Adventures in House Hunting

Remember that Friends episode where Phoebe announced that she would no longer purchase anything that didn't have "a history"? Mass-produced consumer goods were out and heirlooms were in. (And then Rachael discovered that the Pottery Barn coffee table she was trying to pass off as a handed-down-for-generations-one-of-a-kind piece of furniture had also been bought by Ross and then predictable and increasingly hilarious attempts were made to hide the truth from Phoebe?)

That's what I was thinking of today as I thought about the house we have just rented. It was the first house we saw, by far the best, and it feels all the more valuable since we had to fight a bit to get it.

All in all we saw five houses yesterday. The first was one I had found on the internet; we both fell in love with it at first sight. (More about it later.) But, of course, one must ensure that all the options are considered, so we proceeded to the second house. This one had a heee-oooooge yard (fortunately maintained by the owners who lived next door) and was a basic 50s bungalow. The third "bedroom" was a walled-off concrete slab in the basement just off the "large recreation room" (another concrete slab).

The third house looked promising, but we couldn't see it right then because no one was available to show it until the evening. Plus the cone-wearing dog inside was barking quite ferociously.

The fourth house was also unavailable to get into, and came equipped with more ferocious dogs.

The fifth house was accessible, but the attempts to flip this 50s bungalow were, alas, confined to the kitchen. The bathroom was an overwhelming confusion of pale pink and blue tiles and the brand-new stainless steel appliances only temporarily distracted one from the plywood cupboards.

We left our agent at that point and decided that while we were both in love with the first one, we would go back to the third house for the evening showing just to make sure. Full of carpet and dog/cat smells (always ominous when the landlord says, "hmm, smells a bit more than when I lived here - I haven't been here for awhile) and the downstairs "half bath" was a toilet in the middle of the laundry room - it helped make our decision much, much easier.

To our dismay, our early-the-next-morning phone call about the first house revealed that another couple had beat us to it. But there was a glimmer of hope - they only wanted the house for December. We offered to pay more than the asking rent and confirmed our availability for immediate rental and trotted out our life's history as we filled out the forms.

(I was rather harried when I filled out the forms and made a few mistakes. One was forgetting to double my biweekly paycheque and erroneously affirming that I earn a pittance of my actual salary. The other was filling in the personal information box marked "Sex" with the word "NO." The Husband does not think this is as funny as I do.)

In the end, we won the day due to a combination of immediate availability, a bit of sweet-talking from our agent, and (we hope) a good connection with our landlord. Here is a picture of the outside:

The house is all hardwood floors, has a great kitchen (gas stove!), three bedrooms and beautiful windows. Another bonus is that the huge trees block all light so there is no grass. The only downsides are no dishwasher, only one bathroom and no extra room for guests, but these are all surmountable. It is located in an absolutely amazing neighbourhood. Oh, and it has a history - it has been in the owner's family since it was built in 1921 and it has a wall hand-painted in 1944 by his mother with characters representing his family.

So all in all, a productive and successful trip. We also visited The Girl's school, but that will have to be saved for a later post.

Moving tasks for tomorrow: head to the border and get TD visas for me and the kids and try to get a handle on the basement junk before The Husband leaves on Sunday.