039 LOVE IT OR LIST IT

As I sit here and realize that I have now been living here just over a month I thought I should reflect on some of the things I love, like or hate about the new house and things I miss about the old house.  I’ll start with the old place.  I miss the apple, cherry and Hawthorne trees in full bloom in the springtime, but I sure don’t miss raking up all those leaves in the fall.  I also don’t miss all the crud and crap that fell on the cover of my boat throughout the year.

I miss my neighbour Yoko who always had a happy greeting for us and pets for Toby.  I miss the park across the street where I grew up playing and where Toby spent most of his life playing.  I don’t miss the tiny little, cold and dirty basement that I lived in for twenty years.  I miss the memories that were made in that hose, but they come with me.  I miss my “big white house” as I called it as a kid, but I sure don’t miss the maintenance involved.  That’s about it that I can think of at this time.

As for the new place.  I love having a master bedroom with a real bed.  The walk-in closet is awesome ALSO and I have managed to fill it up pretty well.  Granted I am probably the only person anywhere that hangs up T-shirts rather than putting them in a drawer.  I actually do that because I don’t like putting T-shirts in the dryer and so I hang them up to dry.

I love having three bathrooms, well actually two and a powder room.  Part of that, I absolutely love having a walk-in shower that is huge.  Having the glass enclosure instead of the shower curtain that sticks to you is amazing.  I also love having a high capacity water heater so I can stand in the shower until I’m wrinkled and still have hot water left over.

I love the front loading washer and dryer that are very easy to use and do such a great job without tearing clothes occasionally like the old agitator washer did.  I sure put it through a workout in the first couple of weeks in that every single item that was washable, went through this washer and dryer.  They handled the load like a trooper.  Clothing, towels, blankets, sheets, quilt covers and even a down filled sleeping bag.

I especially love having room to move around and see different sights through my multitude of windows.  In the old house I had three small windows, only one of which opened.  It is so bright and airy in here, it’s awesome.  It’s quite a contrast to the almost dungeon like existence I had before.  Yes, I had access to the upstairs, but that was my Dad’s space.  Even a year after Dad’s passing, I never felt comfortable with the thought of moving upstairs.  Silly, I know but that was just the feeling I had and couldn’t get past.

Once I got past my initial fiasco with the stove and all of the smoke alarms, I love cooking on this stove.  One big secret I discovered is do mostly everything at a level 6 medium heat, rather than the full on high 10.  I have been baking up a storm as well.  Several batches of my amazing (if I do say so myself) peanut butter cookies and milk chocolate chip cookies.  Next project is an angel food cake, just because Renee doesn’t totally believe I can do it.  I think she’s more of a believer now after all the cookies.

I have been very impressed with all of the neighbours I have met so far and all the new ones arriving intermittently.  I truly believe we are going to have an amazing community around here.  All of the surroundings are changing almost daily, with the landscapers working overtime to get the outside looking great.  We have a small park that is just in the finishing stages behind us, and just a half block up the street there is a pond in the process of being put in.

The roads are nice and wide which makes driving the truck in easy and it is a great thing when it comes to swinging in with the boat and backing it into the garage.  Granted that isn’t going to happen too often but it is nice to be able to do it.

My back yard is almost finished off now and the grass had its first cutting the other day.  A couple of shrubs have been planted in the little garden by the gate and it will be interesting to see what they become.  There needs to be lattice put in, under the deck, otherwise Toby has free range to 3 other yards, but the construction manager said that it is coming shortly.

I know what you are thinking, there must be something I don’t like.  If I had to pick something, it would be the one hour commute every Wednesday to play hockey at UBC.  But that is a personal choice and I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have such a good and fun group of guys to play with.  Thinking about it though, I used to drive 45 minutes every Thursday to play with the group in Delta.  They weren’t such a good group though and if I was still playing there, I wouldn’t be doing the drive.

So, that is just a few of the loves, likes, hits and misses about the move and the new place.  If I was on the show Love It or List It, I would definitely have to say “Love It”.  Speaking of which, I am getting bombarded by junk mail from real estate people wanting to buy my place and/or sell me another one.  They are completely out of luck on both counts.  I’m not selling and just the thought of moving again makes me nauseous.