Home sweet house

Well, we took the plunge. Every year for five years we've been saying "we'll probably buy a house next spring". We even said that this spring. And then, suddenly, we own a house! These things just creep on you.

Carrie has always kept an eye out on MLS, keeping up on what's worth what in what neighbourhood. One day, she said "what about this one?" It happened to be a house I'd checked out online the previous day. The house wasn't super, but the 0.3-acre lot was the biggest we'd ever seen available in the suburbs. Three days later we had a realtor and mortgage pre-approval and went to see the place. Prior to this, we'd never even gone for mortgage pre-approval, and we'd never been to see a house.

I was in love with the yard, but Carrie didn't love the 70-minute commute to work. Some offers and counteroffers later, we lost the place to another buyer. I was, of course, heart-broken.

We were in buying mode, so we saw ten other places with our realtor. One was a nice house that was a little too big for our needs, and I decided that if I couldn't have a massive yard, I might as well have a massive house.

Then the sale on the first place fell through, so that was back in play. We decided on a halfhearted attempt, so we re-offered our previous final offer. And promptly lost it again.

Back to the other house. After some offers and counteroffers, we decided to pull the trigger. I'm ashamed to admit that I spent less time buying our single largest purchase ever than I would buying a TV or camera. But, as with buying a car, sometimes one just wants to get it over with.

So after 13 years of glorious worry-free renting, we get our new place at the end of July. We'll have triple the space we have now (the new basement is as big as our entire current place), so methinks it will be very sparsely furnished for some time to come. But that's okay, since we expect to be in it for 50 years, plenty of time to fill it.

Our house:


Okay, that was 30 years ago. Here's a fresh one:


The previous owner had it custom-built. (Kind of a rare thing in these parts, sadly; I hate that so many houses have a make and model... seriously!) He gave us construction and other early photos and even some blueprints!

So, um, come on over. I guarantee we'll have space to accommodate you.