*Large Sigh*
Since we are on our way outta this joint, I've been looking at every possible living situation on the other side in the Fort Riley area.
In the meantime, enjoy a free tour of our Rose Barracks apartment!
Y'all.
I thought the cost of living would be reasonable around Fort Riley regarding abodes. I was wrong.
Sure, compared to New York and California, rentals and homes for sale in Junction City & Manhattan KS don't seem high, like at all. BUT...when you look at them for what they are, where they are, and some of the neighborhoods they're in, they are WAY overpriced.
I honestly can't sit here and write about where we'll be living when we get there. I don't know.
We've been in contact with a real estate agent, and we've also inquired about some off post homes available for lease. And though I don't even want to mention it (let alone live on post), we have submitted our advance application for on post housing. Housing has contacted us, stating that it is likely that the largest home we qualify for on post should be available for move in shortly after our arrival. The problem: The largest home we qualify for on post in Riley has one less bedroom than what we're used to and doesn't have a second living space that our large family (with pre-teens/teens) needs.
But pictures of the post housing there, here, or in many cases lots of duty stations are slim to none. Even on official websites. I had absolutely no idea what to expect before coming to the Graf/Vilseck area. I had absolute no idea what to expect in our future duty station, except for floor plan graphics.
So, I jumped online, desperately hoping some blogger out there had photos of the inside of on-post homes in Fort Riley. While I didn't find a blog, I did find youtube videos that are super helpful!
So, to repay the favor, I made this post about my 5 bedroom E1-E6 stairwell apartment here on-post in Rose Barracks ( Vilseck ). Maybe it will help someone out there in internetland? Maybe it could help you!
The Building Specs:
-Stairwell building apartment house
- Our entire building houses 12 families: Six, 5 bedroom apartments in the middle stairwell. Three, 3 bedroom apartments on the two end stairwells.
-There are three floors for each stairwell.
-Each apartment has a barracks styled basement room for storage that runs under the entirety of the building. Basement rooms are not connected to the actual apartments. Each basement room is assigned to each apartment and they vary in size.
-One designated covered parking space per unit. Free for all parking spaces available, too.
-No garage
-No outdoor assigned space. No personal patio or balcony (although other buildings in our hood do have balconies, but few do).
My Apartment Specs:
-Five bedroom, 2 bath
-No carpet. Tile in kitchen & bathrooms. Wood design linoleum throughout rest of apartment.
-About 2,000 sq ft
-One living space (no additional family room)
-Open(ish) concept common area
-Large kitchen pantry
-Master bedroom has one of the bathrooms. Master bath has standing shower (no tub), toilet, dual vanity sinks.
-Hallway bath is large. Tub/shower combo, toilet. Dual sink vanity.
-Master has large wardrobe style closets in addition to a small walk in closet.
-Other four bedrooms have only one wardrobe closet.
-Windows in every room
-Both 220v AND 110v electrical outlets in EVERY room (something we didn't know we'd have before moving here. Wish I brought my deep freezer).
-Small laundry room.
What we love about this apartment:
The living room space is larger than what most living rooms on post here have to offer. Even though the common space (living/kitchen/dining) are somewhat open concept, I like that our TV and sofa aren't right next to the dining table. Separation of space *somewhat* is nice.
The kitchen is huge for on post housing! I have never had a kitchen this large in my entire life. It also has a closet sized walk in pantry. Big bonus!
I hear people off post complain about only having the 220v outlets, which is expected off post. But we honestly expected to only have 220v outlets on post, too. We love that we have never needed to buy expensive transformers while living here because we have both the Euro & American outlets. Nice perk.
I love the large windows in each room.
Dining space is big enough for our eight person table.
We enjoy that there isn't carpet throughout the entire apartment. It's easy to make each room have it's on vibe and character with rugs. And it's been nice not having to worry about staining carpet when it comes to move out inspection. No scary housing charges for carpet.
What we dislike about this apartment:
Like everywhere else in Germany and Europe, the majority of homes DO NOT have air conditioning, which would be great right now in July. I have not met a single person living on or off post in Germany, Italy, and Belgium that have forced air conditioning in their home. And...it does get hot enough to need it at times. On post, homes do not come with ceiling fans, either. I knew it would be this way before coming, but I was also told that it didn't get hot here. Lies.
The window treatments are odd. Built in plastic curtain tracks hang from the ceiling above each window, making curtain shopping more difficult. And putting up curtain rods to hide them is nearly impossible.
No sense of personal space outside. Even having our bbq in our carport area sucks when random neighbors decide to use it without asking.
Very little storage inside the house (with the exception of a great kitchen pantry). I particularly wish the bathrooms had more storage under the sinks.
Big windows are great, but they make furniture placement hard. We have never rearranged furniture in the master or living room EVER because of this.
Hauling groceries for a family of six up three flights of stairs every week sucks. Hardcore. Oh, and so does lugging up Christmas decor from the basement. And then there's taking out the garbage, too.
We miss having American style closets.
Photos of the inside of our Vilseck (Rose Barracks) on post 5 bed, 2 bath stairwell apartment:
*Excuse the mess in some of the photos. We're in the process of moving out.
^^^ View from front door
^^^View of kitchen from front door. Wall separating kitchen from living space does have a wall way through other side.
^^^Pano pic of kitchen/ dining from middle of living room vantage point.
^^^View of living room and front door from beginning of the hallway. Don't ask about the hair brush in my vase. I have weird kids.
^^^Pantry does have door
^^^View of living room/kitchen wall from the kitchen.
^^^You can see the front door from kitchen fridge
^^^Hallway bathroom.
^^^Hallway Bath
Above and below: Hallway bath. Below is shown from door frame
BELOW: Laundry room situated near end of hallway.
^^^The hookups and appliance outlets are placed in an odd area. We cannot have our washer & dryer side by side.
^^^Master bedroom from the hall door. Fits a our king size bed, but there's not much room for much else. Oh, and that white robot thing next to the dresser is our mobile ac unit we purchased after our first summer night in this place. It wasn't cheap.
^^^View from corner. Ignore my messy bed. I just washed the quilt on threw it on. Door on left is the small walk in closet. Floor to ceiling wardrobes on right. Open door in middle is the hallway door.
^^^Master from on suite bathroom door
^^^^Shows the door into the master bath
^^^Walk in closet
^^^Open wardrobe
^^^Master bath
^^^ Basement Hall
The above video is a private (now public) tour of my apartment. We were waiting on the lady to clear housing and I thought "Why not take a video?".
I forgot to mention in the video that there is not a lick of carpet in the apartment. The "wood" is really linoleum, but we did notice some maintenance workers putting in engineered wood planks in the empty apartment on the first floor while we were moving out. The kitchen and bathrooms all have real tile on the floors.
Another thing: We were not required to paint before moving because housing policy here states that a tenant is not required to paint before move out IF they have lived in the on post house for more than two years. Thank goodness.
Alrighty. That's that. Hope someone found this post helpful!
Thank you so much for sharing!! It really helped me to visualize where we might be living next.
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