House hunting...

We found our house! It was my MISSION to get a house as soon as we got to England. Especially with a tiny one room, shower only $120/night hotel room! Luckily, the Air Force paid for the room but it was so expensive to eat out for every meal in Lincoln. Well, okay, they did have free breakfast- and for some reason this became Marc's obsession! Every morning he would wake up and jostle every one awake so that we wouldn't sleep through the free breakfast! Croissants were divine, but I'm not so sure about baked beans in the AM. They put them on toast here. I guess it gives you a good source of fiber aka some early morning gas! HAHA!

I digress... Anyways- the house. I found it online before we left an just knew "this is the one!" The house that Marc looked at one month before we arrived was letted out the day before we got there. Marc drove me to the house to see it and as I was looking in the window I saw legs. AH! Oh no! How embarrassing! I run to the car, about to get in on the wrong side, because that is the passengers side in America when the garage door opens. This bleach blonde British woman- with boobs so big you qould gasp, and a face so messed up you wonder why she spent money on her boobs- is standing there, staring at me with a "who the heck are you," look on her face. I am the CRAZY American who apparently is stalking your new house and can't figure out which side of the car to get into. Long story short, she signed the let- aka lease for the house the day before! So, we decided to take a drive to Waddington to see MY house, the one that I wanted.


When you come to visit, you'll see that hedges are like fences here. So, they are tall and make it hard to see past them. Marc and I drove up and down the 1/2 mile stretch of Station Road, our new street, for 45 minutes trying to find the house! Finally, I spotted the green gables. Random. I know. So... we find the house, which is situated right on the outside of the tiny village of Waddington. It's tiny! Like blink and you miss it! 


We drive up and are so excited to look around. The land is beautiful! A pasture with cows in it is behind the house. There are manicured pathways EVERYWHERE! A huge garden with zucchini, cabbage, grapes and tomatoes. There's a lot of work to do in it, which makes me wish my green thumb friend Beccy lived close by! And apple trees. Apple trees!!! Oh! I am so excited to bake with all these apples.


The blinds were down so I couldn't really look in the windows and Tripp, being Tripp decided to try and open the front door. When he did, a Big hairy old man answered the door. With. His. Shirt. OFF! UGH! What the heck!? Is this house let too??? And who is the man at the door? Apparently, he was the previous letter that was cleaning the house before they moved out. He invited us in and said we could look around. Oh, and he had a dog, an old SMELLY black spaniel. When I walked in, all I could smell was musty, nasty dog. I mean NASTY. I couldn't take it, my beautiful idea of this house is ruined. RUINED! It was large, very large for England and old, Victorian era. The color scheme, not so much my taste- more my grandmothers. But the CURTAINS... OH The curtains. Beautiful, heavy, custom drapes! And roman shades on every window. I still; however, couldn't get over the dog smell. So we left. I was sad. Marc was confused, apparently, he didn't smell what I did and he thought we were done with "shopping."


You see, Marc hates to shop. He's a one-stop-shop kind of guy. And house-hunting is shopping to him. He was DONE and couldn't figure out why I needed to see other properties before I made up my mind.




We decided to see a few more properties the next day and they can be summed up as:


Out in the boonies


Dwarf size


Pint Sized


TINY


Somehow, the smelly Victorian house started to look and smell better in my head. We called Louise, the letting agent for a viewing that day. She showed up and let us look again and to my surprise, the house was perfect for us! Smelly dog gone! We were done. I was DONE! We agreed to sign the let and were ready to call the house home!


There are a lot of projects soon to come!

The secret gate to the road

Tripp exploring. He's going to have so much fun playing pretend on the property!

GRAPES!!!

Pathway to the garden

An outbuilding. It has spiderwebs everywhere. Creeps me out. I'll stay away!

 

The entry

The pink living room. The wall paper will be changed :)

Beautiful fireplace in the living room

I love these curtains!

The study. It also has a bookshelf and fireplace.

The dining room.

The playroom and wardrobe room.

The kitchen.

I'm so excited to have a window over the sink!

A fun passageway to side yard.

Front door. We already made a mess!

AGA an oil burning stove/oven that stays hot all day.

Yes... these are the keys and there is a different one for every door.

Tripp picked this room because it was blue.

The guest room

Master bedroom. I'll take opinions on what to do with the walls!

I think I'll design the color scheme around this....

Light switch!

Upstairs balcony

The previous owners had a pet pheasant. There he is.

Hallway to bathroom

Vida's room.

Bathroom! LOVE the tub!

So many little details in the house!

The drive way up to the house

Home sweet home!

Eating apples off the apple tree.

Steps to the front yard.