Their are two garages here at the Faust House. One is connected to the house via the kitchen and another is sort-of like a shed out on the yard. Both are large enough to hold a LOT of vehicles, as the former owner of the house was a collector of classic automobiles. There is a bookcase with various repair manuals in various states of wear, several complete tool chests, worthy of any good car shop. There are jacks, ceiling hard points for pulling engines, winches, several air compressors with pneumatic tools, you name it, and it can be done in here. Which proved to be is very handy, as mechanics are expensive, and teenager’s cars are often in need of repair. Learning to be a ‘self wrencher’ (or at least learning how to talk a gear head boy- or girlfriend into doing it for you) is a valuable skill. Both the front and back of the house have a porch.
The woodshed is just what it sounds like. It is a woodshed. It holds firewood, wood that occasionally needs chopping.
The tool shed has all the gardening tools, the riding lawnmower, fertilizers, and other dangerous things. No one under 10 is to enter without special permission for that particular trip. The door is locked at all times, it literally require a key to enter every single time, though since this is inconvenient, it sometimes gets left propped open....
There is also a workshop, for both wood and metal working, largely a leftover of the massive remodeling job. The default rule is that no kids are allowed in here at all unless escorted by a guardian, not just an adult. High school seniors do not count. To be allowed to use the tools, a child must first take a safety course, this is in addition to anything they learned in woodshop or whatever,
AND be deemed mature enough to handle the equipment safely. Also, No One, Ever, gets to be in there working totally alone, just in case an accident does happen. On the other hand, there have been kids that actually made things and sold them to make extra money, or who really jump started their careers by learning a lot as a teenager.
Finally, there is the pool building. Again, locked just like the tool shed and workshop, it features a large swimming pool with racing blocks for fun and exercise, a diving pool with a 1 and 3 meter board, and a large Jacuzzi. There are 2 bathrooms/changing areas, and the boys had better not peep! Well, the girls too, but boys seem to do it more often… or at least get caught more. Also, the Jacuzzi is
NOT a roughhousing area; it is for relaxing tired muscles, or warming up on a cold day. It is in a separate room with huge picture windows looking out over the back yard. It is also elevated, being located above the pump room, so one can see over the fence and look at the forest or whatnot.
Kedalgrove, the town the Fausts' and their wards live by, has a population of about 203,750 people. The Faust House itself is located ten-ish miles away from the town where they can have a lot of property. It's not in the suburb area, but it's still technically in the residential area.
The front of the driveway is blocked by an electronic gate with a keypad, a key to activate it, and it picks up signals like a garage door opener. The fencing all around the property is hidden by hedges (that need trimming occasionally. This is another chore). The back yard is quite large, and features a large, fort or castle themed play set (depending on one’s perspective). There are also larger slides than the ones at the elementary school, swings, three clubhouses (letting there be one that was boys only and one that was girls only was eventually easier than putting up with the fights. The third is coed), a merry-go-round (the unpowered kind), monkey bars, a covered area for pickup basketball games, and a large flat patch of grass used for everything from football (soccer), to field hockey, to American football. All of the playing equipment is marked in some manner denoting who or what organization donated the item. The children who use them a lot are encouraged to write thank you letters to the person or group responsible for their favorite toy around the time of the winter holidays.
Behind that field, there is a gate leading out to a large, several acre, and wood. It is a mixture of evergreens and deciduous trees. Within are the remains of many a started but never finished tree house, as well as several completed ones. Kids under 8 years old are not to head out there without specific permission and a buddy who IS judged to be responsible enough, and everyone needs to check in before they head off out there, at the least with a text message.
These are the playgrounds:
http://www.poshtots.com/Play/Pint-Si...uctDetail.aspx
http://media.cedarworks.com/images/p...endipity_7.jpg
Faust mansion now has gone through quite a bit of renovations for a brand new change: animals! There is now a large fenced in area and a barn that includes the following animals:
Horses
Chickens
Three baby goats
Two baby sheep
Ducks (who live in a duck pond)
A pig
A variety of rabbits (who live in a rabbit pen)
Teenagers and above will be expected to have chores that relate to taking care of the animals.
Grounds and Outbuildings 2.0
