Home Tour

Hi there, welcome to our home! Now, if you’ll just take off your shoes and put on your Europe Goggles, I’ll give you the grand tour. What are Europe goggles, you ask? Well if you’re viewing from America, you’ll need to understand that homes stateside are generally more spacious and modern than those on the other side of the pond. If you're looking at homes in Scotland with American expectations, they are inevitably going to fall short. Therefore, my American readers, you’ll need the goggles to aid you in appreciating what a gem we’ve found here in Aberdeen.

For instance, while this is a nice bathroom in America…

this is considered a nice bathroom in Scotland.

Now there are without a doubt beautiful homes in Scotland with immaculate finishes and tons of space, but since the homes in Aberdeen are so expensive, we can’t really afford any of those.

So if you’ll kindly put on your Europe goggles and follow me in, I’ll show you into the living room, complete with a gas fireplace and lovely rental furniture.

PS. A fun game to play on this tour is "Where's Sammy?". You can tell by these photos that he's quite the Mamma's boy, following me everywhere I go.

And to the left of the hallway we have what will eventually will be our exercise room/office, but for now is serving as our master bedroom.

Pardon the mess, but I’m convinced that it is just darn impossible not to be messy when you are living out of a suitcase.

Across the hall, you’ll find a large family bathroom, and the only tub in the house. It’s also got heated floors and a rain shower! No Europe goggles needed for this room- this is just plain nice.

So if you walk straight through the entry hallway, you’ll walk through the French doors and into the spacious and functional kitchen.

 I love the layout of this kitchen and I am super excited about tons of cabinet storage and an American sized fridge. And would you look at that, granite countertops!

So, funny story and great example of what I mean by Europe Goggles: When we were looking at houses in Houston, we had so much to choose from that I could get really nit-picky about what I wanted in a home. Black sparkly granite made it onto my deal breaker list (nothing wrong with black granite, but light granite is more my personal style). Flash forward 2 years and I am overlooking the black sparkly aspect and just praising the Lord for a granite surface to work with. Ah, the power of Europe Goggles.

Another great aspect of the kitchen is that it overlooks an open space where we will eventually have our dining table and a small sitting area in front of the TV (which came with the house, by the way. Score!)

But the best part of the kitchen is its view of the back yard and the two sets of French doors leading outside.

It allows me to cook, do laundry, watch TV, read, and write, all while making sure my dogs aren’t trying to find their way under the fence on a bird chase.

That’s it for the downstairs, so if you’ll now watch your step, I’ll show you the upstairs. This floor contains the 3 bedrooms which are currently designated as guest, master, and future nursery.

Guest Room

Master

Future Nursery? For now, it's Sam's room for sunning himself.

There is a small bathroom upstairs which is en-suite to the master, but also has a door opened to the hallway for family access.

The Master bedroom also has a pretty decently sized closet, even without Europe goggles on.

Probably the most annoying thing about the house is that the washing machine is downstairs in the kitchen, but the dryer is upstairs in the utility closet. Of course, we’re so thankful to have an actual American style dryer that you won’t catch me complaining about that fact.

And of course, my absolute favorite part of the house is the back garden.

We don't have a garage, but having this shed is nice for storage.

I love watching the pups get to sniff and explore. They love this space, and even though it's smaller than some of the yards we saw in the suburbs, it's perfectly adequate for them to stretch their legs in between their daily walks.

So that completes the grand tour. Come back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about our experience with buying a car in Scotland.