Eureka!

There’s this little joke that I like to tease Tyler about. I am certain that one day we will be refinishing the floors or stairs and I’ll tear up a loose board and find an old dusty canvas bag filled with lots and lots of money. Enough  money for us to run away and live like kings in Fiji for the rest of our lives. There are many uneven, loose floor boards in the house and whenever I step on one I lose myself in this fantasy of flipping up that board and discovering some kind of treasure from years past. I know it’s a bit silly, but I also think it’s hilarious.

Well I didn’t find a casket of jewels or come across a small fortune, but I did manage to find a tenant last week. And let me tell you, I am so relieved. It’s a major stress and a delicate balance. I’m a rather nice person, and so having to tell someone who wants to rent your suite that YOU don’t want them to is difficult for me. We’re picky and we want nice, quiet, normal people to rent a part of our house. We want someone who will respect the space. We have put a lot of energy and time (and money) into the suite to make sure we would attract those types of people. And we did, but not all were perfect for us.

The first lady to look was very nice and had lots of good energy. I was a little leery about her 20-something son who was living with her “only for six months”. Because you know how that story goes. But really the clincher was the fact that she has three cats AND a dog. She said they don’t make a mess, but if my experience is any indication, animals most certainly DO make a mess. And I’m having beige carpet installed. I want it to stay clean for at least a little while. Besides, Tyler and I are not so sure having three cats in the house is a good idea, what with his insane allergies and all. Our ad said “small pets considered,” and so we considered them and decided NO. She didn’t seem none too pleased with me. “Oh, I understand.”

Second was a very sweet young woman and her nine-year-old son. I liked them both, so I offered her the suite. The same day, she found another place to rent that suited her better. Boo! I was kind of bummed. Because the other potential tenants were an older couple who seemed really nice and I thought they would be perfect, but the husband was a bit loud and sometimes cheeky and I just knew in a few months it would start to get on my nerves. Hey, I’m sensitive! Thankfully, they never called back when they said they would.

I answered lots of e-mails and sent photos. The only other person who came to look at the suite was the person we’ve rented to. Her and her husband are relocating from northern BC back to the Island. The husband is still there, packing up and getting everything ready for the move. So Sharon has been staying with her parents and looking for accommodations. I liked her immediately when I met her: soft-spoken, sweet, well-mannered. Her mom came too, and I just wanted to hug her she’s so nice! And Piper LOVED both of them. (That was a good sign. Piper barked at the brash old man.) They have two Pomeranians, and they hardly go outside or bark too much (hopefully!). Thing is, Piper goes crazy for a minute or so when someone comes to the door or when we torture her by making her jump and dance for her treats, so it’s just a part of life with a dog. So not long after they left, Tyler and I talked, and I sent Sharon an e-mail to tell her that we would be happy to offer them the suite. She came yesterday to sign the rental agreement and give us a security deposit.

The relief and tension has melted away. I have a good feeling about Sharon and I just know they will be great tenants. I’ve been feeling my intuition is a lot stronger lately, and this instance is no exception.

Now I just have to finish the renos! Their move-in date was set to be March 15, which was lots of time for me. But now there’s a possibility of it being earlier, and I still have a ton of work to do. Thing is, I’m working on articles this week and next, and I’m already behind on those. I can’t even describe to you how happy I felt when I flipped the calendar over from January to February, but February is turning out to be a super busy month. Sigh, that’s okay, it’ll just make spring come that much faster. I’m already noticing some bushes and trees with new shoots coming forth, and with that I feel the deep clouds of winter lifting slowly away.

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Rewind: Browsing for a Home

Looking for a house to buy is hard work, especially when you aren’t even sure exactly where you want to live. If we could have afforded it, I would have bought a house in Oak Bay without question. However, house prices there are ridiculous, and there are few properties with suites (“mortgage helpers”). Of course, I looked, but do an mls search in Oak Bay and the least expensive house is often over $600,000! They say to buy the worst house in the best neighbourhood, and while this maxim is generally a good rule of thumb, it’s not so black and white. We couldn’t afford a house in Oak Bay. Well, actually we COULD, but then we would be absolutely stretched to the maximum debt to income ratio and we were not interested in putting ourselves in that position. We had to leave ourselves some room to breathe in case of job loss, increase in interest rates, etc.

So we looked at houses all over town — old and new and newly renovated. We had little idea of what we were looking for.

