To those I have loved before...part II

So good bye house #1.  You were sleek and pretty, but your basement kind of sucked, and there wasn't really much of a backyard. You were almost too perfect. Too modern. No matter how much hubs and I try, we aren't sleek or modern. We are more of a mix!

So then we focused in on our neighbourhood (Cabbagetown).  We found a house that had been on the market for ages, was just outside of the 'prime' area and we thought we might get it for a steal!!

House #2 was a rowhouse.  She was so pretty, even though she had ugly neighbours. 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 4000 square feet! Yes, you heard me. 4K.  This house was totally out of our league, but because it had been on the market so long (over the winter), and the owner had been relocated by work (actual true story), we actually considered it.  This was the time of the 'buyer's market' where people were actually going in well under asking and having a shot.

We went in 50K under. We lost. Ha. No big surprise.  After months of sitting on the market, all of a sudden there was a bidding war.

Wait till you see how pretty she was...

Here was the formal living room:

And here is the dining room:

Kitchen:

Main bathroom (can't see the amazing soaker tub):

And here is the master bedroom. All of the bedrooms were this big. Plus a big living room.

I actualy really love the colour on the master bedroom walls.  Hmm...

Anyways - we totally stretched ourselves to put an offer on this house. Could we have done it? Yes, but it would have been tough.  But we felt like it was such a steal for the size/location that it would have paid off eventually.

The house was so massive I don't know if we could have afforded to heat it though!

In retrospect, while the house was insanely amazing, the rooming house across the street wasn't. Or the sketchy rental 2 houses down that has a porch constantly filled with kids drinking and smoking and playing guitar.

Once we lost on this house, we knew what kind of style we wanted.  We walked by it many times, thinking about how much we loved it.  We walked by, and as we walked up the street to the next block, we saw a bunch of other similar style houses on a gorgeous tree lined street. We kept saying "we need a house on this part of the street!"

And the rest is history. We ended up with a similar styled house on the best block of a street we knew we loved. And we can afford to heat it :-)