As you may know, I've been in the market for a newer bungalow with a basement apartment for a year or so now. I wasn't ready to buy until just recently because I was busy saving up my down payment. A couple weeks ago I got in touch with a real estate agent and on April 1st 2004 I put in an offer for my favorite of the houses -- no joke. By 12:30 PM the next day the seller had signed the offer and I finalized the deal. I'm very pleased, it's much nicer than I had hoped for. The upstairs is so new and nice, the kitchen has oak finish, comes with all appliances including 2 fridges, two stoves, a dishwasher, washer, dryer and central vac. 3br upstairs (one will be turned into an office), and the apartment in the basement has one bedroom. You can see a picture of it if you click here.
When I move in I'll have next to nothing to fill the house with. I'm going from a small bedroom filled with my junk to a house, so I'll need to buy some furniture and stuff. That'll happen over time because I'd rather buy nice stuff than a bunch of cheap stuff all at once. I'd also like to build a wooden fence around the backyard, maybe a deck or patio in the back, pave the driveway, and close in the entrance way to completely separate the upstairs apartment from the downstairs one. It could take a couple years to do all that. I've got lots of fun projects ahead of me now :) Oh I forgot, there's a fairly large shared room in the basement currently used for laundry and storage. I'll have to finish that room sometime and I want to turn it into a games room with a pool table perhaps and a MAME arcade machine (that I'll build someday).
Closing is June 25th 2004 so I should be moved in on that day or shortly after.
Working from his home office in Toronto,
Ryan de Laplante can be found developing software in
Java by day, and obsessing with technology by night.
Ryan has been designing and writing software for
IJW since 1998 and is very passionate about his work.
