Et, enfin, Voila.

See the blue crosshairs? That's Montcaret. It's two hours from the sea, and 2 miles from the Dordogne river. It's equidistant from Ste. Foy, which has one of the best markets in France and is a very picture-postcard town; and Castillon, which is a very charming and bustling little town in its own right. Montcaret is also equidistant from Bordeaux, which is a massive city with everything; and Bergerac, which hosts Ryanair flights to and from London for $1. Montcaret also lies close to Vélines, which has its own market on Wednesday; and Gensac, which is very charming and functional as well; and Pessac, which is a picturesque river village. It's also not so far from St. Emilion, which is a tourist zoo, but which makes some of the world's finest wine. Montcaret has a train station, and two little food shops, a public library and a school, some antique stores and a pub, a dairy, and who knows what else we may discover there...

Because this morning we made an offer, and this afternoon it was accepted, and early next week we will sign, and soon afterwards we'll be living there.

It's our House #32, if oyu haven't guessed that. You can read about our initial visit here. We met there this morning with Steve and the current owners to have another look. Gorgeous Saturday. Easy feeling. We had coffee on the verandah. Here's a tiny 360° of the verandah, click it for a bigger copy, if you wish:

In this picture you can see our estate agent Steve, and behind him some fruit trees, under one of which is the well. Sorry to cut the direct outward view in half; had to cut it somewhere. What you can't see in this image, though, is the height of the roof above you on this giant porch. It's really a tremendous sense of space.

So we met, and we talked for a while, and then the lady of the house, who actually seems very cool, brought out the cadastral plan and explained what we'd be buying.

So let's see if we can make some sense of it. Lot 535 is the house itself. To the north (which is leftwards on this map) lie lots 533 and 534, both woods. 1423 across the road is the little orchard with the well. Turns out that there was once a building there, which appears on the map, and so we'd have the right to build on it again someday should we wish. To the south is lot 536, wherein sits the pool and a sheet of grass. And then there is, bizarrely enough, 531, 712, 703 and 528, which are little slivers and chunks of woodland, also attached to the ownership of this property. The rationale behind that came from the days when wood was the primary fuel. Everyone needed a chopping zone. The upshot of it nowadays, of course, is that it's nigh impossible to build on all that slivered land, because so many separate ownerships come into play. All good. It ay appear that a major motorway crosses our land, but if you notice the word "chemin" on there... chemin means path in French.

Then Steve and I walked around and talked about what would be possible in terms of rehab and reconfiguration. His builder's eye was very smart, and he came up with some good ideas as well as helping me refine the ideas I was having. There's a lot of detail in various projects we discussed, but the long and short of it is that everything should be very achievable within our budget.

Also, we took some more pictures, to help clarify some of the pictures from the original visit. Here's the stairway going downstairs:

And here's the kitchen, which hadn't been shown (and is due for demolition in our master plan):

Also, here's Kofi's future pied a terre, which used to be the village laundry-basin:

And this is a picture of the north side of the house, between the house and the forest:

And finally, the south garden, looking from the verandah. You can see the pool beyond the big tree:

Here's the plan of the top floor, not including the attic of course.

I'll discuss what changes we want to make in a future entry. But now I'll also describe the floor below. The bottom floor is actually bigger, and supports the majority of the verandah. So underneath the front left bedroom and the living room there are two bedrooms, and there's another under the verandah on the same side. A suite of three incredibly bright south-facing rooms with doors onto the garden, and a bathroom. And also a kitchen in need of repair. The rest of the entire lower floor is pretty much unfinished space, including a garage, but also lots of extra space just for fun. And I love that kind of fun.

This was also Kepler's first time seeing the house. And he loved it. Loved it. Ran all over the place, swung on the verandah swing, checked out the gardens, played happily with blocks on the verandah. Loved it. Good sign.

If you have a broadband connection, click here to see a short 7 meg movie of part of the inside of the house.

Throughout our visit, Sarah and I both felt the same yes-ness that we had on our original viewing. We kept asking each other, "do you want this house?" The answer was always yes. We were sure we were going to make an offer on it, but since we had an appointment to see one final house on Monday, we were waiting to do so. Then the lady of the house told Steve something interesting: the village's retired doctor was also interested in the house. His wife, apparently, loves it. They'd visited twice as well, once with an architect. Ooooo. Competition.

Now, I'm not saying that our next move was a response to this fact, because we already knew we wanted the house. But we decided then and there to make an offer on it. We could still see the house on Monday, after all, and they might not even accept the offer.

"Steve," I said, "I've been waiting to say this for months, and I've never said this before, but: 'We want this house.'" And we talked numbers for a bit, and we thanked everyone, and we left, leaving Steve behind us to discuss the other side of things with them.

Actually, I think the village doctor worked for us in a strange way, becuase Steve hadn't known about him, ie the doctor wasn't going through Steve's agency. If Steve wanted to see any money out of this place, he had to act as our agent, not the vendor's, making sure we got a deal we could accept. Further, we made sure Steve knew that we wanted to do a pile of work to the place, and that every euro we spent on the house was a euro we wouldn't have for construction and rehab. Now, based on prior conversations, Steve stands personally to make a greater percentage overseeing work than on selling the land in the first place. He has to share his cut of the sale with his agency, and then pay tax on it; the building phase is pure gravy. That's how we like to make a deal.

And we went to lunch. Kepler cried his eyes out to leave, but we did our best to reassure him that if he really liked this house that much, we'd do our best to get it for him.

On our way to eat, we checked out Montcaret yet again. Every time I see it, I like it more. The shops seemed better than I had expected, the buildings nicer. And we saw a poster for the town fair, which had passed a few weeks ago. But at least they have one. That's some kind of community spirit at least.

Lunch was a suspenseful time. Were we in a bidding war with the village doctor? Did the village doctor really even exist? How high would we go if he did? Should we call Steve if we don't hear from him? If so, when, and what tack should we pursue? How bummed would we be if we didn't get the place? But it was also a very nice lunch, in the neighboring village of Pessac sur Dordogne, dining on a terrace overlooking the river, watching a man fish for trout, watching the water go by. And always the question: are we gonna get this house? We wanted it, and badly now. We want this house. Are we gonna get it?

The answer came on our drive home. And it was Yes. Steve had talked to them, and cut a deal, and we were going to shell out 5000 more than our original offer, and 10,000 less than we told him we were willing to pay. The house was being officially taken off the market. It was ours.

We're buying a house. I can still barely believe it.

So here's what happens next: by law, they have to test for asbestos, termites and lead before we can sign any contract on it. So we'll sign early next week. Then they prepare a bunch of paperwork confirming our signatures, and give us official notice in writing that we have by law seven days cooling-off to change our minds and pull out. After that, the papers go to the notaire, along with our 10% down payment. His job is to research the property for debt, flooding, nearby nuclear plant proposals, anything. He makes sure that we're buying exactly what piece of land we think we're buying. He's working for us, his fee is 1% of the sale, and it takes him a month to do his work. Then, and this is so French, the property gets offered to the local agricultural unions. If the farmers want to buy it at the same price, they have the right. Of course this never happens; farmland is dramatically cheaper by area than houseland. But this takes two months of decision-making anyway.

So if everything goes well, if the notaire doesn't turn up anything evil, if the farmers don't want it, we come back to town, and with our 90% balance in hand, sign the final papers. And the place is ours. If we sign early next week, we're in the place mid-September.

Sweet. I'm so psyched. We cancelled our Monday appointment, and soon, we're heading north and west to visit our families. It's been a long haul. And we've finally found our house.

Yippee!