. We also mounted a mirror at her height....I love catching her using it!

Here's our guest bedroom....all ready for visitors!!

It has a bit of extra furniture that just wasn't needed in other rooms, but the embassy said we had to keep everything we were issued...so we had to find room for it. In the adjoining bathroom, is where we keep the litter box (we will move it when we have guests)....but the tight walk way is perfect for kitty attacks. Our supervisor during litter box clean up, will dash under the bed when we are leaving, attack our foot as we pass by one end, then staying hidden under the bed, dash to the other end, and attack our foot again. It's quite a funny game!

So by local standards, we have small housing. Compared to our previous housing at our past two posts, this is huge housing. We have several "bonus" rooms this post! First being a dedicated office - no sharing with another room this time.

In fact, the office is so big it has its own sitting area. (The cat tree is perfect for afternoon naps and watching pigeons in the morning).

We have landing area at the top of the stairs that we turned into a little "hangout" with a TV and couch.

I have a laundry room with a little hallway. This hallway finally allows me to set up my laundry system for the kids. I will wash and fold/hang up their clothes, they are then responsible for getting them put away in their respective rooms. Lots of room for air drying items too!

We also have a small side windowless, nook that I have turned into my sewing/craft room! I love it!!

We have a long hallway with some overhead lighting that made for a perfect display area for another one of our Fiji masks and Richard's war clubs.

And finally, to end with a little humor! After two and half years of sharing a bathroom for the kids and having only one bathtub in the whole house. I felt a bit like Oprah when it came to bathrooms in the house! Richard and I get a bathroom!

And check this out...not dueling toilets....but our first house with a bidet!

We then told both kids....you get a bathroom and you get a bathroom.

And if you come to our house as a guest....you get a bathroom too! You can see the guest/cat bathroom from the guest room photo. If you only come for the afternoon, then you can use this bathroom!

That's about it! We have a small back yard, with a covered porch that holds the grill and a table. The house itself has lots of lovely balconies. Up until recently, it has been quite hot. So we shall see if they get more usage now that the weather has cooled off.