Sorry for the lack of blogs since Tuesday. I’ve barely been sleeping, except for Wednesday night where I fell asleep at 8pm and didn’t wake up until after 7 the next morning. It’s absolutely amazing the thoughts and worries and everything that comes along with the purchase of a house!

Our first step was to get the financing in place. We were preapproved, but our broker is working at getting us a better rate. Initially, she was going for 5.4% – which that day was a good rate. Now she’s working on 4.99% – which is even better! I love that the rates have gone down!

My biggest complaint is the lack of communication from our mortgage broker! It’s amazing how frustrating it is working with her. I know she’s doing things for us, but I’m dying to find out what’s going on. If she didn’t have all our info – and we didn’t have a deadline of Monday at 6:59, we would be dealing with someone else. I’m certain that when we get to renegotiating our mortgage we will not be dealing with her.

Agent M however is being fantastic! She found us a great Home Inspector – and the price was awesome and the book is outstanding. Through our finalizing of the agreement, the homeowners gave us a copy of their inspection from two years ago. The binder is so small compared to ours. And their inspector mentioned things that weren’t even a real issue – according to our Inspector and our agent. (Ie. deck needing a railing, even though it’s less than 24 inches – which means that legally you don’t need it.)

Our home inspection went really well. There are some minor things, but they all seem like things we can do ourselves or very easily get fixed for minimal cost. James had the pleasure of being there start to finish. Unfortunately, I can’t take much time off, so I just took an extra half hour at lunch and popped into town. I was incredibly happy to see that it was 24km round trip. I was there in no time it seemed and smiled the whole way!

Pulling up to the house I was so excited – but walking in is when you get the biggest impact. It’s so spacious and roomy. James met me at the door, and we headed immediately into the basement. I kept looking around at everything and it was great to have our inspector point out things we didn’t even know – like the fact that the basement has a rough in for a bathroom! That means the house could potentially have four bathrooms!

I love the gas fireplace in the basement too – and James likes it even more when he and the inspector got to play with the remote. James was smiling as he told me about how you can adjust the flame simply by touching a button. Of course that smile was nothing compared to the ear to ear grin as he told me about the basement being wired for surround sound. It’s got him dreaming of speakers and how he’s going to put everything together. He’s also dreaming of a bigger tv thanks to Curtis’ new purchase. Kristina and Curtis moved into their new house and the deal was that he’d get a new tv for the deal. James thinks it’s a great idea, and thanks to the current home owners having a HUGE entertainment centre – James thinks we needs to have a bigger tv to go with the surround sound. Boys and their toys!

Before I went back to work I walked the house by myself. I tested the taps in all the facets, and loved the view from the kitchen over the dining and living room. Open concept living is going to be great for us, as we love to entertain. Also once we have kids it will be so much easier to watch the little kiddies so they don’t get in trouble. I love how bright the house was too!

Upstairs the bedrooms seemed different, but not in a bad way. The main bedrooms seemed a little smaller – but still big – and the small bedroom seemed even bigger. I took a spin in the walk-in-closet to checked it out. In my head I was scheming where we’d put our clothes – and just which racks I let James have. (He’s going to kill me for saying that!) I realized that we’d probably want to hide our clothes we don’t wear that often behind the door.

My favourite room I think is the kitchen, even though it has some limitations. We’d like to put in a pantry beside the kitchen. I hadn’t really thought of it before having not ever had one – but dishwashers remove one whole cupboard! This makes your cupboards just that tiny bit less. I still can’t believe the house has a dishwasher too – as I can see standing at the sink, looking out and talking with guests, or talking to James – or even just looking out the window across the room at the backyard with it’s deck and two gorgeous bushes. James really wants some stainless steel and he’s working out a scheme with Norm and Penny for a trade – we get them a new white set, and they give us some stainless steel that they are getting from friends. I just laugh and shake my head – this is our first house – we don’t need to have our dream appliances right off the bat do we?

The strangest thing about the whole house buying process was that we ended up falling in love and offering on a newer house, when we started out with older homes. It’s no secret that we wanted some charm and personality in our first house. This house, being a row house, isn’t that much of an individual when you first look at it. But when you walk inside it truly feels different and special. It will hopefully soon be our unique house – that is ours. It’s all down to CMHC -and I’m trying to not get too attached in case they decide to completely dash our hopes and dreams.

This is why – if you say “Congratulations” I won’t really be over the moon yet. Until the final papers are signed, I’m going to be sitting and worrying and fretting – and yes, not sleeping very well! But this house, really is a dream and I hope and pray that we can finalize everything on Monday and sign on the dotted line!