The Auction

Although I'd seen the cottage advertised and thought it was cute- we hadn't looked at it or seriously thought about it.

I first viewed it  a week before the auction..

you know when you walk into somewhere and it just feels like home? That was how it was when I walked into the front yard.

A beautiful old poinciana greeted me, shading the whole front of the property. It had some cacti growing on the trunk  and some stag horns further up. It was exactly the same as walking into my parents home- where I grew up. It was a 'sign'... I wanted this before I even got inside.

We both went back to view it a few days later and fell in love...

A week later we had decided to bid at the auction- the problem was we all had stuff on that day. Originally we were going to get someone else to bid for us, but at the last minute I decided to suck it up and have a go myself. (I'd never been to an auction before, let alone bid at one)

The night before, over a couple of vino's, I practiced bidding... hilarious! We went through all the scenarios and how to 'play' the game, but we had a limit that we didn't really think would get it.

The next morning we had to get our own house ready for an open home, T was off to help organise Relay For Life and I had a wedding to shoot. As I was leaving (very well dressed in my wedding gear) our agent came to put up the open home signs.

'You can't go to an auction looking like that!' he told me... 'You look like you've got too much money!'

There was nothing I could do about it- after the auction, I was off to the wedding...

It turns out that I can bid at an auction- after the comments I got afterwards- I'm thinking that maybe I should learn how to play poker... really I was just channeling those people you see on the reality TV home shows...

We managed to buy the cottage and I'm pretty sure that it's not often the owner and buyer are hugging and crying afterwards!

and the clothes... they turned out to be a blessing... apparently some people stopped bidding as they thought I had 'buckets of money'... if only they knew the truth!!!!

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The Back Story...

Hindsight is a wonderful thing... I am so glad that we now own the cottage that we do and it is a far better choice, but..
it wasn't initially our first choice...
Many many months ago we 'thought' we had secured another cottage, in a rural setting, 23 acres, great views, a creek and the most enormous man cave you have ever seen (way bigger than the house)!
We signed the contract, gave our deposit to our solicitor and the exchange was to take place the following morning first thing.
The next afternoon we got a phone call from our solicitor (who had a phone call from the sellers solicitor) to tell us that an exchange had taken place, but not with us!!
We were devastated, and angry... how could we not know? Why didn't we have the opportunity to negotiate? I felt and still feel that there were some very unethical practices involved in the situation.

The other slight issue we had was the house full of beautiful old windows and french doors that I had bought already... at a bargain price... which now mean that our garage is NOT used for cars! Oooops!

Collector or Hoarder???

and of course the answer is a collector... (unless you're asking my hubby)

Take this stunning dining table I bought, from my dear friends Helene & Johnny (Dirty Old Town)... to match the teapot of course...

now I have to collect chairs & a bench seat (or materials to make one) to match

and probably some teacups

and linen...

oh wait, better check the cupboards, I think there might be some already here- hehe

Suze
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