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January, 2012

  1. Adventures in Home Buying 1

    January 24, 2012 by Michael

    Ouch! Buying a new home is stressful!

    For Sale

    I mean, I’m sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone – but it’s much more work than I expected.

    We’ve gone through it once before of course, but last time was different. For starters, we were new home buyers.

    This means we were both in a bit of a daze during the whole experience :) We tried to be smart about the whole thing of course, but in hindsight we discovered that we got lucky on a few things we never thought to ask about when going through the process.

    And we took possession 3 days after our wedding, so we were a bit distracted at the time.

    Of course, we were only buying at that time, and moving from a rental. This time we’re selling AND buying! And the house we want to buy is more than 125 years old, which brings with it a whole new set of headaches that we are barely prepared to handle (for instance, finding the RIGHT home inspector is much more critical than it was last time when we were purchasing a new-7 year old home!)

    So, despite having decided 3 weeks ago that this is the house for us, so far we haven’t put in an offer. We’ve been staying (very, very) busy packing up 60% of our belongings (to stage our home) and starting in on the 1001 minor repairs that need to be finished so they don’t detract from our homes appearance while potential buyers are walking through.

    Once we’ve got our house up for sale, then we’ll put in our offer. Until then, it’s repair time:

    Yesterday we had our hot water tank replaced (there was a slow leak – thanks to the very ‘hard’ water in this area), now I’ve got to finish and hang a door in the hole I had to cut in the wall to switch out the tank. Painting of course, ¼ round to hide the gaps at the edges of the laminate floor – oh, and I think I have to change out the big bay window upstairs before we sell :( (water got between the panes a couple of years ago and left some staining behind.)

    Once that’s all done we have to start in on all the running around and planning for the new house, which needs a fair amount of reno work on the main floor when we move in (fortunately the upstairs (which is as big as my current home) is stellar and in move in condition already).

    Busy, busy, busy…

    Wish us luck!

    *photo by Ian Muttoo

    Category House Hunting | Tags: | No Comments

  2. Lemon Baby

    January 24, 2012 by Michael

    Things that make me feel better about my parenting skills:

    Knowing I’m not the only one who enjoys feeding babies lemon… just to watch the raw emotions on their face afterwards – all my kids love lemon now by the way :)

    Category Parenting | Tags: ,, | No Comments

  3. So What’s Up in 2012?

    January 17, 2012 by Michael

    I think we’ll look back at 2012 as a year of significant change. Trust me… I know about these things.

    For our part, we’re looking at a new house. We haven’t put an offer in yet, but we will soon – we’re taking care of some hurried repairs on our own house first so we can get it up for sale.

    We’re pretty excited, but taking this path was a hard decision to come to. Not the moving per se, we outgrew our current home about… 2 kids ago. But rather the decision to move to a bigger more expensive home.

    For the last 5 years, our goal has been to build equity and buy a second home to rent out. We’re at the point now where we could do that (yay for achieving goals!) but we’ve realized that we can only afford a second mortgage if we buy a house the same size as our own (the one we outgrew 2 kids ago), when really what we need is a bigger home.

    So the decision came down to: 1. Stick it out in the wee abode for another year or two and buy a bigger home in the country to move to, while renting out our current home or 2. Sell and run for the hills… er. Sell and buy an appropriately sized home for a large family.

    We’ll take whatever is hidden behind door number 2 Pat.

    What we found is a home that is much bigger than what we were actually looking for: a gorgeous century home with it’s original character (crown moulding, chunky baseboards, hard wood floors) mostly intact, and within our price range. It’s not too far from work and only needs a little work.

    Okay, by a little work I mean that the main floor needs to be completely gutted – it was converted into 2 rental apt.s in the 70′s and hasn’t been touched since, so we would need to rip out all the bad carpet and wood paneling to restore the original granduer. But the upstairs floor is about the same size as the house we currently live in (I know, right!?) so we could be comfortable while the reno is going on.

    And it has an attached addition off the back of the house that will be perfect as a little school house for our homeschooled little ones.

    As added bonuses: there is about 5k sq. feet of good outbuilding space, it sits on 1.5 acres, it is across the street from a nice river (on the higher bank so no worries about flooding) and it faces due west which means we can sit out on the big ‘ol wrap around deck of an evening and watch the sun set over the hills. Here’s a little pic:

    So the past week has been all about boxing up excess crap (why do we collect so much of that!?) and starting on the repair work. I hope to get our house up for sale within the next two weeks.

    The painful part about making a big decision like this, is waiting for it all come to fruition.

    What are you working towards coming into 2012?

    Category Confabulation | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Life is busy!

    January 15, 2012 by Michael

    The last time I posted to this blog, Tina and I had 2 little children. Now we have 4.

    Life was busy back then (4 years ago!) now it’s crazy.

    Children aside, over the past 3 years, we’ve taken up gardening and processing our own foods for the off-season (still a work in process); started taking the kids to daily events (scouts, soccer, karate, bowling, gymnastics, etc., etc., etc.); started going to the gym regularly (okay, so Tina does anyway); rebuilt our basement… twice (thanks to a flood); and decided to jump headlong into homeschooling. I’m leaving out about 102 other milestones of course.

    Now-a-days (the very term makes me feel old, but I can’t deny the appropriateness of it,) we barely have a moment to sit down and breathe at the end of the day before starting all over again.

    It’s unfortunately easy to let the day-to-day grind overwhelm you… and I think it happens to all of us from time to time – for me it’s been the last 2 years or so :) – but then there is a moment, like when the toddler does a happy dance just because you’ve walked through the front door after a long work day, when you realize that there is a reason for it all, and the rewards far outweigh the efforts.

    In those moments of clarity, sometimes, you remember that the day-to-day grind is not as important as it tends to make itself out to be. Neither you, nor your children will remember much about it when looking back. It’s the ticks in between that matter, the milestones, the family rituals, the tender moments, the sharing of events and thoughts with friends and family.

    So now it’s time to breath.

    It’s 2012… Soon I’ll turn 37 (but I don’t feel a day over 45!)… and the time has come for some proactive changes.

    Queue slim shady, because we’re back.

    Category Confabulation | Tags: | No Comments