New Home

Today we FINALLY took possession of our new house. Actually, it was pretty quick– just two weeks from the day we made our initial offer– but it seems like forever, having spent pretty much every weekend since August and a good portion of the weeks scanning real estate guides and viewing houses. Then, since we put in our offer, it’s been a bunch of hurry-up and wait– find out if our offer is accepted, finding out when we can get a home inspector, confirming that our mortgage has been approved, confirming everything with lawyers. The funny thing about buying a house is that it pretty much hurtles you into the adult world– far more than I would have expected. Not only do we get the mortgage, we get the home insurance, the life insurance (which gets us thinking about who will look after our pets in the event of our untimely demise, and what it will cost), we start to care about financial markets on a personal level, a new (joint!) bank account…
So now we’re moving in. Fortunately, it’s as close to a non-fixer-upper as you can get. Central vac, new furnace and hot water heater, newly-done bathroom. There’s some updates that would be nice to have done, eventually, but nothing that needs to be done, so we can just move our stuff in and be done with it. We also know the neighbourhood (mere blocks from where I grew up), and it’s a quiet street, so we don’t have to adjust to much or worry about our pets.
The weird thing about moving into a place that doesn’t really need work is that it feels more like your house-sitting than moving in– the previous owner’s fingerprints are all over everything. It’s also interesting to see what they left behind– a random assortment of glassware, a suitcase, teapots… I assume stuff they just didn’t feel like packing.

Oh, and their cat.

His name is Beans.