how to make a {base} house a home

When I rejoined Facebook last month I was kicking and screaming (figuratively, of course).  I've been able to connect with other military wives in our squadron, which was the only reason I joined.  My friend, Ashley, also told me about a FB group for families stationed at Offutt AFB so I joined that as well.  She explained that it was a good way to get information and connect with people and she was right!

One topic that gets revisited frequently on the thread is about base housing.  Choosing a home for your family is such a big decision so it's nice to see people giving information to newcomers and helping them make a good decision.  I've written about our experience with base housing here and here.

Today I thought I'd share a few ideas of how to turn your base house into a home.

Cover the Walls
When we first walked into our home, all we saw was beige.  The walls, doors and moldings were all the exact same shade of flat paint.  And the carpet was only a shade or two different.  It reminded me of an old, ugly hospital ward.

I was disappointed that our housing office doesn't allow painting, so instead we've covered the walls with other things.  Downstairs I have family pictures hanging.  And in our son's nursery I hung a pennant that my mom made.  In our dining room, I hung twine between two nails and used clothespins to hang 4x6 pictures.  If you're decorating on a tight budget, try looking for cheap frames at Goodwill and spray painting them to match.

We have two tall bookshelves (and will need another soon) that add height to the room.  And yes, putting up bookshelves definitely count as decorating.  :)

I love walking into a home and seeing lots of family pictures and a tasteful amount of decorations.  Decorations are tricky though because they often look cheap/tacky or they're expensive.

If you are lucky enough to live in a base house that allows painting, I would paint accent walls.  That way you get the pop of color, but when you move out, you only have to repaint one wall of each room!  Livia from All Things Life and Air Force Wife talks more about that here.


Keep It Clean
Magic Erasers are THE BEST for our walls.  Since our paint is so flat, it shows dirt very quickly and is a pain to keep clean.  I use Magic Erasers regularly and am amazed at how much better my walls and baseboard each time.  (fyi, I am not being paid to say this...it's my honest opinion)

The same is true of our carpets - they show everything!  We vacuum regularly, but let's be honest: having a toddler in the house means that we have many spills on our carpet.  Several of our friends own their own carpet cleaner and use it on a regular basis.  Since we're planning to live in base housing for awhile, I'd love to own one as well to keep the carpets from getting stained.

Decorate The Outside
Since our houses all look similar, you really need to add your touch to the outside to make it your own.  When we first moved into our home, we didn't have a lot of extra money so we focused all of our decorating on the inside where we would enjoy it.  I'll never forget the time that we saw neighborhood kids in our backyard using our water spigot because they thought our house was empty!  This was after we'd lived there for several months!  We're trying to do better about decorating outside our home and making it look lived in, but our neighborhood puts us to shame!  So many people put up elaborate decorations for holidays and take meticulous care of their yard during the summer.  We love taking walks and seeing how the exact same house can look different depending on the owners' personal style.


What suggestions do you have about turning a house into a home?

base housing (one year later)

It's been one year since we moved to Offutt AFB!  We were just remembering what it felt like to drive here for the first time, explore base and see our new house.  In September, I shared pictures of our house and talked a little about base housing here.  If you want to know more about which style of house we have, that post will fill you in.

Since we've lived here for a year, I'm sharing a little update on what we've thought of base housing.  This is solely based on our experience here with Rising View.  I am receiving no compensation from Rising View for this review, I simply wanted to help other families who might be considering where to live when they move to Offutt.

• Overall Neighborhood
• We like living here!  We are close to base and close to other amenities (Target, movie theatre, Churches, Walmart, restaurants, etc).  Since we have friends who live in the neighborhood, we can walk to their houses.
• There are playgrounds everywhere!  They vary in size and style which keeps it interesting.  It's really nice to have so many options for the kids.  When it's warm, we go to the playground once or twice a day because they are close and convenient.  However, most of them are not shaded and there's no running water, so come prepared.  Also, there aren't trash cans.
• We love taking neighborhood walks.  There are a few areas with bumpy sidewalks, but overall there are nice sidewalks throughout the neighborhood for pushing a stroller.
• Our area of the neighborhood is very active.  Lots of people walk/run for exercise.  Our street has a lot of children who play outside in the evenings.  In the summer, there are many people sitting on their porches which gives it a friendly, family feeling.
• My one major complaint about the neighborhood is completely out of Rising View's hands:  the birds!  There are some very territorial birds who try to build nests each spring near people's front doors.  I happen to be petrified of birds, but even my husband (who normally isn't bothered by birds) thinks that these birds are mean.  We've seen people put up fake owls or wind chimes and that seems to keep them away.
• Maintenance
• We've had a good experience with maintenance.  I've called about four or five times this year and have always had someone come within 24-48 hours.  
• When it was something serious (my fridge wasn't cooling properly), they sent someone over within about an hour. Even though I hadn't given them any details about the fridge ahead of time, he guessed what was wrong and walked in with the proper part in hand.  It was installed in about ten minutes and my fridge was working again!
• The smoke alarms can be very sensitive which can be frustrating if it happens while cooking or in the middle of the night.  However, when we called they had someone out that day to replace it and we haven't had a problem since (11 months).
• We have had some problems with bugs (crickets, water bugs, etc).  Rising View will come out and fill holes to keep them from coming inside and if the problem persists, they will have a terminator come.  We have had them come out twice to fill holes (about six months apart).  I was very skeptical about it, but the second time it really did seem to help.  We also spray our garage regularly for bug and spray inside the house with a herb-based bug spray (so we don't fill our house with nasty chemicals).  
• House Condition/Size
• Again, if you want to see more about our specific house, you can read about it here.  Our house was clean upon arrival and was in very good condition overall.
• The house is basic and is built with some cheap material (e.g. carpet, paint).  The appliances are also basic (e.g. fridge doesn't have an ice maker).  While it would be nice to have beautiful, cushy carpet, painted walls and a fridge with all kinds of cool features, it has been fine for us.  
• The downstairs rooms can be awkward due to size.  This is also true for a friend of mine who lives in a different style of new housing.  We don't have a lot of furniture, so it has worked out for us, but if you are coming with a sectional couch or a big dining room set, you may have problems getting it to fit nicely.
• Backyards vary in size based on the house, but most of them are good sized.  If you would like a fence, there is a rental company that you may use.
• Moving Out 
• We don't know because haven't done it yet!  :)  We have heard rumors that they are strict about cleaning and maintenance before you move out, but we have no personal experience.

