The plunge

Humphrey Hound has brought about a few things in our house:

• a three-fold increase in slobber on clothes, bedding, and car windows,
• a seven-fold increase in cat, pet and Shannen hair accumulating on all horizontal surfaces and blowing tumbleweed-like across our hardwood prairie when the windows are opened,
• a heightened realization that a small house and no fenced backyard make puppyhood less than fun.

And though very few of these things would be changed by it, these three have been our sole motivation for taking the plunge and buying a new house. We are the proud owners of a new Minto home in Barrhaven (front view, back view), the Paloma 3 Bonus Room.

Our search started a few weeks ago, when one of us started to dig around the Ottawa MLS site and Grapevine, the Ottawa “for sale by owner” site, seeing what was available in the resale market. There are some wonderful homes outside of Ottawa metro, in places like North Gower and Greely. For $275,000 to $325,000, you can get a nice bungalow or 2-story on 5 acres. One we saw was 10 acres, with a dog kennel business and a maple syrup farm! These were all very tempting, until we realized that Shannen’s commute would be punishing each and every day she works downtown. Not fun.

Friends of ours pointed us to builder inventory homes … houses that are nearing completion that do not have buyers yet. The builders need to choose cupboards, flooring, etc as the house nears completion unsold, so to tempt potential buyers, they put in free upgrades to make them move. However, there is also usually a reason why these inventory homes have remained unsold. In our experience, it is because these houses front or back onto busy roads.

That is somewhat the case for our new abode. The front of our house faces what is now a 2 lane artery, but will become a 4 lane artery. And according to the City of Ottawa’s Official Plan, a 6 lane artery in 2021. I find that somewhat hard to believe, but we will have sold it to the next proud owners by then anyway. This small bit of cruddiness is offset by the large back yard, a corner lot, a double garage, a nice ensuite bathroom, a great kitchen/sitting room layout where we’ll spend most of our time, and the choice of everything inside the house except the cupboards!

We signed the papers last night, take possession on June 26th, and are off to the Minto Design Center on Monday to choose our blue tinted hardwood and pink carpeting.

So come and visit us in July! Within a few weeks of moving:

• Slobber levels will be back to critical.
• A larger hardwood prairie will boast an even larger harvest of hair tumbleweeds.
• Sod won’t be delivered until at least August, so Humph will be bored in the house.

A new house, the solution to all of our problems 😉