Our German Home

I know, I know…many of you have been waiting on pins & needles to see pics of our German home! I mean it only took us 2.5 months to find and 3 months to move in after our arrival here in Germany. I know curiosity abounds as to what house we got that we finally said ‘yes’ to after 21 houses, LOL!! Of course we had to get unpacked before I’d dare take any pics, so your lucky that I’ve taken these even though it’s not 100% done…because that may be awhile, LOL!

As I said before there are many perks to this house, but also a few sacrifices! If I were to to be a stickler about everything I’d ideally want in a house we would still be looking and probably wouldn’t find one. I’ve had to learn to let go and be flexible knowing that is house is only a ‘temporary’ one along our journey.

So now let’s start our journey into this huge house! Back when this house was built 30 years ago it used to be 3 separate apartments. Over the years it’s been combined to where it is now 1 large (HUGE) house by German standards and truthfully even by American standards. I think it’s around 320 sq meters which is approx 3,400 sq feet, which is really way larger than we need but it was either larger or smaller so we erred on the side of larger.

Main Floor

Entryway

I love this large entryway, it’s great for our coat/shoe rack. The downside is that there is no heater in the entryways so these areas can be chilly on cold days.

Facing the front door, stairs on right lead to upstairs while stairs on right that you can’t see in this photo lead to downstairs.

Dining room

I wasn’t sure our table was going to fit in this area, but it does. It is also big enough for us to have extra storage in here to make up for the lack of storage in the kitchen.

Kitchen

This is one of the areas where I feel like we made some ‘sacrifices’ as the kitchen storage is lacking. Thankfully we were able to get around the issue by adding some storage in the dining room and in our ‘storage’ room.

I love that we have 2 fridges though! That is a huge perk! We also have an extra freezer downstairs which we were able to get for free from some friends.

Living room

This provides a great cozy area for us to hang out and relax. We have access to a balcony as well and I can see the backyard and neighborhood playground from the window.

Main Floor Balcony

Mac loves to sit out here and enjoy the view. We have our grill here for easy access to the kitchen area.

Hallway

I like that the hallway is wide and allows for my dresser to fit nicely along the wall. I did just score I nice vintage long table that I may be putting along this wall soon.

Storage room

This is what we call our ‘storage’ room, I think it was originally a small bedroom or office. We keep our pantry in here, our winter gear (coats, hats, mittens, etc), blankets, cleaning supplies (vacuum, mop, ect) and other misc stuff that we can keep organized and out of sight by shutting the door. And yes, it’s one of the rooms that still needs some work!

Craft room/Studio

My favorite room! A nice large space for all my crafting supplies, to work on crafts, and to serve as a photo studio…these are all things that I did not have in AL, so a huge perk for this house. This is also a work in progress and is on the ‘to-do’ list for this week.

Bathroom

The biggest ‘sacrifice’ is these UGLY bathrooms. Flash back to the 80’s baby because it’s all about Herrons, I’ll be so glad to say Bye-Bye to these babies when we leave. My friend was asking ‘How do you decorate with Herrons?!’ I don’t think you do! I think you just decorate and try to pretend they are not there, LOL!! I chalk it up to part of the ‘authentic’ German experience and remind myself we only have to look at these bad boys for 3 years, not forever 😉 This is also the bathroom where my Japanese inspired nightstand now provides much needed storage.

Office

Another bonus here for us. In AL we had the computer desk and computer in the living room, now we have a his & her office set up. Although with the laptop using the living room quite a bit but Bea is loving using the office.

Lower Floor

Stairs/Entry

The wide staircases are awesome! The marble is awesome too but it does stay cold, so house shoes for me on chilly days are a must, and I’ve heard it can be slippery if your in socks. I think they’ll feel great on the hot summer days. Bub has already had several incidents where he’s fell trying to run up or down the stairs, ugh. These were also a killer the first few days during moving in as we ran up and down them endlessly!

Laundry room

This was another perk to the house, a large laundry room! This is great for us because we hang dry 80% of our clothes and this gives us the space to do so. The downfall is that there is no heater in the laundry room or entryway so if I need something dried faster during the winter I’ll have to move the rack to the hallway or living room…but so far we haven’t found that to be an issue. And yes my friends there is laundry here in the picture waiting to be put away by the kids, I thought about moving it for a second for the pic, and realized I didn’t want to bother with it, LOL! There is also a 3 divider laundry basket with a handing rack over the top of it on the far left and another hanging rack not seen on the right. It’s really a large room!

Extra living room & kitchen

This house has an extra living room and kitchen, another perk! Ok not so much for cleaning purposes but it’ll be great for entertaining. I’ve heard that having 2 ovens during the holidays is awesome, guess we’ll find out this year. We still need to get some furniture for this room but it’s not super high on my priority list right now.

