Saturday, July 06, 2019

Our House

Uproot our lives and move to Canada? Okay.

Move across the country and live in a small town? Sure.

Decide, as satisfied, life-long renters, to buy a house in that small town (and then do so, and move in, within two months of said decision)? WTF?!?

As Laura wrote in late May:
All our lives -- until now -- renting was the only thing that made sense. The price of real estate in NYC and the Toronto area is nuts. Purchasing a home would have meant tripling (or more) our monthly housing costs, or having a two-hour (each way) commute, or buying a condo. None of those options were appealing. We also didn't want the responsibility of home ownership. We simply didn't care about owning.

But the landscape has changed. We live in a place where homes are affordable, and where the tenancy laws for families with animals make renting very insecure. We have moved too many times in the last 10 years, and as we plan for our older age, this gives us more security.
We got the keys yesterday and will start moving our stuff tomorrow morning. (Actually, I took over some fragile kitchen stuff today. I also timed the drive between the two houses: 2 minutes, 15 seconds. It's good that it's so short, since we'll be making a lot of trips back and forth!)


Kitchen, with a crazy amount of drawers and cupboards. The sellers left a card and a small plant for us.


The deck is out the big window on the right. Laundry room is through the door and after that, the garage.


Wood stove. Not as nice as a fireplace, but ...


Not sure if we'll do anything with these plant beds. The one with the short green plants contains strawberries. Also hoping Cookie will confine her digging to these beds, if uncovered.


Most of the 40-foot deck is completely covered, which is perfect in a place where it tends to rain nearly every day during the winter months and for people who prefer shade to direct sun. Also included: firewood!



The previous owners did a lot of landscaping.


The view from Laura's office window.


Our offices. We actually like the colours. Mine's the green one.


Crawl space connecting main bedroom and my office.


With a Pup Rock poster!


The new home of The Joy of Sox.


In addition to the Pup Rock poster and the firewood, the sellers also left us a piano. (I think I know why: it is insanely heavy. We cannot budge it.)

7 comments:

laura k said...

Not pictured here: rooms to the left and right as you come in the front door. To the left, a room that adjoins the kitchen, which we'll probably use as a dining area. To the right, a VERY large room that will house our bookshelves, a puzzle table, and a futon that is also the guest bed.

These two rooms don't have doors, just entranceways, but we can get a door made for the guest bedroom.

Three bathrooms -- a large ensuite (mine) with half-bath, a large full bath (Allan's), and a small bathroom downstairs near the laundry room, also with a shower.

A HUGE garage.

laura k said...

Apparently I can't tell left from right. I wrote that backwards.

That crawl space is the perfect doggie den!

allan said...

That crawl space is the perfect doggie den!

I thought that, too, but it will probably have boxes of papers I can't bear to throw out instead.

Stephanie said...

Wonderful to see. I wish you all the best in your new home.

Stephanie said...

I think the kitchen is very workable.

The Mound of Sound said...

It's a splendid house and good on you two. Your predecessors obviously cleaned it diligently. It looks new. Now you are rooted to the land. You'll appreciate that wood fire, especially when the power goes out. And it looks as though they left you a couple of cords of seasoned firewood. Could you have imagined any of this two years ago?

allan said...

Could you have imagined any of this two years ago?

We could not have imagined it two months ago!! I'm not kidding. We adopted Cookie on May 9 - and we had not considered anything about buying a house. Only when friends from Ontario came to visit the following week did we start talking about the precariousness of renting in BC.