Review for Murasaki House, on Airbnb
My spouse, two kids (five years old and below), and I stayed here for a month. Staying with Renata was a huge part of how successful our holiday was.
Renata was very responsive and thoughtful in communication. Before our trip, she reviewed our day-to-day itinerary and offered useful recommendations. When we got there, the house had been stocked coloring books and toys in consideration for the young visitors, which was very kind. She also met with us the morning after we arrived and showed us around, and checked in with us almost daily, including responding with reassurance in the middle of the night when Typhoon Lan was shaking the house. She was very professional and proactive throughout, the ideal host.
A number of complicated things were absolutely no problem. A friend stayed with us for a few days, and that was fine, no extra charge. Renata offered to buy a bigger fridge in case the two mini-fridges were insufficient for our long stay (the two mini-fridges turned out to be just fine, since the supermarket and okonomiyaki place are across the street). Weekly cleanings were included, also for free. She loaned us a pocket wifi as backup. We appreciated that the house had a physical internet connection plus wireless router, so we had fast download and upload speeds (crucial for backing up photos, and for the house Netflix account).
It was great to have the whole building to ourselves. Even well-behaved children are occasionally noisy, so it was a relief to not have to worry about downstairs neighbors. The toilet and bathroom were very cool. The futons were extremely comfortable. I loved the smell of pine wood that greeted me every time I walked downstairs. The house as many very cool touches.
The location and neighborhood is very much local, off the beaten path, authentic Kyoto. We saw very few foreigners in the neighborhood or Kitaooji train station. A stream of uniformed schoolchildren walk past the house every morning and evening. Mama charis (the bicycles with child seats, rode by mothers) are everywhere. Only a couple of the dozens (hundreds?) of nearby food places are on Yelp, so Renata's recommendations were very helpful. Our limited Japanese skills (very happy we learned hiragana and katakana) got a lot of use at the supermarkets and nearby restaurants.
For us, this non-touristy authenticity was absolutely amazing. At the same time, it was very comfortable. There were three supermarkets we regularly visited (one across the street, one on the way from the train station, and one next to the Daitokujimae bus stop). 7-eleven and Lawson were next to this bus stop. The post office is very close (for shipping things, and also with international ATM), as is a drug store. So despite being not having any tourists in the neighborhood, it was quite tourist-friendly.
As you may know, houses in Kyoto are very close to each other and the walls can be thin. When standing in the kitchen, you can hear conversations down the street, and loud conversations can easily be heard outside. So we tried hard to talk and walk quietly ("use your ninja voice" and "ninja steps").
More kids notes: there is a little playground, with a slide, sliding seesaw, and jungle gym next to Daitokuji's wall, two minutes away. There is also a big neighborhood playground on the way from the train station. The Kamo River is just a bit beyond the train station, with stepping stones that the kids loved crossing back and forth. These stepping stones are easier than the ones at the Kamogawa Park, where the Kamo and Takano rivers meet, so even smaller kids can use the crossing past the train station. The river banks are also convenient to let them run as much as they want, and the egrets and herons and other birds are fun to watch. And across the river is the Kyoto Botanical Garden (¥300 per adult), with a nice playground.
Note that Amazon and Netflix will have a different selection of TV shows to watch, and it is likely some of your kids' favorite shows won't be available. So if we had kids who were picky about TV, it might have taken some time to find shows that they wanted to watch. (Note that Amazon and Netflix can both detect and block the big VPN providers; that's just a general observation, not that I would use VPN to get around geographic content restrictions. Crunchyroll had absolutely no shows in Japan, though I have heard that VPN works just fine with Crunchyroll.)
Another kid note is, the two nearby bus stops are a nine minute walk (Daitokuji-mae, pickup for the Raku busses that stop at the big tourist attractions) and a five minute walk (Higashi Takanawacho) away. The Kitaooji train station is a good fifteen minute walk away. We carried tired or sleeping kids from the train/bus stations to the house many, many times, so my advice is: get lots of exercise before you come! (We did take the taxi once, and the driver just typed in the address into the GPS navi, no problem.) A related note is, depending on the route you take, many streets have no dedicated sidewalk, just a painted-off section to the side of the road for pedestrians/bicycles. Kyoto drivers and bicyclists were very good about watching out for us, but it was important to train kids to hold hands and walk next to the houses, and to listen to instructions, since our city back home is absolutely not pedestrian-oriented. That said, this isn't an issue for Kitaooji train station and Daitokuji-mae bus stop, since both Imamiya Doori and Oomiya Doori, respectively, have nice sidewalks.
Stay at the Murasaki House. You'll have a good time.