Again, I can only speak to our experience in Rising View.  I know that other people have had different experiences living here, but overall, we have liked living here for the past year.  We plan on staying here until we PCS again!

air force life: base housing at offutt afb

Edited to Add: I wrote a post in May 2013 (one year after we moved to Offutt) to give an update on what we thought of the housing after living here for a while.  Check it out!

Edit #2: I've gone through and updated a few of these pictures after almost two years of living here to give you a better picture of the size of some of the rooms.  Updated pictures have our name in the corner.  :)  ALSO, if you are PCSing here, leave a comment or shoot me an email!  I'd love to connect and answer any questions you have about Offutt!

Tour Our Home/Tour Base Housing ;)

I kept waiting for it to be perfectly decorated.

And perfectly clean.

Then I decided that those days might be far off.

So instead I am posting the pictures that show our home for what this is: not always impeccably tidy and a long way from being fully decorated.  But here are pictures nonetheless.  Base housing is different at every base, but here's an overview of our life at Offutt AFB.

This is a stock photo of the outside of our style of home (via Rising View website).  Our neighborhood is made up of duplexes.  Some of the houses are older (perhaps built in the 60s?), but have been renovated.  There are also a lot of newer homes - built in the last six or so years.  We qualified for one of the newer, three bedroom houses.  Most of the houses have nice backyards (usually about 50 feet from the back of the house) and you can rent a fence if you'd like your yard enclosed for children or pets.

We are responsible for yard work, but the housing office takes care of any maintenance issues we have and so far they have been very helpful when we've needed something done.  We're not allowed to paint - this was probably the saddest thing for me to find out when we arrived here.  Instead we are slowly working on filling our walls with pictures and art, but (as you can tell from the photos) we still have a long way to go.  I'm a little too indecisive about where to hang things, but we're working on it. 

The Kitchen

This is the view when you walk in from the garage.  Those windows overlook the backyard.  To the right you can see part of our family room.

This is opposite the picture above.  That's the door to the garage.

The skinny door to the left of our fridge is the pantry.  

This is the view of the kitchen from the family room.  The laundry room is on the other side of that wall.

Pantry

The Family Room

View of the family room from the kitchen.  The family room is technically supposed to be two room (family room and living room), but it's sort of an awkward space with the furniture we have so we just use it as a family room.

This view is from the living room into the kitchen.  We have a little coloring table for Hadden and store his high chair next to the back door.

This is the view standing in the hallway.  The door leads to our back yard.  The space behind the couch could fit a small table and a couple of chairs.

Downstairs Bathroom

This room is in the hallway off the living room and across from a huge under-the-stairs closet.

Dining Room

This room is technically supposed to be a living room, but we're using it as a dining room.  The two windows on the right look onto our front yard.  From where I am standing to take the picture, the front door is on my right and a coat closet is on the left.  The wall on the left a half wall to our stairs (see next picture).  In the back is the collection of wall hangings that have yet to hang on the walls.  We really need to buy a big dining room table for this room!

The door is to a big closet under the stairs.  Across the hallway from that closet is the downstairs bathroom.  

The landing upstairs.  From left to right: Master bedroom, Hadden's nursery, linen closet, guest bathroom.  The guest room is further to the right.  There is also a huge closet upstairs and a desk space (see picture below)

Desk on landing upstairs (directly below is the front door)

View from the desk

Hah.  Our "guest bedroom" is an empty room with an air mattress waiting to be filled for our next guest who is arriving in a couple days.  Window overlooks back yard.

Guest bathroom

Nursery.  Window overlooks back yard

Master bedroom.  The window overlooks the front yard.  This room has a small walk in closet and a linen closet (there is a third closet off the bathroom as well)

View from master bath

View from the corner closet (the door you see is the bathroom)

Master bath

The closet back there is so big!!  It wraps around on either side.  Now I just need to buy more clothes to fill it!  ;)

Overview

Overall we like our house!  If we were to build/buy a home we would definitely do a few things differently.  I dream of painting the wall, redoing the cabinets and changing out all the light fixtures/door hardware.  I would love to someday live in an older home with history and with a story.  But that's not where we're at in life.  This house is more than sufficient and we are grateful for it.  And we are slowly turning it from a house into a home.  :)