The acreage

Here we go, finally the acreage! You can check back over the next couple days as I plan to put out separate posts about upstairs, downstairs, one special room upstairs and one about the house and MS. And maybe one all about the reno puppy. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember how the acreage buying conversations started but basically after a few months realizing that we were already living together I guess we wanted something that could fit us all a little more comfortably. Paul had this grand plan for gardens and entertaining spaces and I just wanted all the animals and space. Living with terrible neighbours above, below and right beside you will make you want as much space as you can get. To me space around the house was more important than the size of the house. 

One day we went for a drive in some of the areas we were thinking about just looking for sale signs. The first house we saw was a for sale by owner sign, we drove down this long drive way like creeps and the owners actually came out and offered to send up a link and a video about their house. It wasn’t right for us but a great area. The interesting thing is I will come back to this first house at the end. We kept driving and we found a lot for sale, we drove down this ominous treed path with my brand new RAV4 and almost got stuck. We called the number and were almost immediately told that the most important selling feature of this lot was it came with a walk-in pizza oven? Even the Chef wasn’t too sure what that was, but it sounded like something out of a horror movie. We would also see so many for sale signs when we would go out for training rides on our bikes.Pretty quickly after that we decided to get the help of a professional. Enter Dave and Maria Ozubko.

When we started looking we had a pretty specific wish list. The amazing Dave and Maria got us set up where we could look at listings within the basic parameters we told them. So what did we tell them? Well we wanted at least 3 acres, a mix of trees for privacy and some open space for gardens. I wanted room for animals. We wanted to stick to Strathcona County because of proximity to the restaurants, my work, Paul’s daughter and my family. We wanted a bungalow which I will get a little more into in a separate post about the house and MS, but I am sure you might be able to guess why. We wanted a certain number of bedrooms to accommodate our family and out of town visitors. A space that could be used for an office and another for an exercise room. We were open to something that needed a full renovation or something that just needed a few updates, I don’t think we had our heart set either way. We also looked at buying a lot and building.

The first house we saw with Dave and Maria was at the top of our budget, in my opinion it was way too big with a poor layoutwhere a lot of space was wasted. It was only a few years old but not finished the way I would have liked. I don’t know about you but to me there is nothing worse than buying something new that isn’t your style but not being able to justify renovating it because it is basically brand new. The land was more open than we would have liked and was pretty much maxed out on distance because it was way further south into Leduc County. After that we made a list and went searching on our own again. Some properties/lots were easy to cross off from just the listing, other ones we wanted a closer look but didn’t necessarily want to commit to a showing yet. We wrote out a list, googled the addresses and made a plan to drive around a check out as many as we could. Many properties we could easily cross off with things like proximity to the city or the type of lot. We just didn’t see the point of moving out of the city only to still be right next to your neighbours. Some were great but at the top of our price range and we just couldn’t justify it. We also quickly learned that building on a rural lot is complicated and would take more time than I think either of us were prepared to wait.

What we didn’t expect is how many other people had the same idea we did, which we realized only when we got serious about putting in offers. The first house we finally settled on wasn’t the ideal land and was getting close to our max on proximity and budget. It was newer but fit our style only needing a few upgrades. It had been on the market for something like 100 days and the morning after seeing it we put in an offer only to learn it had just gone pending! We were the back up offer, we waited and waited and I am not even kidding when I say the deal came down to the last hour. So we were back to searching. A house came on the market in the same area, perfect mix of land, ready for all the animals and gardens but with a great amount of privacy. The house definitely needed a lot of work but we could do it within our budget. We were the first ones to see it and by the evening it had 17 showing and 3 offers, one of which was ours. We went in over asking, I even wrote a heartfelt letter explaining why this place would be perfect for us. We were so sad when we heard the news that once again we were the backup offer, but this time to a cash offer to someone who hadn’t even come to the house themselves. In the end we lost that house, and we took it hard. It was hard to be excited about anything we were seeing after that.

But, we kept trying and figured the Thanksgiving weekend while everyone was distracted with their dinners we would go out driving on our own again. As we went to look at one house, we saw a new listing sign and realized it was one that just came up on our search. We asked for a showing immediately. It was a house built in 1978, it needed a lot of work but the proximity and location could not be beat. The land was not necessarily ideal for the type of gardens we had envisioned but figured we could make other ideas work. We came back for a second showing with a few contractors from BelVan Construction to get an idea of if we could do what we wanted within budget. I was worried that Paul was ignoring some serious flags because he was so sad about losing the other house and desperate to “win” this time. We put in an offer pending inspection and it was accepted. The inspection found pretty substantial issues but Paul was convinced we could deal with them. After a less than ideal negotiation the deal was done, the house was ours. The renovations began the day we took possession, they actuallybegan before we even took possession if you can believe (more on that in the basement post). We took possession on November 30 and our first night sleeping in the house was February 13. I still can’t believe we got it all done that fast.

The next couple posts will be the story about the renovations, complete with before and after photos. I’ll make sure to share some of the surprises we had along the way that you really can’t see. I will start with the main floor post, leaving out the office for it’s very own post. Then a post about the basement and finally I will circle back to a few details about the house that are all about how #LifeWithMS is part of every decision I make, and now we make. This post will be under the This Is MS section. I might eventually throw in a post about how it’s been living out here so far, after the reno puppy of course.

But what I will end with today is why that first house I mentioned at the beginning is so funny now. A couple weeks after moving in, when our usual evening walks with Mousse finally got a little brighter we realized that we walk by that first house on our walking route. We had passed by it all those weeks and we just couldn’t tell until the days started getting longer. We ended up right back where it all started.