Unpacked....the official Wohnung tour!

So I'm way past due for this one....in keeping with tradition now that we are on post four, it seems only common courtesy to give a tour of our housing like I did in Doha, Suva, and Tbilisi. So in Frankfurt, 80%+ of the community gets put into an apartment housing compound. So can I can at least give one an idea of what a three bedroom apartment looks like (apartments range from studios to 5 bedrooms). So what's in a name? Wohnung is the German word for flat or apartment. So it seemed perfect for the title....

So the housing compound is an assortment of buildings looking like this. Having gone to coffees in some other units, it is interesting to see how they are all slightly different. There's probably 50+ building like this and each one is slightly designed different....I wonder which one was built last and is "perfect"...lol. So the consulate Richard works at used to be an old hospital. Previously a German hospital and then a US military hospital (fun fact: G.I. Elvis Presley had his appendix removed there!). Needless to say, I have no desire to walk the halls of the consulate by myself at night! The apartments were built after WWII when the hospital was converted to a US military hospital and are old military housing. The interiors remind of us our grandparents house (ex. circa 1950s style doors, shelves, ledges, etc). 

Standard apartment entrance...the length of entry varies between apartments, some have a cut out where we have the mirror. We've seen some kitchens that have been remodeled...ours is not of them. I do love the gas stove! Lovely view of the cookie cutter building behind us...lol.

The washer and dryer being in the kitchen is apparently a German thing....I've since made a curtain to hide them (and our recycling on top) when not in use. It makes the room a bit smaller but looks nicer. Some units have the washer and dryer behind closet doors. I've also seen a unit with a cut out between the kitchen and the dining room. That one is really open and nice.

The dining room has the same table we have had at all the posts. There are few families in a trial program that is renting furniture from a local company and have completely different furniture. That would be exciting if that becomes the norm! We rotated the table 90° and it made the room bigger. We made a little coffee/beverage station to the left under all our Starbucks mugs. We might ended up needing a third rack while we are here! 

The cat loves the cat hammock on the window. On the opposite side of the house, we put up her cat tree. So then she can get morning and afternoon sun for nap times...

So the main room is much more of multipurpose room. We have the den using the main portion of it, in a little window alcove is Richard's "office" on work from home days, and then to the side is my little office/craft area.

While not ideal, it works for the most part (except when both Richard and I have work calls at the same time...then someone has to go in another room).

Through the lovely glass door in the den is the bedrooms. In theory, the door could be closed to make the bedrooms quieter in the evening. Only problem is the door is older and sticks so when you open and close it is quite loud and would wake anyone sleeping...lol. The room sizing is quite odd. Two rooms that are nearly identical in size and then a tiny room. 

Still lugging around our king size bed, BEST DECISION EVER!! The wall opposite the window is built closet/drawers. So not much to see. 

We think the teen actually took the "Master bedroom" as it might be a foot bigger on one side, but the placement of the closet/windows wouldn't work with our king size bed. So we let the teen have the extra room.

Poor little Clarissa got the tiniest of rooms. 

She wanted the queen size bed that was originally in our bedroom, so she literally has a BEDroom and a tiny walking space.

We have two neighboring bathrooms that are quite popular and in high demand while everyone gets ready in the mornings.

The bath and bedrooms did not have any good space for hampers, so I got these to place in the hallway between the bed/bathrooms. It was funny the "complaints" of the hampers was they were too small....but for our small European washer, they are the perfect size. A full bag is a full load. 

We do have a storage unit in the basement to store the holiday decorations and luggage. Richard was working from home for delivery/unloading of all our things. Given we weren't guaranteed they would come back for empty boxes, we had the movers unpack the boxes. Richard had a little panic attack with all our things just piled up all over the place. Once things got tucked away into closets, drawers, and cabinets it all worked out. A majority of the furniture in our home stays with the apartment for the next family, so that helps in we don't have to find a place for all that (though there is still too much furniture). That wraps up what is the shortest housing tour yet! 

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.