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Our Home - Casa FiestaOn February 29th 2004 my girlfriend Jo proposed to me, so I decided I better get responsible and find us a home to settle down. Having become disillusioned with life in the UK we had already talked about emigrating from the UK, so we decided to look at other countries where we could live and work without immigration issues, where the lifestyle was more laid back, where the weather was more pleasant, but still close enough for us to visit our friends and family in the UK, and for them to come and visit us. We decided that Spain met most of our requirements and went house hunting in mid March. We decided not to live on the coast, there are just too many Brits already living there! Plus the prices are ludicrous for what you get in terms of living space. The way everyone is living on top of one another the only thing you get better than the UK is sunshine. Our first choice of house fell through when the seller pulled out, but on our second attempt we found a nice Andalusian style Farmhouse which only needs a small amount of work done to meet our needs. We live about 65k inland from Alicante, in a small town called Caudete. We live with the Spanish, and try to live their lifestyle and have made many Spanish friends since moving here. Our house was built in 1999, and is just under 400 square metres (just over 4000 square feet), on a plot of land of 10,000 square metres (2.5 acres). When we moved here it was a small working farm with a mixture of paddocks and olive orchards with horses, chickens, turkeys, geese and dogs sharing the grounds. Having no farming skills we let the previous owners sell off the livestock and just retained the 100 olive trees. This gives us a plentiful supply of pure virgin olive oil for our needs. When we bought the house it had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a lounge/kitchen/diner, a second kitchen, a workshop, a wine cellar, car port, garage and stables. We converted the workshop into a laundry and 4th bedroom, and annexed the carport and turned it into an en-suite bathroom for the 4th bedroom. We converted the garage into a self contained "Casica" (local Spanish for small house) with a large bedroom, en-suite bathroom, Lounge and kitchen. Next we built an outdoor kitchen/BBQ with an attached bathroom, for people using the swimming pool (when its built). The wine cellar is huge, about 75 square meters, so we have turned it into a play room/emergency bedroom. Our plans are to convert the stables into a huge master bedroom with walk in wardrobes/dressing room and a luxury bathroom with Jacuzzi. The Paddocks at the back of the house have been cleared and are now flower beds, over the winter of 2006 we will construct a large ornamental pond and gravel the rest to look like a formal Japanese garden. The Kennels and fowl houses have been removed and the area is going to be turned into a large terrace and finished with a swimming pool. These are a few pictures we have taken since we first saw the house. I will keep adding more as the project progresses. Click on the pictures to see a larger version. Set 1. March 2004 on our first visit to the house.
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