The house...

So… I guess the next part of the story is the house.  The new house is roughly the same size as our current house only it’s got a layout that’s better suited to our family and the location is the best part.  Our house in the US has a formal living room that we rarely use, a playroom AND a basement rec room (because we’ve had toddlers most of the time we’ve lived here and needed adult-only areas to relax) and the boys are sharing a 10x11 bedroom, which is fine, but since there are almost 4 years between them, not necessarily ideal.  The new house in contrast has a living/dining room area upstairs (along with a kitchen that’s smaller, but I’m reserving judgment until after living in it a few months) a huge rec room downstairs that we’ll all fit in and 5 bedrooms.  This means the 3 kids will be upstairs at the end of the main hall and the parents will be downstairs with an office right next to us.  Once those kiddos are in bed, the downstairs is OURS!  Which is good since the new house also has no ensuite, rather it’s a bathroom whose plumbing has been put in, but the bathroom is not “finished” save a toilet which does work. 

For those who aren’t aware, homes in the Great North are generally sold with the basement unfinished. So the entire living area (ie: kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms, living room) is upstairs and the basement is a cement block, maybe the furnace and laundry are down there… basically the set up of my very first house, if you’ll recall. Anyways, then most people go on to add a bedroom or two, a 2^nd bathroom and a rec room.  So when you see a house listed in the area in which we are moving, you’ll typically see a square footage listed of only the main floor… in our case 1080 square feet.  The house was built in the 1970s.  Having lived in a 1950s house and a 1990s house we feel we are prepared for the inevitable upgrades and repairs. Luckily the former owners were not planning to move 4 doors down the street to a slightly bigger house and every year were doing upgrades.  This means the windows, roof, bathroom, floors (no carpet, woohoo!) have all been done/upgraded as well as the downstairs is mostly done with the 2 finished bedrooms and rec room. This also means there’s still some “projects”.  But more on those in a minute.

So about the location.  The location is great!  It’s NEXT door to the kids’ school. Granted I may not be extolling the greatness of this after having balls end up in my backyard, kids yelling over the fence and the general noise at twice a day recesses.  However, at this time I’m writing sitting in carline. I have only 34 more days after this to wait in carline, and yes, I’m counting.  We live too close to have a bus, but it’s almost a mile to walk-each way which means with a 2 ½ year old in tow you either have to try to strap her into a stroller or it will take 2 ½ hours (not exaggerating…2:20pm to 4:45pm) to make the round trip walk.  I am pretty stoked to get the kids all parkaed up and wave from the window with my hot cup of coffee in my pajamas as they waddle along a la A Christmas Story in the snowdrifts to school.

We have one neighbor on the opposite side- a single woman with a friendly dog.  Yep, a dog we can visit with but don’t have to fee, walk or otherwise do anything for.  Behind us is a greenbelt of walnut trees that cannot be cut down due to the presence of an endangered tree lizard.  Beyond the greenbelt in 4-5 years they will build houses. Probably nice ones and we’ll be behind one of the nicer, pie shaped corner lots.  On the other side of the houses is a walking/biking trail with more trees.  In our actual yard there are 3 mature cherry trees, a Honey Locust tree (little tiny leaves) a Western Ash and a fir tree.  I know, sigh, moss and lawn issues galore. I will say I will miss my beautiful jungle like expanse of lawn until I can whip the new one into shape. Luckily I saw a Trugreen truck the other day and plan to stalk it until they come help me fix up the grass.  In the meantime, I once again ended up with a sloped yard (maybe house #4 will be a charm?) so there’s some landscaping that will happen. 

Speaking of projects.  You know how I love a good project and have been kind of itching since we’ve had our US house Honey Do list done for about 2 years now.  Here’s our to do list for the new house:

1)      Sewer fix-done…  the house was sold knowing that there was an issue with the sewer pipe.  The week after we bought the house, we flew back for spring Break to start on the project list and this was the first priority.  Good thing, too since the break ended up being a true break, not just a crack and it was 5 feet from the foundation.  The good news was it was fixed in half of a day for less than we expected because  they dug less than they expected.