• Fairfield. The cheapest house at the time we were looking was $525,000 and needed major renovations. It was also TINY.
• James Bay. Way too expensive.
• Fernwood. We looked at a lot of houses in Fernwood, thinking it was still a “reasonably” priced area with lots of potential to increase in value. Nothing. The cheapest house we looked at, around $400,000, seemed a tear-down to me. There was one I really liked, but it hardly had a yard at all. I wanted lots of greenspace to garden.
• Oaklands. I love the Oaklands area. We couldn’t find anything here.
• North and South Jubilee. We spied a couple houses in these areas, but for the price they just seemed too much. Small houses with big price tags. 1,200 square feet? No suite? Postage-stamp-size lots? For close to half a million dollars? There was a cute house near Oak Bay border that I really liked, but it had an odd layout and no bathroom upstairs by the master bedroom. I thought it was a possibility, for the price of $420,000, but Tyler said no way. And that house didn’t sell for MONTHS. He must have known something wasn’t quite right.
• Saanich, Hillside, Quadra Village, Burnside, etc. We looked all over and just couldn’t find anything quite right for us.

I learned a lot by looking for a house. Never owning a house before, I hadn’t ever even thought about assessments and what they meant. In many areas and depending on the age of the house, the house was assessed at a lot less than the land, like the house we rented in Oak Bay for example. I came to realize that it is the LAND that holds so much VALUE. So buying a new home on a tiny piece of property, especially in a new subdivision, would just be silly for us. Even an older home on a small property doesn’t make sense. We wanted something that had lots of potential. We wanted to buy a home that would always have a lot of value. We also realized we didn’t want to buy a new home or a newly renovated home, as we would be paying more. But we also didn’t want to take on a total home renovation project for our first home. We had to find some middle ground.

During our search, our landlord told us that he had decided to sell the house. He felt pretty bad, because he knew we wanted to stay there for a few years and he really liked us. I even ran into him downtown around Christmas time and he told me, once again, that we were the best tenants he ever had, by far, and he was so happy we had found a wonderful home to buy. I miss him a little bit, actually. Jerry and I had a rapport with one another. As well, it had only been a few months since Tyler and I had rented the whole house from Jerry, and rented out the lower suite ourselves. Our friend Jenny had moved in, so it was a bit of a shock to her that the house was going up for sale, quickly at that.

We loved that house. There were lots of things that I didn’t love, the DIY repairs and such, but the house had an energy that just always felt right and good. The asking price was $860,000, way out of our price range of course, but we pitched Jerry an idea for us to all go into “business” together so that we could eventually buy the house from him. He actually gave it some thought, but they needed the money. They were moving back east to go back to school. I thought that would be the case, but I was glad I tried. I really do love that house. And its location a block from Willows Beach makes it highly desirable. (Oh, how I yearn to be back there. Location location! I miss that beach.) The listing is still online if you want to take a look.

But at this point we realized buying a house was the right direction for us. Was it coincidence that Jerry decided to sell the house the same time we decided to buy? We didn’t want to rent again, and we didn’t want to move again for at least five years. Knowing that we would have to move once the house sold, which we thought would be quick, we really set about to find something.

And that’s when I came across the listing for our house. I had looked at it months earlier, in fact, and LOVED it, but since it was in Sooke, I felt it wasn’t an option for us. We discussed moving out of town a bit, but had decided against it. Coming across the house a second time, however, we thought we could go have a look at least. And that will be the subject of the next posting…

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‘Tis But a Flesh Wound

 

Yesterday I felt very tired, after not sleeping so well the night before. I’m stressed about finishing the suite, finding a tenant, what it will be like to have a stranger living in my house (even though the suite is private), etc. and it’s actually keeping me from sleeping well. I thought we had found a great tenant, but yesterday she told me that she had rented something else. Bum-mer.

So I arrive home after babysitting a cranky little girl all afternoon and decide to do a few things in the suite. It’s one of those projects where you can’t do everything in a few days. It takes a while and I have to be patient, but I also have to keep positive and plugging away at it. Perhaps it wasn’t the best day to be cutting drywall and hammering.

Things I Learned (or Re-Learned)

• measure twice, cut once.
• don’t try to divide a thin piece of drywall into two even thinner ones. It doesn’t work.

  

   

• hammering nails directly upwards is REALLY hard.
• don’t put your face right in front of where you are hammering a nail, keep it to the side.
• ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GEAR. Drywall crumbles in eyes = ouch.
• try not to get the finger of your disposable glove caught in the screw while using the electric drill.
• screws should go in straight.
• 1 1/4-inch screws are better than those really long ones that you are unable to screw in with that powerful electric drill.
• don’t fall off the ladder.

While hammering awkwardly upwards (to secure the metal edging on a corner), I somehow smacked my finger in between the hammer and the railing of the ladder. It hurt, but I kept hammering because I was getting frustrated. A few moments later I looked down at my hand and saw that the finger glove was all bloody! Aw, ’tis but a flesh wound, but I sure could be more careful.

Today is a day off from renos, weeee! Happy about that…

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