Homes: temporary and permanent

So, real estate has been top of our minds for the past few weeks.

We knew that we wanted to rent an apartment in Toronto for a few months, while we looked for a house to buy, and to give us the chance to get settled and spend some time with friends in the big city. (To you Brits, it IS a big city by Canadian standards. Compared to London, however, it's more of a rural village, but, it's as big as they come in this lightly populated former colony).

After much stress and hassle, we finally found a condo to rent on the 17th floor of a brand new building at the foot of Yonge Street, which is the longest street in Canada, and forms the main north/south route through the city and beyond. It's north facing, and the cost almost makes rental prices in St Albans seem reasonable, but, it'll do for a few months.

The view from our balcony - downtown Toronto

Balcony view - towards the CN Tower

Inside the condo - from kitchen towards living room

We were very relieved the finally get a place in Toronto. BUT, there were more permanent, and exciting things in the works. Two days after Rob landed, we went to view a house that we'd seen online that we quite liked the look of. It's in a wee town called Millbrook, about an hours drive from Toronto.

My mom and dad had already done a reccie for us, when we'd still been in England, and had reported back that it was a pretty great house, in a great location - the last house on a dead-end street, overlooking the Mill Pond, for which Millbrook gets its name. Anyway, to make a long story short, we put an offer in (after some heart-stopping stressful moments, and heart palpitations about spending that much money in one transation). We are having a home inspection done on Thursday, to make sure it's not secretly filled with rats or asbestos, and then providing that all that goes well, it's ours and we take possession of it on 29th November. Woo woo woooo!

Here are some pictures:

The front of the house

The kitchen

One of the bedrooms (there are 3 in total)

The dining room

The front porch (just the place for drinking a giant port & lemonade, methinks)


The view from the front of the house