2)      New furnace-done… we knew there was an issue from the inspection with the furnace.  We thought it was a repair, but I’d noted on my list “save money for a new furnace” and sure enough the other one has some sort of leak and needed replacing”  The new one, I’m happy to report is very efficient and very quiet.

3)      New water heater-estimated…. Water heaters are commonly rented there.  It’s getting less and less now that people are realizing that a contract on a water heater means that in the time you rent one you could have bought 2 or 3 of them outright, so when we saw the tank was a rental, we planned on waiting for a sale. The furnace guy informed us once the bathroom is done, it will no longer be up to code and must be upgraded.  However, he was pleasantly surprised (as were we) when we discovered that a tankless was only $500 more than the upgraded one we need due to the furnace room being entered from the bathroom.

4)      Paint-lots of it.  Henri’s room is done, Valerie’s is almost done, our bedroom and office still need to be painted, the rest looks good.

5)      Bathroom completed-the plumbing is in, we need to design and complete the work.  As part of it, we’ll tile the laundry/furnace room as well and also move to door to the laundry room (Paul’s suggested a pocket door) since the previous owners put the vanity right in the traffic of the two doors of the bathroom and the laundry room and moving the door is easier than moving plumbing and electric.

6)      New siding, move windows down in back, new window in Henri’s room…. This should be done this month while we are wrapping things up south of the border.  The old siding was aluminum, probably original to the house and the back windows are really high but new windows, so we’re moving them down  6 inches while the sidings off and putting in a bigger window in Henri’s room.  The current window is a typical bathroom size and can’t be wider due to the garage location, but can be longer due to the location of the window in front of the closet, where there will not be any furnature anyways.

7)      New front door-maybe…definitely adding deadbolts… the original door is dated, but we may just paint and spruce it up a little. And add a deadbolt. Apparently the new neighborhood is super safe-no deadbolts anywhere.

8)      Outside-there’s a beautiful deck and gazebo area that needs to be stained this summer, I want to put my own stamp on the garden that’s currently there, would love to add a hot tub, and the steep slope makes me want to add some stairs or terracing and some landscaping. Also the issue of the weedy, mossy lawn.  I’d also like to do a shade loving ground cover under the cherry trees to avoid cleaning up pits and add a little path from the front yard around to the back.

9)      New insulation-in process… the insulation’s original and during inspection we found it had been home to a raccoon.  Before we even sent the paperwork back to the owners they tore out the old insulation, put in new, thicker insulation in the attic.  We need to insulate above the garage still and when the siding is added they’ll add more insulation around the edge of the house-should be much toastier this winter.

10)   Kitchen????  The new kitchen is quite a bit smaller than my current kitchen, even before you add in the fact that there’s no pantry. BUT it may be manageable since we’re close to the store and Paul will be working from home.  So, I plan to live with it over the summer (not that we’ll have extra time available to do anything with it anyway-I have other priorities) but between the fact we feel we got a fair deal on the new house and sold our old house for more than we expected, if by the fall I can’t fit into the new kitchen, we’ll be making some changes.  Also, the range may have a limited life and the microwave (above the range) is not working at this time.

The U.S. House…

We did not realize the difference 2 years would make on the value of our house.  2 years ago, we were struggling to get what we paid for it in 2004 when we moved in. This time? We put it up for $50K more than we bought it for and got 11 offers in one weekend for thousands of dollars over asking.  The first morning after we came home (we put it on the market while we were back at the new house) I thanked God profusely for his timing and the fact that I didn’t have to keep the house clean with 3 kids for random timed showings.  It was crazy. Either the market is looking up or there’s a gold mine under our house we weren’t aware of.  There was literally a line to get into the house Sunday.  Crazy! The Canada house was a good price too. For its location, we were looking at other houses in worse shape that were listed for $20K-$40K more.  Between the two, we’re thankful for trusting in God’s timing and patience and also much more relaxed about repair costs that pop up and moving costs, and government fees and taxes related to the move.

Oh, wait, you want pictures, do you?  I have some, I didn't take great angles, but they'll give you some ideas.... I'll put them in the next post.