Moving to Ireland: Temporary House, Floor 2

After Monday’s awe-inspiring pictures of where we stayed while we searched for a permanent Irish residence, I didn’t want to leave you hanging over the weekend without showing the 2nd floor of this home. You’re welcome.

(You can read all about the first floor here.)

Let’s climb the stairs to the second floor. Ask me how many times the kids took that stair turn too fast? Go ahead. Ask.

Once each.

Alright, my son might have done it twice, but his danger streak runs a mile wide.

This townhouse is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home.

At the top of the stairs you can turn right to the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. Or you can turn left into the other bedroom, where I’m standing to get this delightful photo.

I’ll turn around now and show you this bedroom which had a double bed. You know what’s nice about a double bed? If you are 5′ 9″ tall, your feet hang off the end of the bed when you sleep.

That’s right. Keeps your feet nice and cool at night. What’s not to love about that?

Now, the reason this bed is made so nicely is because I didn’t make the bed. My absolute favorite and not favorite thing about corporate housing is the cleaning company that came in once a week and shined the place up. They changed the sheets and even took away the dirty towels and left all new ones. It was a little bit like hotel living.

I only say it is not my favorite thing because I have an irrational need to clean before the cleaning company comes. The first week they came, I didn’t know they were coming and the breakfast dishes were still in the sink. I also happened to still be in my pajamas with a serious case of bed head.

My hair can stand straight up without any product. What’s your superpower?

Needless to say, it’s less traumatic for everyone involved if I clean my own house.

Speaking of ~~not scaring the cleaners~~ getting ready in the morning, the “master” bedroom had a small vanity table too. I have yet to be in an Irish bathroom that has any electrical outlets. Just think about how that would affect your morning routine.

Speaking of the bathroom. Want to see? Look below…

There’s a little heater on the wall to the right.

The cupboard housed linens and the hot water heater.

This bathroom also had a skylight over the shower that you could open by pulling on a cord that was on a pulley system. I guess if you left the window open and it rained, you could have a shower courtesy of Mother Nature.

I used to work in the homebuilding industry and we never ever in a million years would build a home – even a small home – where there wasn’t a bathroom on every floor. I can’t tell you the number of times someone looked at a set of house plans and asked, “where’s the powder room going to go?” It’s a luxury that your guests don’t have to see the bathroom where you shower and get ready.

Let’s take a closer look at the shower. Don’t worry – it’s clean – thanks to the awesome cleaning ladies.

There is a start/stop button to turn the shower on or off. It worked pretty well! I have seen one shower with hardware and functionality that you’d expect in the United States. The others are some variation on this set-up.

The second bedroom is where the kids were supposed to sleep. The property management company set it up with two twin beds for our kids.

I tried sleeping on the very hard, double bed with my feet hanging off for two nights. Two long, jet-lagged nights. It was almost funny when every time Handy Husband rolled over he hit his head on the nightstand. Almost.

Eventually, I decided that no matter how much I missed Handy Husband, I missed sleeping even more. We ended up playing musical beds. The kids took turns sharing the double bed with daddy. I folded up a duvet cover to give more cushion to one of the twin beds and slept on that.

There was that one night where I woke up with a kiddo in my twin bed, but I’d prefer not to remember that back ache.

I will say, the closet systems were robust in this house. The built-ins went all the way to the ceilings, which were 9-ft tall. No, I’m not going to open the doors for you because that’s where I had to cram all of our earthly possessions so the cleaning crew could vacuum. It’s not pretty inside.

This type of corporate housing is set up to be short term. You can stay for as long as you want, but the per night rate is expensive. In Dublin, if we had to foot the bill ourselves to live in this townhouse, it would have been approximately $5,000 per month. Ouch! I’m hoping Handy Husband’s company negotiated a better corporate rate than what we were quoted to extend our stay past the 30-day mark.

Also, this type of housing varies in the length of notice you have to give before you move out. We had to give 14 days notice. Some were as short as 7 days. Happily, we signed a lease on a permanent home exactly 14 days before our lease was up. That meant we did not have to pay any extra to live in this home that I was so thankful for, yet really did not like.

If you are moving, visiting or want to know more about life in Ireland, here are a whole bunch of posts for you!

Living in Ireland: Life Without a Car

Living in Ireland: Inside My Kitchen

Living in Ireland: Christmas in Retail 2017

Living in Ireland: Storm Ophelia

Living in Ireland: That Time a Tree Came Down

Living in Ireland: Pediatric Emergency Medicine

Living in Ireland: Back After A Month in the United States

Living in Ireland: As Seen On My Commute

Living in Ireland: A Trip to the Hardware Store

Living in Ireland: Spring Flowers In Our Yard

Living in Ireland: Grocery Shopping