Last week I put my house up for sale. Before the sign went up and before the agents tour, my agent asked if she could have three potential buyers come through. They came, they saw, they bought! After the first viewing there were talks of an offer. Two days later they put in a near asking price offer, but wanted an April 8th closing date because they sold their house with that closing date. I accepted the offer and decided to rent a condo in Toronto for 6-12 months instead of buying one. That will give me time to learn Toronto's areas and also to see what happens to the housing market.

Yesterday I took the day off work to view a few apartments. The first was a nice 2 bedroom condo in a new building. Allows pets, in unit laundry, A/C, forced air natural gas heating, balcony, granite counter tops, parking space, storage locker, 5 min walk to subway, etc. WHAT A VIEW. From every room you can see a beautiful Toronto skyline including the CN Tower. Allowing pets, and the view are the most important things to me. What I don't like about this place is the location. It's at Bloor/Lansdowne which is a bit dumpy with a handful of brand new residential developments. It's a 20 minute walk to High Park, and 5 minute walk to subway. He'll let me do a 6 month lease then go month-by-month after that. I saw a second larger unit in the same building that is $100 more, and min 12 month lease.

The third place I looked at was High Park Village. One company owns about 7-10 high rise apartment buildings. The location is beautiful, it's across the road from High Park, lots of great shopping and restaurants within walking distance, 5 minute walk to subway, allows pets, etc. They have multiple vacancies but could not show the one with a city view without 24 hour notice to the tenant. I looked at another without a view instead. The building is 40 years old, parquay floors, no A/C, dated looking balcony, and some really old kind of heaters along the base of the walls. It costs an additional $85/month for parking, more for storage locker, more for access to shared laundry facilities, and if I want a 6 month lease instead of 12 month I have to pay an additional $200/month. This is a lot of money.

I'm going back on the weekend to check out some places in Queens Quay, and maybe by The Beaches. I'm most excited about Queens Quay because this is going to be close to what I will eventually buy. I want a great downtown view, newer or completely renovated interior, pets allowed, nice places to walk the dog, shopping within walking distance, etc. From what I hear, Queens Quay has it all.

What concerns me is that I can't figure out how I will set up my living room furniture in any of the units I've seen. Most units have small living rooms. My furniture fits, but not properly. I need a 10 foot or larger wall for my entertainment center, and the couch needs to be parallel to it. In these units my couch would be in the way of a doorway no matter how I place it. The only way around this is to get rid of my home theater and buy something that will go in a corner. It can be still be large, but it can't take up a 10 foot wall! I'm going to see if I can sell my home theater, but if not I'll find a way to make it fit.

Today my agent emailed to say that the deal has been finalized and the SOLD sign will go up tomorrow.

Tonight was pretty scary. It's the first or second night where I'm home alone since my tenant has moved out. Around 10:30 PM I started to hear very lound boom sounds, sometimes two in succession. I was sure it was coming from the basement. It sounded like someone or something was banging hard on the walls or beams of the house with a hammer, or shooting a gun. I could even feel the vibrations on my floor. I inspected every room of the house and could not find anyone, or anything that appeared to have fallen. The sounds kept happening so I inspected outside around the house too. Nothing obvious.

I went to bed and somehow managed to fall alseep. Around 5 AM I woke up to more loud booms and started to realize that the sounds seem to be coming from the roof. I figured it must be ice cracking, or the weight of snow and ice causing wood beams to crack? I was really worried that my roof is damaged and caving in so I got up and went online.

I found this article from Hamilton, a city south of here. It turns out people have been experiencing similar things all week long and phoning the police. Some described it sounding like a shotgun being fired in the house and thought that there was someone in the house. Others were concerned about roof damage and called roofers. In almost every case it's because of a thick coating of ice (from our recent freezing rain) on the roof. The shingles are expanding from the heat of the attic which causes the ice to crack, and frequently. I'm glad I know what it is now and can hopefully get some sleep. It's 4:45 AM

The other day I finally finished the games room in the basement, which was the last room left. Grandpa and I worked on it every weekend for 4-8 hours since June or July? I forget but it seems like forever, and I never want to finish a room again! It seems like we did so little when you look at it but there was so much work to get it to that point.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out, especially after it was fully furnished. There's a pool table that flips over into an air hockey table (6' long), an eliptical trainer (cross between treadmill and bike), a few stools, tv, dart board, pictures, etc...

I added up the 500 home depot bills and found that I spent around $1700. The furnishings was an additional $1700 or so... the total was around $3400.

Since I moved into this house I've done the following:

• Pave the driveway
• Built a beautiful 6 foot wooden fence around the back yard and side of the house
• Built a deck
• Level and sod the back yard
• New shed
• Installed central air conditioning
• New vanity in basement bathroom
• Added rear-access to the furnace
• Finished the games room
• Painted 3 rooms, and re-painted the basement apartment

There's still a bit more to do before it's ready to sell.

• Paint the front door and trim
• Replace the front door window with a nicer one, and replace the door handle
• Repaint the entrance way, living room and main hallway
• Replace all base boards upstairs with nicer ones, and paint all window trims
• Replace the dishwasher with a more modern one
• Pay a landscaper to give my house curb appeal, and to enhance the back yard a bit

I've put around $12,000 into the house so far. To finish it off I will need an other $3000 or so. I hope to get as much money I can out of this place in a year or two, then move to Toronto. I'll probably work from home for IJW.. but nobody knows this yet :) Well, until now.

There are two sides to my basement. The apartment, and the "games room". When I moved in the games room was partially complete but still needed some work. I've done renovations in almost every room, and lots of work outside.. now it's time to finish off the games room. Today Grandpa came over and we got started on boxing in the bulk head. We got most of it done except for the part by the windows which will need some special work to make it not cover the windows. Later we'll put in doors, drop ceiling, wood paneling, a built-in tv and built-in shelves. It's going to look great. I think we'll only be working 1-3 days per week so it could take a month before it's done. Finally my pool table can be assembled! It's been waiting patiently for almost 8 months now.

Last year I spent around $6500 in improvements to the house. I built a 6 foot fence around the back yard, a deck, and paved the driveway. This year I plan to spend the same and complete the improvements. I've already gotten started by replacing the crappy old shed in the backyard with missing doors with a much nicer and larger shed. I've also got central AC scheduled to be installed in a couple weeks. Next will be dirt to level out my backyard, sod, finish the "games room" in the basement, changes to my entranceway, "wainscoting" down my main hallway, and new trim around every room upstairs. The trim I currently have is the cheapest kind you can get and is ugly. After I'm finished these reno's I hope to not do any more changes to this house. I want to feel relaxed and not like there's always a project to do in addition to the computer programming projects I should be doing. 2006 is the year to get things done.