House Is Ours

Like that Carlsberg commercial says… “You and the bank own a lovely home”.

The house deal has come to a happy ending today. I had a meeting at the lawyer’s at 8:30 am (ouch) and signed our lives away. (Since Jen is away at present I signed piles of papers on her behalf.) The process seemed straightforward enough even if our lawyer was a bit plastic himself. (He seems to have a patter and repeated a bunch of his statements verbatim from our initial meeting.) We didn’t get to keep copies of anything we signed today, although he reassured me that this was because his staff will collect everything into one big report (rather than being handed a paper here and a paper there).

His staff seem to be quite competent and around 3:30 his clerk called to say that the deal was done. Around 4:30, after finishing a few work tasks, I went over there and picked up the keys. In the envelope with the keys was a property tax bill for $1700. You can’t even own a house for 30 seconds it seems before the bills start showing up. (The tax bills were issued last month, but they are due on Monday! And it is our place now!)

Got to the house around 5:30 and found everything perfect there. The house was spotless. The floors, the bathroom, even the oven was sparkling clean. We have had a few days of rain here this week but the basement was dry. (A bit of condensation on walls and floor but no running water. No visible moisture on the dirt floor area either.)

I went through the house checking things out and all the rooms were still there. Manuals for everything from windows to fridges to carbon monoxide detectors were provided. About a billion keys.

In terms of the work before we move in. I think we will have to do a bit more painting than we planned. The downstairs is painted a light yellow colour which is actually a bit grimy now that her stuff is out. Also, there are a lot of nails in the wall for hanging her many items. I think that space is going to have to be pained. Luckily the paint cans in the basement list the colour number so I’ll call the paint store tomorrow and see if that colour can still be made up. I still want to get the wallpaper off my office, but we’ll see how much gets done before we move in.

My dad came over in the evening and got a grand tour. He seemed to really like the house (which is great). Looking forward to showing it off to all of you. I am hoping Jen will have the energy on her return for an evening of tours on Friday night. I’d like her to be able to share in the grand tour excitement.

The house was as cool as I remembered it. I think I will really enjoy it. Of course, it is a little bittersweet though. As I write this from the balcony of our current apartment I am feeling slightly sad to be leaving our current home which we love so much. There is a season for everything, however, and it is the season of home ownership now. And the home we own is a wonderful space.

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