Sounds like a house spider (Tegenaria gigantea): I remember seeing a few in my old house in the middle of the province in the Netherlands. They are indeed quite big and will scare the living daylights out of many people. Google Images has quite a few nice pictures. They have fangs, but are not poisonous to humans. However, be careful if you live in the northwest of the US: there T. agrestis, the hobo spider, is much more common, and their bites are much more unpleasant, sometimes even leading to necrosis :-o!
I wouldn't worry about spider legs on your face, although there is a statistic which says that on average, people eat three spiders a year in their sleep because the hapless arachnids chose to crawl over a pillow, or came too close to people's faces while dangling from a silk strand.
Let's just say you'll know what is going on if you wake to faint tickling sensations on your face :-D .
