It took us a long time to find a holiday home that satisfied me, my husband and two teenage boys, but I think we actually got it spot on with this house. It was larger than expected, and the garden was also very large with a range of apple trees, blackcurrants, even peach trees (a first for us!).
Downstairs, there is one large kitchen/dining/living room. The cooker, fridge/freezer etc are all modern, clean, and worked efficiently. The absolute stars were the two huge cupboards that contained every conceivable piece of crockery and cooking equipment you could need in a kitchen! I have really missed those since I came home! The sofa and armchairs are not new, but they were comfy enough and as much as we fancied lighting the open fire, with temperatures in the 30s, we just couldn't justify it! Also downstairs is a decent sized double bedroom, a bathroom with bath and separate shower, and a large conservatory (although it was too hot to sit in here).
You can access the first floor from stairs at either end of the house, each leading to a large bedroom, one with twin beds and rooflights, the other with a double bed and windows overlooking the garden. A word of warning - our teenagers both banged their heads on the low beams at various stages of the holiday ... but they only did it once and then learned their lesson! The upstairs bathroom is between the two bedrooms, and accessed via low sliding doors, but has a very smart shower cubicle. Also upstairs is a TV room with large screen tv, satellite box and DVD player.
There are quite a lot of quirky features to the house, which we liked and felt added to our holiday - the main one is the sheer number of bookshelves throughout the house - all of course in French, except for a number of Jamie Oliver cookery books! We did also find a range of Asterix and Tintin books in one of the bedrooms!
Downstairs, there is an original tiled floor, while upstairs has laminated flooring. There is also wifi access throughout the house, and the owner gave us the password when we first arrived. She met us at the house and showed us around when we arrived, then left us to it and we didn't see her for the rest of the holiday. However, we had her phone number so if there had been any problems she was easy to contact - fortunately this wasn't necessary.
This lovely house isn't in the most touristy area, but that is another reason why we chose it. If you visit in the summer you must see the Lumieres de Sens - a son et lumiere show projected onto the front of Sens cathedral at 10.30 pm on Friday and Saturday evenings. It was just beautiful.
We would also recommend the Mobilis train tickets at 16.60 euros each - we caught the train from Veneux Les Sablons to Gare du Lyon in Paris, and the ticket gave us unlimited train travel, metro, bus etc for the day. Journey time is about 45 minutes, and trains were about every 15 minutes during the day, or 1 an hour at night. Another day we caught the train into Paris and then another one out to EuroDisney, again all for just 16.60 euros per day.
On the days that we weren't out and about, the house was cool and peaceful and perfect for relaxing and chilling out. We all think we couldn't have had a better holiday.