Have you bought a home in Toronto recently? It’s awesome right?! And by awesome I mean, I’d rather stick a sharp stick in my eye than ever do it again. In three months we lost four homes in bidding wars. One in particular was essentially a dumpster that went $200K over asking!
Toronto – you’ve lost your minds!
So, when we got tired of dragging our kids across town to house hunt every weekend, we decided if we can’t find a house, let’s build it! A little ambitious since the only thing we build is Ikea furniture.
A few days later, and after yet another bidding war, we were the proud owners of a bungalow in the heart of our desired neighbourhood.
Casa de Gaining MOMentum - The Before Shot
Our builder has reminded me a few times that we’ve essentially bought a pile of dirt – aside from three exterior walls, nothing will stay. My 3 year old is super jazzed about knocking down a house, but I feel guilty. This lovely woman has lived there 45 years and we’re just going to tear the place down. And let’s be honest, Mother Nature isn’t giving us any enthusiastic high fives for the donation to the landfill. However, chances are the current owner doesn’t really care, and the reality is we beat two other builders for this house – so either way it was coming down. All I can promise is that this house will be built with love and respect for our new neighbours and our lovely planet.
It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home. ~Author Unknown
In an effort to make nicey nice with Mother Nature, we’re going to try to make as many eco-friendly and sustainable selections as our budget will allow. So far I’ve been having a lot of fun working with our builder to design the interior layout of the home. This might just be the smallest (it’s 18 feet wide), most functional home you will ever see!
I still can’t believe we’re doing this. My hubby and I have always talked about building our own home, but I thought those conversations were more of a daydream than anything. But we’re doing it! I really hope we don’t kill each other.
Have you ever built your own home or gone through a major reno? Any tips? Any recos for Toronto suppliers?
Just saw a link to this via Twitter and Little House Blog. I can’t WAIT to see what you build. Geesh I thought Vancouver was bad. I bet you that house prices are still lower in Toronto than Vancouver where a basement suite in a stratified home goes for $900,000 – crazy. So we rent and watch. But I can’t wait to knock things down and re-do. So I’ll follow your journey instead! Added you to my blog roll!
Thanks for stopping by – I’m glad you’ll be following along! And WOW Vancouver definitely sounds worse. Looking forward to checking out your blog as well. Cheers.
I can totally sympathize – we looked at well over 100 houses, lost 10 bidding wars (our agent was not very good at dealing with those situations, clearly), and that was 2 years ago! So I think it’s safe to say that you’ll at least retain the value….good luck with the build and all the exciting decisions that go along with it! Excited to see the process unfold
Whoa! 100 houses – you are one patient gal. Thanks for following our journey