After the whirlwind of purchasing our first home, I thought it would be nice to record the moving in process and the following renovations on blogger.

We've been renting for most of our adult lives - and after realizing that our apartment was actually costing more than a mortgage, we decided to take the plunge. Honestly, apartment living has never really been for us - we're both private people who don't enjoy the fact that every one of our neighbors can hear our arguments, smell what we're eating for dinner (and frequently comment on it) and know the ins and outs of when we leave/get home/how many bags of groceries/beer/whatever we are bringing in. And seriously, I think that the "surround sound screaming" of our neighbors is taking a strain on my own relationship. It's hard to listen to someone yell at their wife on the phone for hours upon hours, without starting to feel a little cranky yourself.

At any rate; after casually browsing around some real estate sites, partially out of curiously, but halfway hoping to find something that caught my eye, I found our house on sarnia.kijiji.ca. I think this benefited us greatly, we developed a relationship with Karen, the woman we bought the house from, and she's been able to tell us all of the little ins and outs of the house. I mean, she even wrote us a little note to tell us to remember to keep the front window open next summer because the smell of lilacs will fill the house. Bless ya, Karen!

Anyways - we were fortunate to have enough saved for a downpayment - it's not usual to spontaneously purchase a house, I suppose, but as I've said, this apartment building is just Too Much For Us. Thanks to the help of Josh's father, Jim (their family motto is "don't ask me how, but I did it") we were able to get all of the paperwork, mortgage, downpayment, and lawyer straightened out.

We take possession on June 30th, 2010. We're planning on having a party that weekend - it's Canada Day weekend, and a lot of our friends are back in town...plus, we just wanna have a party.

Our first home renovation will be renovating the countertops in the kitchen.