England House - The Good Enough Edition

After living here for almost a year (!) I finally decided to post pics of our house! I had people who wanted to see how we lived, but we had so many ideas of what we wanted to do with the house and I am finally realizing - good enough is good enough. When we rented in the US, the walls were always newly painted and walls patched...well over here things are different, we had holes and dirty paint but we decided we would rather go sight seeing than repaint the inside of a house we do not own. Also I have never loved to decorate, and with prices and new stores I have found a few things I like, but again would rather spend the cash traveling than decorating a house we will be leaving soon. It is starting to feel like home though and we have loved our time together as a family here.

When we went with the realtor (you can't just look up craigslist, you have to go through a real estate agent) there was only one place that fit our price range, number of rooms and proximity to town. It made the decision easy and we were so glad there was at least one to choose from since we only had that one day to locate a house! It has actually been great for what we need right now.

Entrance Gate

Front Door (cute model not included)

Mud Room

Quite a few homes have these, they are not heated or insulated but kind of break up the house from the outside and give you a place to leave your wet/cold clothes and shoes. It is really popular to not wear shoes in homes (we do, not my carpet) but I have to check myself when I go out bc I have worn weird socks to more than one place.

Mud Room (looking back at the door)

Washroom

One of our lifelong dreams is to have two bathrooms, at least in this house we do have two toilets! The owner added this tiny room off the mudroom as an addition. If you noticed, the exhaust from the dryer is just hung on the wall - the owner told us to turn on the fan in the room when we turn on the dryer. We were lucky there was even a dryer! Most houses don't have them or if they do they are condensers and don't work very well. I have been told that most people just line dry, what I haven't gotten is a clear answer on is how you dry your clothes when it is consistently raining (although we do hear most people don't do laundry as often as Americans). The washer and dryer fit about half of what I could do in the states.

You can also see my stash of water, the water here is extremely hard - as in forms-rock-formations-on-my-sink hard. I am generally not picky about my water but after trying to suck it up for a month I gave in and we drink bottled water - I just couldn't handle a dry feeling in my mouth after a glass of water! I did draw the line when a hairdresser suggested washing my hair in bottled water, but it is shocking how it changes the texture. We also found cleaning agents that help with the buildup when our American ones were not cutting it.

Kitchen

Kitchen

We totally scored on our kitchen - the landlord had not been planning on moving and had just upgraded it for herself a few months before we moved in. Using a gas stove is divine. I have a family rule that we always upgrade when we move (not much, just never downgrade!) but I have a feeling I am going to have to give up my stove requirements when we move back to CA. I am now violently opposed to white tile and lacquered cupboards with kids, they are impossible to keep clean!

Kitchen

This would be our fridge and freezer, the top one is the fridge (you can't tell, but doesn't go up to the top) it is a lot smaller than the US and about half as deep, the freezer has 3 small drawers. It has taken me awhile to adjust our shopping and eating to less storage. Things really do go bad faster here, in some ways you can work around it but in others it just isn't as convenient (think hamburger buns lasting 2 days). Luckily we like walking into town so we do a big shop once a week and then grab small things while we are out or make things from scratch. I do know girls that shop almost every day, I found that to be a bit expensive! I do think the breadbox is cute though.

Kitchen

While white tile may not be kid friendly, having a door on the kitchen is awesome. Also the oven has a gas lock on it (I don't know if every one has this) but it is great knowing we aren't going to blow up if she gets to it. Oh, and there is a freezer in the corner - when I realized we would be having a baby over here I broke down and bought one so I can prep freezer meals and store more than one bag of frozen chicken and a bag of strawberries.

Front Room

I think I have already posted about this room - it is large, which is rare out here, and it has saved our sanity with it being rainy outside so often. Also the windows are great to let in at least some light even on a gloomy day.

Front Room

Huge radiators everywhere, I love them in the winter time.

Front Room - Hadley's Corner

Front Hallway

I will do the upstairs in another post, this one has already lasted too long! And no, we have no idea why there is an elaborate curtain rod above the entrance.