Thursday, June 2, 2011

Back to Happy Days! Literally, straight out of the 50s.

The Army is currently spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new housing for soldiers to bring their standard of living up to the same standard of those they serve. Basically bringing them into middle classdom across the board. It's called the Residential Communities Initiative or RCI for short. RCI has not made it to Greely. (To be fair, it has, but is just starting, literally). So the housing on Fort Greely is a little, uhm, dated, I guess would be the right word to use. Most of the units were built in 50 or 60 years ago. I however do feel like I lucked out for several reasons. First off I'm on an end unit. So only 1 neighbor to contend with. We share a front entrance which means that our only shared walls are those where the stairwells are located, not too loud for the most part. I am on the road, so the upstairs bedroom in the back can see mountains on a clear day. But the best part is a private roadside entrance that I don't have to share from the parking lot in the back. All in all, I've lived in much much worse.

Shared front entrance to 1400 sq ft of home.

Private side entrance and sort of yard. Doyon dug it up to upgrade electrical service so the yard is not all grass but the upside is the electrical service was upgraded. How's that for a silver lining?!

Heated, yes, heated garage. And all utilities are included in the price of rent. The thermostat only goes to 65 but when its -40 if this garage is 65 It'll will feel like the tropics.

Fort Greely doesn't currently offer Olympic lifting since they don't have rubber bumper plates, so I'm buying us a set so we can continue to do the lifts necessary to Crossfit.  
Here is the living room and dining room. Doesn't look like much, but everything fit in just fine. It's a tad tighter than the condo was, but also easier to heat in the winter. Oh so important.

All three bedrooms are upstairs. As well as the Full bath. The tub is actually about 8 inches longer than our tubs in SC. I think we may be getting spoiled. Did I mention that the hotwater is part of the rent.

Here's the bathroom, but I didn't take a pic of the tub. Definitely some retro styling.

They provide a fire extinguisher. Mission First. Safety Always. Another Army motto.

I think I saw this kitchen on 'that 70's show' once.

Look at those orange counters. I bet my mother in law is itching to do a pampered chef party in this bad boy just to have a flashback to the early 80's. Come on up Carol, the weather is fine. Notice, in sink filter, living the good life now.
The one thing missing is downstairs closet space but the basement is full length and heated with the washer and drier down there and lots of storage. All of the stuff we had jammed in closets, outdoor gear, tools, hunting stuff, whatever will all gladly go down below until it's yard sale time, which happens every month as part of the community activities. There is also a small covered pavilion with fireplace we can utilize. Really, not bad overall. Not Shangrila by any means, but TIA, This Is Alaska, afterall.


No comments: