Obsessions

I talk a lot on my blog about certain items that I can't seem to get enough of - house hunting, big turk chocolate bars, assorted colours depending on the time of year, photography.

Many of you also know of my silly obsession with certain reality television shows. What you may not know is another obsession that I've had for the better part of a decade - and yes it involves tv. (I'm a bit of a couch potato - surprise surprise thunder thighs.) Just what do I need a daily dose of? If it is on, 9 out of 10 times I select it. The characters are engaging. Each show can either be viewed one by one, or as a series to follow the higher story arc. It's been on the air for the past 18 years, and I've probably been watching for at least 14 of them,and if I didn't catch it the first time, I can almost guarantee I saw it in reruns. It started off simply, just popping it on and seeing the gritty drama unfold before my eyes. I took comfort in seeing the same faces over and over week after week, and now day after day. Their wins were my wins, their losses were my losses. When a character died or moved away and was replaced, I knew that it would take some time, but the show would still go on and would be better soon. Oh yes, I have spent nearly half my life watching this show and I can't even begin to imagine a life without it.

So what could keep me captivated this long?

Law and Order - that's what.

Just for fun, I thought I'd list all the different partners they've had on the show. See how many you've heard of before:

Max Greevey + Mike Logan
Mike Logan + Phil Cerreta
Mike Logan + Lennie Brisco
Lennie Brisco + Rey Curtis
Lennie Brisco + Ed Green
Joe Fontana + Nick Falco
Joe Fontana + Ed Green
Ed Green + Nina Cassidy
Ed Green + Cyrus Lupo
Cyrus Lupo + Kevin Bernard

Also - in the history of the show there have only been two commading officers:
Don Cragen and Anita Van Buren

Every night as I"m falling asleep I need the tv on. It drives James nuts but there is one show he likes to have on - Law and Order is it. He didn't even really watch the show when we met, but now he knows the characters just as much as me. I don't know what it is, but I know it's time to settle in and pay attention every time I hear the opening to the show. Even reading the words get me all excited and ready to watch another episode. Good thing it's on EVERY NIGHT! WAHOO!!!!

Oh and in case you forgot, here is the opening...

In the Criminal Justice System the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups. The police who investigate crime and the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

Open Houses - Week number 4

It was a really rainy day to be going to open houses but we decided to give it a whirl.

For some reason many of the open houses we would've seen were running at odd times - like Saturday from 1-3 or Sunday from 12 - 2:30. I mean, it is their right, but we really like to go from the 2-4 that they have them every week. And we prefer Sunday as it tends to be a nothing day. Now that James has no soccer, it seems fitting that we've filled our time with dreaming and debating the merits of the house. So this weekend we had two options that were of remote interest in our price range.

The first house I directed James to was not even in our original neighbourhood choices when we started thinking about moving. As mentioned previously, we wanted to head into Preston or Hespeler. I've kept my eyes on this one particular neighbourhood in Galt and I knew that eventually something had to come up in our price range that wasn't a complete craphole.

Last year we found a great apartment on Main Street in an old house. There was hardwood throughout, wraparound staircase, gorgeous woodworking and crown molding. It was awesome. Unfortunately our dream of living there until we bought a house was shattered when the landlord decided to sell the house. We were getting married and had to move and it was a very difficult time. We both agreed we liked older homes such as that one, but knew that the house itself needed a lot of work to get it up to par. We loved the neighbourhood though, and wished that we could've stayed longer.

So when this house came up a few weeks ago on Realtor.ca I had suggested going to see it on the first weekend open house. My mom was with us and she initially said Okay but when James said it wasn't the neighbourhood we'd be looking in, she took his side and said no. He said he'd still be willing to go, but as we had groceries in the car, we didn't want to push it. There was something about the house though from the pictures and I wanted to go check it out.

Today when I noticed the open house listing I decided that we should go and at least look at it. It's not often houses with the perfect kitchen come up in our price range. There was something about the house that looked almost too good to be true and I think we figured out a few of the reasons.

The house itself has only been in the possession of the current owner for two years. We believe that he's a house flipper, because he's put money into making the house look the way it does and the new furnace and water heater that would desperately be needed by a house this old. The house itself was decorated very well. The walls were as good, if not better than teh colours we would've chosen. It has a nice fireplace in the living room, a big dining room and a kitchen to die for. I loved that the bedrooms all had closets and were a great size. I know from experience that you dont' really find older houses with closets. The master bedroom was pretty big and took up the back part of the house, minus a cheater ensuite that served as the main bathroom. The backyard was pretty big and had a great covered porch that I could see us sitting out there enjoying a nice meal with friends.

And yes - I even saw the Beer Olympics.

The house wasn't perfect however, and James spent some time pointing out the flaws that he saw after we left. He never really says anything we are there and leaves me to talk to the agents and oh and awe over everything. He brought up some good points about the house and some that I just laughed and thought were a bit much.

The main floor has no tv currently - which makes the basement rec room all that more important for your television viewing. The rec room itself was small and had an odd shape, but you could fit a sectional couch down there no problem. The floor for the recroom was dug out so it is about a foot lower than the rest of the basement - which is pretty much the main reason this house probably hasn't sold and is priced as it is.

The ceiling is exact same height as James.

Let me explain, you come down the stairs to an open area with lots of closets and storage and a very large laundry area with counter and cupboards. But the floors are either too high, or the ceiling too low as James needed to hunch just that tiny little bit to get to the next room. It will make it very uncomfortable for him to help with the laundry. Me, who is vertically challenged was liking the space and was moving around with ease. (Go short girl go!)

After walking through a very short hallway that leads to the laundry you step down two steps into a rec room that as I mentioned is an odd shape, but could be worked into something awesome. Down the hall across from the laundry is another sunken area that has been used a as a workshop, and was currently being used by the cats as a kitty litter. This room has all the utilities as well and you can see the new water heater and furnace. It could be livable, but James was pointing out all the awesome things he'd like to do, like set up this small alcove where the current owner had a desk and turn it into a complete entertainment centre with his video games and everything.

On the main floor, the high ceilings were awesome, the colours were great and the kitchen had lots of storage and an awesome island which added to the counter space. The island had two stools and I could see is sitting there talking while cooking and eating there together. The cabinets were a nice design too. I really liked it.

James had one complaint though. The island was too country kitchen for him. The base had spindles on it - and he felt that made it country. He would want it refinished. Personally, I thought that was a silly issue but I will add it to my list. Can't believe he'd finally get a kitchen with the right size and everything and he complains about the base of the island. Simple enough to cover with mdf or something, we can fix it, but it is not neccessary right away.

Another negative to James was the dining area. The current owner has made this a major part of the house and placed the table in the largest part of the great room on the first floor. (Did I mention that you walked into a room that is open to the living room and dining room???) James felt the dining room was so big and the living room area seemed small. I mentioned ways that we can make it work and that by simply removing one of the large oversized chairs the current owner has, we could even include a tv. He agreed that could work. I also mentioned that we could put the living room area where the dining room is and move the dining room to the front of the house. Easy peasey if you ask me - James' parents have even done that in their house so the larger room is used for a living room.

We both never use our dining room now, and he fears that we won't use it when we get our house. But - we both agree that we want to have our kids sit at the table (when we have them in TWO YEARS - not any time soon) and that we want to be able to have a dining room to host our family and friends for dinner. I felt that this space would more than be ample for us to do just that - and as we'd probably just eat in the kitchen anyhow at the island, it wouldn't matter too much right?

Heading upstairs, we noticed the stairs creaked a little. But it's an old house, you can expect that. The bedrooms were a good size, had closets and the master bedroom was a true master. Didn't have a walk in closet, but had a long closet - and a cheater to the bathroom. The windows faced the private backyard and that was really nice.

The only other negative inside the house was the lack of bathrooms. There is one bathroom which has a bathtub including shower, and has a cheater door to the master bedroom. I grew up with one bathroom, but would've loved a second one as our family got larger. My mother said that she'd be sad because when they get old they won't be able to come over because we don't have a main floor bathroom. Personally, I will take her concern into consideration, but will also not make it a deal breaker for me. People have survived with one bathroom before. And hell - we had 40 people here for the beer olympics and they used one bathroom and survived right?

The outside of the house would normally lead me to not even look inside. The house is a big old concrete block house with siding on the front of the house and not around the sides. The front windows have shutters, which is nice, but the colour isn't really what I'd look for. The house also appears to be just a big two storey box. I can live with that, but if it were my dream house, I'd have a bay window out front. (I can dream right?) The porch could also be a bit bigger out front, but it seemed in good condition. There was two points on the house that weren't perfect. The one the realtor pointed out, was the water spout outside was facing the wrong way and needed to be fixed and the second included a broken superficial brick near a window at the side of the house. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was still something. The driveway was really long, we could probably fit four cars in it end to end. The backyard had two different sheds, and it was fully fenced in. That was a really nice bonus.

To recap:

Negative point number one - basement height barely clears James' head
Negative point number two - James doesn't like the base of the island in the kitchen
Negative point number three - only one bathroom
Negative point number four - stairs creak a little (but it's old house - you expect that)
Negative point number five - siding on the front of the house and concrete blocks on the side - not as pretty as it could be
Negative point number six - brick on side of house cracked off, water spout in wrong direction
Negative point number seven - not as close to work as originally planned

Positive point one - clean bright and cheery
Positive point two - great colours throughout the house
Positive point three - good sized backyard
Positive point four - Big kitchen with island
Positive point five - high ceilings throughout the house
Positive point six - new furnace and water heater, roof in 2002
Positive point seven - all bedrooms are big and with closets
Positive point eight - fully fenced yard
Positive point nine - Move in ready
Positive point ten - long driveway with lots of parking
Positive point eleven - close to all amenities
Positive point twelve - located between friends in Paris and family in Clyde
Positive point thirteen - nicely landscaped
Positive point fourteen - single family home for the same price as a semi in Hespeler or Preston

All in all the house had a lot of great points and some negatives. The other house we were going to see had the open house cancelled. Oh well. Guess we live to go on for another weekend.

Good news though - found out that the market has officially turned into a buyers market due to the large amount of "inventory" out there right now. Good for us. If only we were officially looking!

Time to Multiply

Apparently when I lived in Paris a few years back I signed up for Multiply. Then it was this scary new thing and with all the other things going on I just didn't have time for it. I really like the way it looks now though. The colours are bright, it's easy to change the way your profile looks. You can easily import your blogs or photos from other sites. It's only been a few days but I think it looks pretty good.

The only thing that does worry me is that the reason I had to move here was due to a group I belonged to on MSN groups was being shut down. We've had that group as a way for all of us to keep track of what is going on with everyone. Now MSN has decided to close all those groups. They've suggested coming to multiply. So far only a handful of our "group" have moved over. We haven't really used our "group" on here much. OH well - it still looks better and is easier to upload photos. I went and put a huge pile of them of our group over the years. I hope that it helps everyone who comes over feel like home!

Real estate lessons of the day

Things I learned today:

• The real estate market in Cambridge is saturated with houses
• Houses in Cambridge are taking longer to sell than they were six months ago
• Most people aren't willing to put the extra money in when building new houses to get a door inside leading to the garage
• Selling without an agent doesn't mean that you are selling your house at a lower price than your neighbours - but you want to save the agent fees
• Men that live alone don't do a lot of landscaping
• End unit townhouses get just that much more of a backyard
• Pictures online for houses might be misleading
• If a house looks really nicely decorated, James doesn't think anyone is living there and feels the house has been staged - he would prefer for the house to look lived in
• I don't mind houses that are connected at the garage to the neighbours, as long as the houses aren't connected
• By waiting a little longer to get a house, more and more houses are coming up - and of better quality
• I get really excited to see nice paint on the walls
• Kitchens still are a top priority for us
• In law suites aren't all they are cracked up to be
• Seeing homemade handy work makes me laugh - especially when in weird little areas like behind the water heater and other hidden places
• The smell of old people in October makes me think of haunted houses... I wonder if I can bottle that smell and use it for Halloween...
• Some real estate agents are really excited about the house they are showing, others could care less
• Some agents ask too many questions and appear really pushy
• James doesn't like for agents to talk to him much when he's going through open houses
• I really like talking to the agents and asking questions because I feel rude if I don't
• I still don't know if you should knock on the door or ring the doorbell when going to an open house - just what is the etiquette anyway?
• The hours from 2-4 are not enough to go through all the open houses in a day - why can't they extend them for one more hour so you can see more?
• Spending time at open houses is a really cheap but fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon

Open Houses - week number 3

It's time for another installment of Open House Sunday. Where you can join in the fun of James and my adventures of going through open houses.

Today we visited 5 houses, three in the Eagle Valley area of Preston and two in the Fisher Mills area of Hespeler. We saw everything from new builds to older homes and it was really interesting to see what our money could get us today.

After a random search for hot dogs was over, we headed through Preston and ended up passing houses for sale but nothing on Open House. As the street we were on lead right to the Surplus store, we took a small jaunt through to see what was there. As normal, nothing peaked our interest so we left and headed off. James was eager to check some places out but had no idea where to start.

Old habits die hard and I did check the listings at the start of the weekend to see if anything interesting was going on. Nothing had really caught my eye, but I did know that there were some open houses going on in Eagle Valley. The first one we checked out was the size of a townhouse and very well decorated. The basement was unfinished, so it allowed you to dream. It was very nicely decorated, the kitchen was a good size and so was the back yard. The only thing was that the rest of the house seemed really tiny. All in all it was a good value for a stand alone house, but without any outside storage and not enough room for our furniture it was pretty much counted off our list.

The agent at the house was great and we had a chat with him about the difference between newer houses with less issues and older houses which may have bigger bedrooms and more yard space. He wasn't pressing us, but told us to check out another house he had on open house. Talking to him kind of sparked an interest and we headed over. What he said was true - the only issue was the walls were stark white and needed colour to liven it up. The other house was a link home - only linked at the garage and was an end unit - which is fabulous because it has a bigger yard. The yard was nicely decorated - but sadly overlooked by the house behind. Slightly open concept, good sized bedrooms, two and a half baths and in our price range. Definitely a contender.

From there we saw another Open House by Property Guys. I watch the website from time to time and knew that a few weeks ago there wasn't anything of interest in our price range, but we decided to check it out. The house was gorgeous. The basement, again, was unfinished. Which seemed to be the name of the day. But it didn't need to be by how big it was. The layout is identical to Devon and Steve's house which I've always loved. We were drooling over the counter space in the kitchen. The attic space had skylights and hardwood floors and he paid extra to have the higher ceilings in the basement so when you do finish it, James could reach up and not hit it. I was blown away and so was James - and knew that there was no way we could afford it. And strangely enough, even if we could, the size of the house was too much. But we loved the jacuzzi tub and the deck out the back. The guy who owns the house was watching football and James liked that - and I couldn't get over how the same house could look so different with different decor and colours. (Devon - I like yours better but I love this guys attic!!!)

After this we drove around the rest of the neighbourhood and passed a bunch more open houses. There seemed to be a blitz in this neighbourhood - but we decided to head up to Fisher Mills to see what was up there. If you ever have the joy of driving down Fisher Mills Road, you know that there pretty much is two stop signs, which lead into the other areas of the subdivision. Right leads to older homes, Left leads to newer homes. At Milton we came to signs leading both ways. James headed left. We followed the sign to a two storey red brick home that our realtor sent us. We both liked the look from the outside, and knew by pictures it had nice colours inside. Unfortunately, the pictures didn't tell the whole story. It was so congested it was unreal. I know that there probably wouldn't be as many people in it as were when we got there, but it seemed that all the doors lead to the same area by the front door. To your left is a two piece bathroom, then there is stairs leading upstairs and a doorway leading downstairs and then the door leading to the kitchen and then immediately to your right is a sitting area that is pretty much blocked off to everything other than the front hallway. You couldn't really have more than three or four people inside it. The kitchen was a good sized eat in kitchen in a bright cranberry colour. The backyard was very private and had a good sized deck. We headed upstairs and found good sized bedrooms, but no clear defined master and a very SMALL bathroom with tub. It was very efficient. The basement was finished, which was nice but something about the house didn't sit right. It didn't seem to flow as well as we'd like. They always said that when you walk into the house for you, you'll feel it. And after the other house in Preston, I know that we definitely didn't feel it there. Even though it was probably bigger square footage wise.

With 15 minutes left to 4:oo we headed over to the last open house of the day. We crossed fisher mills and headed to probably the most memorable house of the day. Have you ever walked into a house and just knew that old people lived there? Well we had that with this house. The house was pretty much empty with all the furniture removed, but it had a certain odour that only comes with the elderly. There was wood parquet flooring and the bedrooms and back yards were a good size. But the decor, the smell and the state of well every fixture and plastic rail on the wall told us that this was just pretty much a joke. For kicks we went to the basement. The stairs were very steep and the floor was 1960's original. The wallpaper too was so old that it was back in style, sort of. Each room had little catacombs built off of it that lead to secret hiding spaces and secret storage spaces. One of the storage rooms even lead to another one. There was a bedroom down there and what would be a sort of recroom with built in display areas. But the most memorable room was what would probably be a second kitchen. There were cabinets on the one wall, and in the middle of the room was a brassy chandelier hanging about 4 feet off the ground. It was so odd and so unexpected that James snapped a picture.

We both were looking at each other in wonder at how truly bad this house was for us when I noticed another door in one of the rooms that has catacombs. I said "Hey there's a door do you think it's a bathroom."
"I think it's dead bodies."
By the smell of the house, I believed him.