Today was the big day--we signed a lease for a house in Dunmore East! A yearlong lease!! So we are now more or less committed to being in Ireland for a year. (No comments from those who know us well please.) Before we signed, we went back to Dunmore East to check the house out again. It was another sunny day, cold but beautiful. And Dunmore East was just as lovely as before:
We had met the estate agent who manages the property, and will be our main contact, in Waterford first. Brian is the real estate equivalent to Dave, our car guy. Talks a mile a minute, half of which we can't quite catch, but is kindness itself. He wanted to know all about us, but in the kind of way that your new next door neighbors (Hi Jerry, Jeanie & Gary) want to get to know you. And, like Dave, he didn't seem overly bothered by small details like when exactly we would move in. Although the lease payments start on January 17th, he is giving us the key this Sunday. Because we "might want to move a few things in early." And he drove all the way out to Dunmore East to go over the house with us. It's only a 15-minute drive you say, what was the big deal about that? Please refer back to my blog on N roads for the answer to that.
The house doesn't look fancy from the outside:
But inside it is great. The sitting room has a large picture window that looks out to the harbour, as does the front bedroom upstairs:
And there are two bathrooms upstairs and a powder room downstairs. A "solid fuel" fireplace. Coal has made a comeback in the UK and Ireland now that there is a smokeless coal and it burns longer than wood. Brian was so very Irish: "Ah, you'll light the fire and that will warm up the sitting room so that you won't really need to have the central heating on. Because you'll probably spend most of your time in the sitting room, what's the point of warming the rest of the house?"
Still, mindful of our experience with our current digs, we verified with Brian that all the furniture we saw was staying, that the central heating WOULD work if we did choose to use it (and we will) and that the appliances work. I looked into every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen, inventorying what was there. It is well equipped with pots, pans, casserole dishes, cutlery, plates, cups, etc., etc. Typical Ireland, there isn't a clothes dryer (although there is a washing machine) but there is a dishwasher. No dryer but a dishwasher? Ah well, put the drying rack in front of the fire, and clothes will dry grand. And there is a microwave! Yay!! All in all, we are looking forward to moving in. We are currently discussing getting a small freezer though as the fridge is the usual under the counter size that might fit a package of ground beef and a small bag of frozen peas into the freezer part.
So that was our day today. Breakfast as usual in Carlow where the waitress knows us so well that she doesn't offer us coffee or tea anymore and she always lights the fire for us (open fire which would probably be a Health & Safety issue in the U.S. and Canada.) Then the hour's drive to Waterford, signed the lease, another 20 minutes to Dunmore East, checked out the house and had a late lunch at The Strand Inn which is just above the beach in the first photo above. Seafood chowder for me of course and beef burger for Richard. The food wasn't as good as at The Haven but it is closed until February for staff holidays. We keep telling each other that once we have moved we will stop eating out so much. Mmmm...
I was telling Mitzi about Dunmore East and promising her that she WILL like running on the beach. I don't expect her to go splashing into the surf as I saw the labs and spaniels doing today of course. But you never know, she loves running through the wet grass so she may surprise us.
We had met the estate agent who manages the property, and will be our main contact, in Waterford first. Brian is the real estate equivalent to Dave, our car guy. Talks a mile a minute, half of which we can't quite catch, but is kindness itself. He wanted to know all about us, but in the kind of way that your new next door neighbors (Hi Jerry, Jeanie & Gary) want to get to know you. And, like Dave, he didn't seem overly bothered by small details like when exactly we would move in. Although the lease payments start on January 17th, he is giving us the key this Sunday. Because we "might want to move a few things in early." And he drove all the way out to Dunmore East to go over the house with us. It's only a 15-minute drive you say, what was the big deal about that? Please refer back to my blog on N roads for the answer to that.
The house doesn't look fancy from the outside:
But inside it is great. The sitting room has a large picture window that looks out to the harbour, as does the front bedroom upstairs:
And there are two bathrooms upstairs and a powder room downstairs. A "solid fuel" fireplace. Coal has made a comeback in the UK and Ireland now that there is a smokeless coal and it burns longer than wood. Brian was so very Irish: "Ah, you'll light the fire and that will warm up the sitting room so that you won't really need to have the central heating on. Because you'll probably spend most of your time in the sitting room, what's the point of warming the rest of the house?"
Still, mindful of our experience with our current digs, we verified with Brian that all the furniture we saw was staying, that the central heating WOULD work if we did choose to use it (and we will) and that the appliances work. I looked into every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen, inventorying what was there. It is well equipped with pots, pans, casserole dishes, cutlery, plates, cups, etc., etc. Typical Ireland, there isn't a clothes dryer (although there is a washing machine) but there is a dishwasher. No dryer but a dishwasher? Ah well, put the drying rack in front of the fire, and clothes will dry grand. And there is a microwave! Yay!! All in all, we are looking forward to moving in. We are currently discussing getting a small freezer though as the fridge is the usual under the counter size that might fit a package of ground beef and a small bag of frozen peas into the freezer part.
So that was our day today. Breakfast as usual in Carlow where the waitress knows us so well that she doesn't offer us coffee or tea anymore and she always lights the fire for us (open fire which would probably be a Health & Safety issue in the U.S. and Canada.) Then the hour's drive to Waterford, signed the lease, another 20 minutes to Dunmore East, checked out the house and had a late lunch at The Strand Inn which is just above the beach in the first photo above. Seafood chowder for me of course and beef burger for Richard. The food wasn't as good as at The Haven but it is closed until February for staff holidays. We keep telling each other that once we have moved we will stop eating out so much. Mmmm...
I was telling Mitzi about Dunmore East and promising her that she WILL like running on the beach. I don't expect her to go splashing into the surf as I saw the labs and spaniels doing today of course. But you never know, she loves running through the wet grass so she may surprise us.
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