Another step on the grown up ladder

It's all a crock of course - I am not and never will be a grown up.  But... buying a house is one of those things on the list of "to do's" for being an adult.

It was certainly an educational experience.  Banks are just crazy.  On the one hand, people are morons and will evidently try and get away with the stupidest things.  But there is a difference between caution and paranoiac red-tape that apparently escapes the banking execs.  In the end, we did get a decent mortgage, although not perhaps with exactly the terms we would have preferred.

I also learned that the "lake" communities around here are just silly.  You have to pay an HOA, which is the equivalent of a condo fee, to maintain the lake facilities, plant flowers, etc.  Which I suppose isn't completely unreasonable, but if I'm paying for the lake, then I should be able to bring my dog.  Thankfully, we didn't like any of the houses that we looked at in those neighbourhoods, so it was never more than an intellectual exercise.

The house we settled on is in a neighbourhood called Deer Run.  It's in a sort of pocket neighbourhood, enclosed on two sides by Fish Creek Provincial park and most of it was built 20-30 years ago, so it's full of mature trees and obviously LOTS of green space.  The house is only a block away from an enormous offleash park, so Ursa should be happy.  The house itself is a four level split, which I didn't think I'd like, but the layout was well designed.  Not much space wasted on hallways and lots of free flowing space.  At our price point, it's not perfect, but we can definitely work with it.  There's lots of carpeting, that we'll be ripping out and replacing with laminate before we even move in.

Next summer, we'll hopefully be upgrading the exterior - replace the windows, pull off the siding and redo it properly (either with more siding or maybe stucco), definitely redo the parging properly.  At some point the furnace and water heater will have to be replaced.  And after that, I want to redo the kitchen and the main bathroom.  We want to put raised plant beds in the front and back yard, and zero-scape the rest, maybe put a deck on the front?  A home owner's work is never done - and we haven't even moved in yet!!! LOL

We don't get possession until June 16, so we have time to pack and plan and generally get nice and overwrought.  More details as we go!