Sunny Street

July 1 we moved into a house at 2a Sunny Street, Petropavlivska-Borshchagovka which is just outside the Kiev city limits.  For the past 13 days we've been busy making it home.  We've made a lot of progress but there are still a few big projects remaining.

We moved because the house we stayed in the for the past year is usually rented by another missionary family who needed someone to stay there while they were in the States.  After moving 3 times in the past 2 years, I'm ready to get settled into a house that I hope will be home for a very long time.  We signed a two year lease which, Lord willing, we hope can be extended. [You can pray for that to be the case.]

Now, without further ado, here's the tour (but forgive the clutter, we're still unpacking)...

After having to open and close three gates to park the car in Mukachevo, the automatic gate and garage door are a dream come true for George.

Although not technically a "townhouse", that's the description we use since this is one of three identical houses standing side-by-side - not typical for Ukraine.  Apparently, the lot used to be the tennis courts of the wealthy landowner to the back of the property.

 Washing the garage door is on tomorrow's to-do list.

An apartment complex is being built across the street.  George refers to it as our mission field under construction.

The front door from the inside.  A full-bath/furnace room/utility room is visible through the open door.  To the right of this picture is the kitchen.

The kitchen is cozy with just enough space for our dishes and kitchenware but not much for food.  It does have a dishwasher though! Abigail (in yellow) loves cooking.  She and her friend (in white) are making crepes for breakfast. 

Beside the kitchen is a large closet room.  It will be very handy for storage and we've made a make-shift pantry out of it too.

Looking from the front door, the kitchen doorway is in the corner, the closet on the left of the hallway, and our dog in the middle!  Stairs lead up from the right and the living room/dining room is in the back.

Dining room.  We are still trying to figure out what do for curtains.  It's hard to invest money into something you don't know how long you'll use.  Complicating factors, we can't figure out how to blend all the color combinations in this dining room/living room.  I guess we'll have to make a decision sooner or later.

Living room with fireplace.  The purple couch and chairs are the landlady's.

The backyard (as seen from the second story window).  A good size, I think.  There's a little vegetable garden growing along the back wall.  I don't know when I'll have time to tend to it, though.  A chain link fence separates the backyards of the three houses and the brick wall encircles all of them.  Our next door neighbors are Muslims from Turkey and their teenage son is giving Matthew soccer lessons for fun.

Tiled floors and tiled staircases.  The bedrooms have wood floors.  We're not sure what to do with the space under the stairs.  Right now it houses disassembled furniture and boxes of belongings waiting to be unpacked.  It's also houses the water tank.

On the second floor is Matthew's bedroom.  We plan to buy a futon bed to go along the wall where I'm standing so that we can turn it into the guest room when we have visitors. 

 Across from Matthew's room is the office with a wall of shelves that came with the house.  Believe it or not, we still need another bookcase for the overflow books and all the kids books are upstairs!

A workplace for George and me.  I think this arrangement of chairs is a collision waiting to happen.

The master bedroom.

Master bath.  Yippee!!! (Not sure what to do with a bidet. I'm thinking of putting a table over it, cover it with a cloth and use it as a counter space.) There's another bathroom on this floor for the kids.  I forgot to take a picture of it.

Up another flight of stairs and you have the finished attic.  One side of the staircase is the girls' room.  We're going to hang a white curtain along the staircase and in front of their room to give them some privacy.

The family room is also in the attic.  Wii.  Exercise bike. An all-purpose area.

On the other side of the staircase - a table for games and crafts and our monster wardrobe which didn't make it into the picture.  Our piano is in the box still but maybe we'll get around to getting a piano teacher if we're not living the next year under threat of evacuation.

And that's our home and I love it! Come visit us on Sunny Street.  Now you know where we live!

Google Maps to our location