Under the Wire

The most nail biting day of my life.

Our deadline to firm up our mortgage was 5:59pm. Our mortgage broker did not have an answer as of 4:19pm today. Or at least not a firm answer. At 4:20 we got the call - and that allowed us to sign waivers and officially buy a house!

This house is everything we wanted, other than four outside walls that are ours. It has a great kitchen including a fantastic breakfast bar. My father always says that you need 18 feet from the fridge, stove and sink. We definitely have that. The kitchen is laid out well but due to a dishwasher, we might not have as much cupboard space as we would like. The main concern is about canned goods and such that we currently keep in our back pantry room. This kitchen doesn't have that space so we are talking of making some minor adjustments.

In the front entry we have this arched in area with a pillar. The pillar really is a good feature to so many, but we aren't really huge fans. We would rather take one half of the arched area and put in shelves and cupboard doors so that we can hide our kitchen goodies away. The current owners use an ikea shelf in the living room to hide their food. That doesn't really seem like an option for us so we'll try to find other solutions. In the meantime, we are going to be storing our appliances that we don't use that often in the cold storage room. Yes folks - we have a cold storage room.

There are little facets of this house that we never even imagined we'd be able to have in our first house. Like the cold storage room. Like open concept without being really small. Like a finished rec room and one of my other favourites - a gas fireplace.

I've always wanted a fireplace, but knowing what my parents go through with their wood burning fireplace, I thought it might be too much work. Now that James has played with it and said that all it takes is a push of a button - I feel that I can finally handle it! There is nothing cozier than being around a fire - who cares if you don't get the smoke and the ash in the air while you do it? It's going to make those cold winter nights seem all that more special!

Another interesting feature of the house from the inspection is that we have not only the rough in already in the master, but we have a rough-in for another bathroom in the basement. Putting a bathroom downt here might be a good idea. We've talked of future renovations where we expand the laundry room, move the location of the door and building a two piece bathroom. The rec room really truly is huge - but I think another bathroom on that level would be worth a lot more. After all, we really do want to build equity and get a good return on our investment. They always say - people will pay for good bathrooms and kitchens! Why should we be any different?

Now that we have officially bought the house, my brain is racing with thoughts of what I'd like to do and how I'd like to decorate. Which furniture is going to go where and then to all the things that we still need! With extra rooms as we have, we really need to think about how we are going to fill them. A new dining room suite would be perfect - but then we also need outdoor furniture, a lawn mower, snow shovel, gardening tools and all the other fun things that come along with having a house of your own. It's going to be a really fun journey and I'm really glad we went through all the headaches to get such a wonderful place of our own!