Quarters E

I know it has taken me forever, but I finally have some pictures of our house, Quarters E.  

So, a little bit about Quarters E.  The house was built in 1896.  It was built at the same time as Quarters A-D.  The five houses were designed to be officers' quarters for officers in the shipyard.  Quarters E served as the home for the shipyard's Engineer Officers until 1926, and then it became the home for the Production Superintendent for a few years. In 1933, it became the home for the Production Officer and served that function through WWII.  In 2005, the Shipyard Commander moved from Quarters C to Quarters E to allow the Admiral in charge of the Navy's Northwest Region to occupy the bigger Quarters C home.

Quarters E is still plenty big for us.  The kids are in the biggest rooms they'll probably ever occupy until they have their own homes someday.  We have plenty of storage and are loving not having a storage unit.  It's fun having real wood-burning fireplaces again (4 of them!).  And, I finally have an office/craft room that has a door that can close.  

There are some downsides to living in a 125-year old house, namely the lack of a bathtub in the master bath (or a bathtub anywhere in the house that one can truly relax in) and the crazy laundry area in the basement, where the washer and dryer are close to 20 feet apart.  We miss having a garage that the cars can park in, but Jip can get his car in our little bitty garage if he really needs to.  Despite the idiosyncrasies, we are making it work.  We are looking forward to COVID going away so we can welcome family, friends, and Jip's work cohort.

Without further ado, here are pictures of Quarters E minus the basement and the third floor.

Foyer (Entrance Hall)

Living Area

Dining Room

Pass-Through from Kitchen to Foyer (with a Door to the Dining Room)

Kitchen and Butler's Pantry (with a Door to the Dining Room)

Office (Library) off of the Foyer

Main Floor 1/2 Bath

 

Time to Go Upstairs

Ryleigh's Room

RJ's Room

Kiddo Bathroom (Jack and Jill, between Their Rooms)

Guest Bath

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Bedroom 5 (converted to a closet, off the Master Bath)

Play Room

I hope you enjoyed the tour.  Of course, we would love for you to see it in person, so when it is safe to travel, please come visit!!!!

Until next time, cheers!

Crazy Times, Holiday Version

I'm only a month late on the Christmas Day blog.  :)

As with other parts of the country, Kitsap County residents really went out of their way with their holiday displays to help spread some joy.  We had a lovely Saturday night driving around, using a FB group with people sharing about their own or their neighbors' lights as our guide.  This was our last stop.  A whole cul-de-sac had a coordinated program that ran for 45 minutes.  We stayed for 20 minutes and then moved on down the road so others could enjoy.  Here's a snippet.  https://youtu.be/nT1Jm7_HHb8

We received the keys to our house on December 18.  But, thanks to COVID and poor timing, we couldn't get our household goods delivered until December 22.  And, then it didn't even all come in one day.  After multiple trips to the warehouse on the 22nd and 23rd to get crates and items that were left behind, we finally had all of our stuff.  

We put up the tree the evening of the 22nd and plugged it in.  It was nestled between the kids' desks that we had moved with us and got set up in the living room before our household goods arrived.  

But, we didn't get decorations on it until the 24th.  But, at least we had a tree!  We also had a wreath on our back door and the awesome stacking wooden boxes on our front porch, too.  

On Christmas Eve, I made our Downey usual of chicken and noodles over mashed potatoes.  It was my first time really cooking a from-scratch meal in the kitchen and really the first time we gave the garbage disposal a true test.  The garbage disposal failed the test.  We tried to solve the problem with plungers.  Then, Jip took apart the J trap.  This beauty was lodged in there (dishwasher pod is to give you an idea of the size).  We thought it was a calcium deposit, but later came to find out that the housing maintenance crew believes a contractor dumped plaster down the sink.  

You would think that removing that chunk would solve the problem, but it ended up creating another problem--everything that was being held back by the chunk suddenly rushed to another part of the drain and clogged at the next bend.  So, we had to call maintenance.  They sent a poor guy out and he could not get the pipe open in the basement - it was corroded shut.  So, at 8 pm, we told him to go home and come back on the 26th.  Thankfully, we have a second sink in the butler's pantry, so I was able to do dishes and get water for pots in there.  

We all awoke on Christmas Day in our matching pajamas and had a leisurely morning of opening gifts, playing games, and just enjoying sitting still after the previous few days of unpacking.  

After our quiet morning, we got back to unpacking.  As you can tell from what is behind Ryleigh, we still had A LOT left to do.

It certainly wasn't a holiday that we were accustomed to, but we made it work.  We'll certainly remember our first, and hopefully only, "Christmas during a pandemic after living in a hotel for five weeks after moving across the country."