So we bought a house... So, in the 53 days since my last entry we had the condo documents reviewed and found out that the condo board is retarded and doesn't have enough money in its reserve fund to pay for anything that might go wrong with the public areas. In fact, the condo fees we were quoted were so high because there was already an added fee for fixing something. We just weren't comfortable signing up with an organization who could drop extra charges on us at a moment's notice because they can't manage money properly. So, we backed out on the offer and went back to house hunting. I was pretty bummed since the living space at the condo was really nice, lots of space etc. but I was also happy because I had never wanted to live in attached living conditions to begin with and now we were going back to looking at houses. A week went by and everything we saw had problems we weren't prepared to live with. Property was also starting to disappear at an alarming rate. We'd go see a house and it would be gone by the next day. We were starting to get really stressed when I noticed a house we had previously seen and wanted to buy had come back on the market. Thinking it must have been a figment of my imagination since someone else had made an offer on it even before we'd seen the condo, I talked to our realtor and she made an appointment to see it that morning since apparently the previous offer had fallen through. We made our own offer then and there and suddenly we had a house again! The home inspector came and gave it a mostly clean bill of health. The wiring was old and the breaker box wasn't big enough to get insurance so it would need to be upgraded. And that was that, we bought it. We got possession on February 15th and we've been frantically trying to get the wiring finished before our lease at the apartment is up. It was worse than we'd thought and essentially the entire house has been rewired. It's stressful, especially as it's my grandpa, dad and uncle who are doing the work. Peter works a 8-5 job while the rest of them have shift work so he can't help out too much and because the job has turned out to be so much work we both feel guilty that they are spending so much time working at our house while we're at work and not helping out. (That was a horrible, garbled sentence) I'm having a hard time even getting excited about moving when I think about how much work has gone in and how much is left to go. Once the electrical is done we still have to paint and put up the closet organizer in the master bedroom. And, we've also found out that we'll need to replace a bunch of the plumbing to get full house insurance. So, we'll be living in a house without insurance against leaking plumbing until we can get that done. Still, it's in a beautiful neighbourhood with a big yard and lots of trees. It's got a garage and lots of parking in the back. It's close to downtown and we'll be able to walk to work on warm days. It's ours. That's a lot to be happy about. |