... and so it begins. We had just built our 'dream house' back in 2001 and planned to live there 'forever'. It was about a year later, after dropping Gord off at his school that I was driving south on McMillan Rd. I just happened to look to my right over the houses I was passing and noticed, for the first time ever after driving along there for years, this very intriguing rooftop, very steep with a chimney, on the next block. Very curious, I turned up the street around the next corner and drove to the end of the cul-de-sac to see this amazing little house! AND it was for sale! It took a bit of persuading but eventually Gord was willing to just take a look. We walked thru it with the realtor and even though it was tempting (and Gord would have been willing) I just wasn't ready to take on a huge renovation project. It needed so much work inside and I was still recovering from all the stress and work of building our current home. A little part of me always regretted that decision. Over the years I would drive past it on occasion either a quick glance up the back lane to the back of the house or a quick zip around the cul-de-sac just to look. I'd watch the real estate papers just in case it was for sale again. Eventually, in 2007, we moved from our 'dream' house to another one to live another 6 years, this time with Thomas & Roxi in a basement suite. But the little house on Filuk Place was often on my mind.
It was 2013 and we had just started thinking about downsizing & getting T & R into their own place when I saw the 'for sale' sign! I could hardly believe my eyes! It had actually been on the market for a few weeks before I saw it. We called up Randy to set up a viewing.
I have to admit, it was in pretty rough shape inside. A lot of work had been done throughout the years but not at all to our taste and not with any professional results. But my heart was already moved in. The house was very close to being a foreclosure. The current owners had run out of money from their reno's and were in deep debt.
The owner wouldn't let us just look thru the house with Randy: she followed us everywhere, talking the whole time about how she was an interior designer and why she did what she did in each room and what her vision was. It made it very awkward because we didn't feel free enough to look into cupboards and closets.
We actually walked thru a second time and again, she followed us everywhere. Not to be deterred, we decided to put an offer in.
So the next step was getting our house on the market. We wanted to list at 525,000 in spite of Randy's attempt to convince us we'd be lucky if we got 495,000 for it. We got rid of lots of clutter, Randy's stager came thru with a few suggestions, and it was for sale! There were a few viewings almost immediately, kind of a steady flow but no second viewings. Then we got a call one weekend afternoon that a realtor was bringing someone by. Gord and I drove down below and parked on Blauson Blvd so we could still look up at the house and about half an hour later saw 3 adults and a young boy standing out on our deck. Then they must have gone down to the back yard and we could hear the boy yelling and laughing (good sign, right?) Later that day we got a call that they wanted to put in an offer! We settled on 519,000 which we were absolutely satisfied with! The only issue was they wanted a possession date of July 31, which meant we'd be homeless for a month and four days. They were a husband and wife with a 6 year old son and a baby due in November. Two aunts would be moving into the basement suite to help them with the mortgage. We agreed and then tried to move up our possession date by a month but the current owner, Lorene, wasn't willing to budge one bit.
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