Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Does the house fit the furniture or the furniture fit the house?

The second we heard our offer was accepted, our minds turned to our new project - buying furniture! Ok, maybe not the second after - at that point our minds turned to a bottle of wine (or at least our lips did!), but pretty soon after!

It couldn't have been more than a day or two after and we were on the hunt for some new furniture for the house. Anyone who knows Mike and I knows we like lists, and sure enough we had made a list of what furniture we needed to buy (among other things!) so off we went, list in hand.

Now, our house is not huge, not even big, it's a Beaches/Toronto home, so it's on the smaller size, I like to say cozy. We knew we wanted a king size bed, and were willing to sacrifice floor space for it, and a new light coloured couch, since I had had enough of black leather!

After a lot of searching we ended up buying our king bed from GH Johnson's, which is a warehouse-like furniture store that I really recommend - good prices and nice selection, and a couch from the Chesterfield Shop, which I also highly recommend - good prices and great selection - you can choose everything from the material to the armrests!

Fast forward a month and we went to our final walk through before the close, and we thought we should measure the rooms.

Bedroom - check to the king bed!

Living room - the couch will not fit!

The couch we had bought would leave about 10 cm walking space. Luckily we were able to call the Chesterfield Shop and since they had not started making our couch yet we were able to order us a smaller size that would give us room to walk past it!

So, my piece of advice to new homeowners may seem obvious, but in the excitement of the moment is easy to forget. Unless you are into construction, you can't change the size of your house, so make sure you know how much space you have to work with when you are buying new furniture. Take a tape measure with you when you go tour houses, or better yet once you have purchased a house, stop, breathe a minute, grab a bottle of wine, and stop again. Wait until you do your final walk through or move into the house and you have as much time as you want to measure your rooms before you go shopping, list in hand.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

To theme or not to theme?

When I started to think about decorating our house, I wondered whether we should have some kind of "theme". I didn't want it to be overdone, but thought it might be nice to have some flow and pieces that tie the place together. Since we are living in The Beaches, the theme was obvious - beachy.

While having sand on the floor instead of hardwood floors or waterbeds instead of normal ones seemed a bit extreme, I thought through artwork on the walls or knick knacks on some shelves I could get the feel I wanted out of the house - bright, comfortable, and calm - just like the beach a few steps away.

Armed with this idea, I hit up some of the typical home stores, and was able to find some pieces I really liked. While Mike has requested "no more water pictures", I think I was successful in bringing the beach in. You can see a few pictures of some of my finds below.

I'd love to hear from you - what do you think about having a "theme" in houses? Do you have one?






Friday, September 17, 2010

What a girl wants...but maybe doesn't need

When we started looking for a house, we sat down and made a list of "needs" vs. "wants".

Some of our original "needs" included:
  • parking
  • three bedrooms
  • two bathrooms
  • tall basement ceilings
  • The Beach or High Park neighbourhood 
Well, once we actually started looking at houses, we quickly realized that to get into the pricey Toronto housing market (especially near The Beach, which was our ideal neighbourhood),  towards the beginning of spring 2010 when houses were selling like hotcakes with up to 10 bidders each, we may have to modify our list of "needs".

As a first time homebuyer, this was one of the hardest things to do. Especially as two people who had grown up in the suburbs, where these "needs" were part of every house. Luckily we stumbled upon a great real estate agent who crushed our dreams and brought us back down to reality;)

Just kidding, no dreams were crushed, but she did help us realize that some of the things we thought we "needed", we actually could live without.

So we ended up with three out of five things on that original list (no parking and only one bathroom), but with a house we love in our dream neighbourhood. And there's actually perks to some of those "wants" we had to go without, I get good exercise walking up our hilly street after parking the car a street over, and nothing makes you closer as a couple than one of you fogging up the mirrors with the shower while the other tries to put on makeup in the mirror;)

To those who are beginning their search for their first home, I still think it was a good idea to make a lists of "needs" vs "wants", but make sure you are prepared to redo that list after your first trip out with your real estate agent!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A property virgin no more

This summer has been exciting for my boyfriend, Mike, and I, as we bought and moved into our first house! After living in a condo for several years, I was very excited that we would finally have our own backyard.



You might be wondering what the excitement of a backyard is; it's nowhere as big as the park we used live across the street from, we have to mow the lawn ourselves (and even change the sod next spring to something a little more alive!), and as far as backyards go, it's pretty pint-sized.

For me, however, having our own backyard signified something bigger. It was finally a little piece of the world that was all our own. It was a place to spend hot July afternoons getting burnt sunbathing, a place to have lazy August BBQs, a place I could plant flowers that wilted two weeks later, and a place we would probably ignore for most of the winter. But it was our place, and we could do whatever we wanted.

Mind you, this doesn't just apply to our backyard, it applies to our whole house, our own little castle. It's a place that after the first two months living there has more holes in the walls than were there before (either covered by artwork, or carefully covered with plaster and painted over!), a place where we spent 3 days trying to find the matching paint colour, and then had to redo the whole main floor, and a place where we have a list of 25 To Do's, but it's now home.

Now it may seem like we've run into a few trials and tribulations in the first few months of owning our home, but I think we've done pretty well. We've learned a few things already, with many more to come I'm sure! I hope I can share some of what I've learned and get some advice in the future. Above all, if you're considering purchasing your own abode, I hope you'll consider one with your own backyard.