House Quirks

As with any new house, it doesn't take long before you discover the quirks. We certainly love our house here; but we admit, there are a few things about the house that we find ourselves saying, "We have to deal with _________ for THREE YEARS?!"

First of all, with the exception of the kitchen sink, all of the sinks in our home have double faucets. Ethan and I are just bewildered at this. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to have double faucets over single ones? When we wash our hands, it's usually a race to finish before the hot water gets scalding hot. This also is an issue when I wash my face. I often have to finish rinsing by filling my hands halfway with freezing, and topping it off with scalding to get a nice warm. Also, there are no aerators in any of the faucets. So when you turn on the water, you get a lot of water! This actually comes in handy when we're filling the Brita filter or the kids' bath... it fills fast!

Issue number two would have to be the dishwasher. I was so excited to arrive at our home after being in the dishwasher-less apartment last month. That is, until I ran my first load of dishes. Let's just say that the dishes in that first load came out a little less dirty than they went in. Now, some of you may not know this about me, but I hate rinsing dishes before they go in the dishwasher. I don't see the point! Why go through the trouble and waste all that water when you have a dishwasher that does it all for you?! I'm sure that I have judged more than one of my friends or family members for being "rinsers" (must be said as Seinfeld would say "Newman!") Well, as with many things in life, I find that I am doing things that I have judged others about. I am officially now a "rinser." I have no choice. If there is a crumb or a spot if oil or whatever left on a plate when it goes into the dishwasher, it will still be there when it comes out of the dishwasher. So, I am now the pre-cleaning cycle for our dishwasher.

As you may have noticed in the picture above, the dishwasher is also very small. That may very well be a trend among British appliances, and our refrigerator is no exception. We were able to borrow this fridge from base, and are lucky to have gotten a bigger European model, opposed to a smaller British one. Now, I am the type of person who only likes to food shop once a week. I loved shopping at BJs and buying in bulk. I would come home with 3-4 gallons of milk each week, and it was no big deal. Well, first of all, they don't even sell the milk in gallon containers here... only 1/2 gallons. I can fit four half-gallons of milk in this fridge, but that of course, means I need to buy milk more than once a week. There is ample room in the freezer, which is nice, and there is also a standing freezer out in the garage that I haven't even opened yet. But, I think it would be nice if we could get a second fridge here at some point. We'll see. Until then, I will learn to become a fridge juggler... new food can only go in, if something else comes out.

Here is a picture of our stove, or "cooker" as it's called here. It looks so pretty and handy, doesn't it? Well, we are still learning how to cook with it. Issue number one is the degrees for the oven are in Celsius. Fortunately, I have an oven thermometer that has both Fahrenheit and Celsius, so that's okay. Issue number two is that it is electric and slow to warm up. I find myself setting the stove to the hottest setting to warm it up faster, only to burn the grilled cheese sandwich for the 20th time! Issue number three is the size of the ovens. You can see four doors in the picture. The top left is supposed to be a broiler. It doesn't work, but that's okay... I just use it for storage. The bottom left is an oven, which isn't quite deep enough to fit a sheet pan. The top right is a convection oven, which is smaller than the other oven, but overall, works well. And, the bottom right is a drawer for more storage. I think we're getting used to it, but I do miss my gas stove and oven back home.


Here are a few other quirks:

• There is no dryer vent in the house, so the dryer has to be out in the garage.
• There are no towel racks, toilet paper holders, medicine cabinets, or bathroom storage of any kind (even the sinks are all pedestal-style with no cabinets). I think we'll have to ask our landlord if we can at least put up towel racks and t.p. holders.
  
• The rugs. I mentioned this before. They're a weird, rattan-style of carpet, that look like a fine basket-weave. I think we're getting used to them, but I would have no idea how to clean them if say, a kid threw-up on them (which we all know is bound to happen at some point).
  

Please do not interpret this blog as a complaining-fest on my behalf. I can truly say that I am adapting to all of the quirks that this house has to offer... many of them I hardly think about any more. And we are grateful for this house. It is pretty new (built in 2000), and has a lot of space and storage. So, "We have to live in this house for THREE YEARS?!" Yup... we'll be just fine.