This is also where we now have the deep freezer as well.

Hallway & Closet (one and only), first door on the right.

The one and only ‘official’ closet in the house. It’s not real huge but it works for keeping our suitcases stored until we need them.

Master closet

We’ve turned this room, possibly a bedroom?, into our master closet. This is another perk for us because closets are rare here in Germany. We have the FMO wardrobes in the ‘closet’ as well as some other items for storage. This works great because now we don’t have wardrobes taking up room in our bedroom. This is one of 3 rooms that has carpet in it. We could really still use another wardrobe in here.

Master

The master bedroom is larger than our room in AL. While it doesn’t have an attached master bathroom (most German houses don’t) it does have a bathroom right next to it, which was a huge perk for me. I also like that it has carpet, although I’m not a fan of the carpet…if that makes sense. It saved us from having to go buy carpet for the room, even if it is ugly, ha ha! There are some stains on it that annoy the snot out of Mr. B so I have a feeling we’ll end up covering it up eventually.

Bathroom

I really wanted a master bathroom, or at least one we didn’t have to share with the guests so this fits the bill. Ugly as all get out, but hey ya gotta give somewhere! ;p It has a full bath with shower in it.

Gym

Another perk is having a gym in this house! In AL we had to keep Boo’s weight bench out in the garage, it’s great here that we can keep it all inside for him. He even uses the stairs to his advantage and you can often find him running up and down them during his ‘workouts.’ It also has a carpeted floor so we don’t have to worry about weights being dropped on tile floors and such.

Upper Floor

Stairs/Entry

Again more wide stairs, which was helpful in getting our large American furniture up to the upper floor.

Hallway

I like that there is room here for a storage piece, I found 2 dressers and had Mr. B modify them to make one large cupboard for our linens.

Bathroom

This is by far the biggest (and I would dare stay ‘best’) bathroom in the house. It has a tub AND stand alone shower…whereas the other 2 only have a tub & shower combo. Still all are better than the claustrophobic showers I seen in 1 house we considered! It does provide some challenge with storage, but thats par for the course here. It still need some sort of curtains but one thing at a time! We did get frosted tint so at least they can use it without flashing the neighbors 😉

Boys room (3rd living room)

We gave the boys the option of having their own rooms or sharing this 3rd living room, they immediately said they wanted to share so that worked out great. They have a sink, mini fridge, & microwave as well. They are also in charge of keeping the room clean and it has to pass Sunday inspections 😉

Balcony, not pictured.

There is a balcony on the upper floor as well, Mac is loving having access to ‘birdwatching’ and I’m thrilled that he’s contained and can hang out content for long periods of time, he’s never been able to do that before. A perk for him for sure!

Play room

This is the play room and has 2 of the kids wardrobes in it. I would’ve loved to keep them all downstairs in our master closet but since they have to put their own clothes away it’s not that big of an issue, he he. New wood floors in here.

Bea’s room

This is the room that Bea feel in love with and wanted they first time she visited the house. It has nice new wood floors, so we’ll need to get her some rugs, but it stays warmer than the tile & the marble.

As you can tell she’s been doing some crazy decorating, her room & the play room are still on the ‘must-do’ list.

Guest room

This is where our lucky guests will get to stay. I have the furniture for the room but I need to refinish it, maybe I just need someone lined up to come visit so it’ll kick me into high gear, LOL! New wood floors in here as well. This room is identical in shape to Bea’s room.

Garage

Probably one of the biggest perks about this house is the 4 car garage! It has plenty of space for me to work on refinishing furniture, projects, Bea can roller skate in here, and if we ‘really’ wanted to we could even park our cars in here. We’ve never parked in the garage before but if we have a bad winter next year we might just give it a whirl. Winter this year was mild and is apparently over so I don’t think we’ll need to park in it anytime soon. We still need to get some storage shelves and a few more 220V tools.

Back yard

I love all the extra parking space! I feel like we can easily have people over and not have to worry about where they are going to park. We have a 2 car carport as well as tons of parking on the gravel. The yard is a great size for Mac, not too small and not too big for yard work purposes. Mac does not really like walking on the gravel…probably because it’s new to him but he’s getting much better about it. While the back yard is only contained on 3 sides we are easily able to take him out without a leash because he’s not a runner. He’s been enjoying exploring his new surroundings.

Back patio

We also have a back covered patio attached with access to the extra living room, again great for entertaining purposes.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this peak into our ‘new to us’ German house that we are calling home for the next 3 years. It’s got several quirks (like the bathrooms) but as you can see the perks listed (and many others) greatly outweigh them and make it a great fit for us. So in the end waiting and being patient did pay off for us, and after having met so many people here who rushed into a house and hate it or have moved several times I’m glad we held out a bit longer than most to get one for the long haul!