We're In!!!

So that's it. We've handed over the keys to our rental condo and officially live in our first home.

Everything went really smoothly, thanks to some amazing friends and family who pitched in. The entire move took about 4 hours, including some unpacking and setting up. Not bad eh?

The house is perfect. Sure, there are some things to fix and some light fixtures to buy, but it almost feels like home already!

We don't have internet yet so pictures will have to wait, but I just wanted to send a quick update to blog-land!
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

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 :-)

To those I have loved before...

So with just 2 days left, I thought I would take some time to pay my respects to the houses that we bid on, and subsequently lost, prior to buying our home.

We'll start with house number 1.  House number 1 was within the first 8 or 10 houses that we saw. It was in the Danforth/Riverdale neighbourhood and was a beautifully renovated flip.

3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (yes, that's right, FOUR bathrooms), finished basement. It was gorgeous and we loved her from the start.

So here's to house number 1. We lost her by 5K.  Best 5K ever :-)

Here is the living room:

The main floor powder room:

The dining room/kitchen view:

The GORGEOUS kitchen:

Le sigh. And we lost her.  She sure was pretty.  Hubs and I saw her during the week before the open house, and then like any good house hunters enamoured with a pretty renovated house, we stalked her. We sat in the car and watched couple after couple go in. It's all part of the process, right?

Next up, house number 2. The house that made us fall in love with our street/neighbourhood.

T-2 Days!!

Gulp.

We are going tomorrow to sign the papers, so that on Friday we just have to pick up the keys!! I am starting to freak out!!

We've set up everything with gas and hydro, and we've received our final bill from the lawyer (holy crap!).

So that's it. Pay the money. Get a house.

A house. AAAAHHHHH!

Our First Trip to...

Yep! We did it! We went today and got the following as our inaugural purchasing trip to the HD :-)

- tinted our find-of-the-century paint to become "Silver Fox" for our living room/dining room

- since there was a Behr sale, we had them match our Farrow & Ball "Charleston Gray" for our bedroom (hope we bought enough!)

- one can of tinted primer for the bedroom, since it is a darker gray

- rollers, edging brush, painters tape and garbage bags.

So fun!! We have also made tonnes of progress with the packing. Just the kitchen and some of our clothes left to go (I think). Have to live in boxes for another week but that is what happens when you move while working I suppose!

I'm super pumped about the paint - I can't wait to get started!!!!

Happy Labour Day weekend everyone!

Paint Deal!

So hubs and I have already put some thought into our paint colours (I posted about them last month I think) and using my deal finding skills, I came across a steal!

I found a person selling gallons of Benjamin Moore "Abalone" for next to nothing! Turns out they were renovating and bought a bunch of this paint and didn't end up loving it. So lucky me, we picked up 5.5 gallons of it for 50 bucks! That is the price of one gallon usually! Sweet!

We are actually going back to pick up some more, since I found out that we can just get more tint added to turn it into another colour on the same paint chip :-)

Ohhh I love saving money in unexpected ways!!

T-9 Days!

In 9 days - we'll be getting the keys to our new home!! Yay!! Days have seemed to drag by recently but I have a feeling we'll be there in no time!

We got a good chunk of our place packed last weekend but this weekend will be the big push.

I've been home two days this week with an allergic reaction to something (I can't figure it out). Go figure the worst part has been my hands, so I couldn't even pack with my time off!!

Anyways - not much to post but wanted to document my excitement!!