New home

We finally found a house!

After  five months of searching and waiting, it has finally happened! We found a new home!!!! Whew, now I can get on with my life 🙂

Our new home. It is in North Saanich BC. Still trying to figure out how I am going to get Christmas Lights in the top peak!!

Where we live in Victoria BC Canada, the market has been very fast moving. Most places hold off offers, in the hopes of inciting a bidding war. This is great when you are selling, and SUCKS when you are the buyer.

We have put in a total of 3 offers and this one finally worked out.

It is interesting to note that my point of view has shifted somewhat during this house search.  Originally, I only wanted to live in a townhouse. I have lived in houses before. The first a  1972 4-level split , which I owned with a partner.

This was my first new home. It is a 1972 4 level split in Sidney BC. I use to clean the whole thing on Friday night after work. It was a big house.

And the second, a little rancher on a slab. Which I owned as a single girl.

This was my single girl house It is a rancher on a slab. It had 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom. It was a bit damp though, because it was on a slab.

Following that, I moved into a condo, as I preferred to spend my time socializing and partying rather than mowing my lawn. And my lawn was pretty dead, so not fun to mow. Thus my obsession with in ground sprinklers 🙂

Now I am back to a house.  From the beginning of this house search I had said, if we found a house with a really awesome yard, I would be in. And by awesome yard, I don’t mean 40 acres. No Ride ’em Lawnmower for this girl,  I mean a nice private green patch of grass that is even and flat for mowing, and preferably has in ground sprinklers. In fact  Ithink I would be happy if I could mow my lawn with a Reel Mower My new house has IN GROUND SPRINKLERS!!! Yesssssss – finally.

Here are a couple of shots of my back yard

The deal-maker was this yard, with the amazing green space behind it.

The lady who owned the house before us,did great things with the yard. I’m so excited to get to work out there in the spring!Since I am not independently wealthy, I did not get ALL of the items on my wishlist. Here is what that list looked like:

• Quiet location
• Open concept
• Double car garage
• 3 bedrooms/family room or 4 bedrooms
• Gas Fireplace
• Pantry
• Separate laundry room
• Storage space
• A GREAT yard

Here is what the wish list looked like after my purchase:

• Quiet location – quieter than where I am now
• Open concept – yes
• Double car garage – yes
• Gas Fireplace – yes
• 3 bedrooms/family room or 4 bedrooms – 4 bedrooms yes
• Pantry – no
• Separate laundry room – no
• Storage space – yes
• A GREAT yard – YES!!

• 

  It’s a decent sized back yard with lots of gardens

6/8 is not bad 🙂 The laundry is located in the closet in the den. This might be a little home improvement project for me. The other closet in the den, will probably be my pantry. There is no dedicated pantry in the kitchen, so this might work. See, I’m already lining up projects for you!

But here are the extras that I got that were NOT on my list:

• In ground sprinklers
• Gas range and oven
• Alarm system
• Central vacuum
• 9’ ceilings
• Ductless heat pump – air conditioning
• Rough ins for gas BBQ and hottub
• On demand hot water

I think I did okay 🙂 The house was built in 2014, so is very new, in fact  still under new home warranty.

Mostly we looked at places that were major fixer uppers, and although I was very excited at the prospect of a big renovation. I’m okay just moving in and decorating 🙂

Here is a tiny list of what I think my first few home renovation projects will be:

1. Closet laundry station
2. Pantry project
3. New tile backsplash

Plus there will definitely be lots of decorating projects, as there always are when you move to a new home. I will need to pick a new colour scheme for our master bedroom, which I already did some prepping for here

Hang around and I’ll show you what I do with the place

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