Home Sweet Home: Buying a House in Vancouver

After all of our house buying crazy, we finally did it. We bought a housee in Vancouver.

Okay, a condo. But in Vancouver, that’s as close as we’re ever going to get to a house.

It was a lot of work to get here! There was so much paperwork, meetings, emails, signatures and endless to-do lists. But finally FINALLY we are finished and fully settled in. Last night, Colin and I popped the bubbly our realtor had given us on the day we got the keys. We decided to save it until everything on our Moving To Do list was crossed off.

So we met with the notary on October 3rd I think it was. I don’t remember the day but I do remember feeling so awfully sick. I had the worst runny nose and watery eyes, which everyone had to endure for like an hour while we signed all the papers. It was gross.

But then two days later, we got our keys! We met our realtor at our brand new home and she had a huge gift basket for us full of fun goodies (like the bubbly). We had also brought over a few boxes and a dining room table we had bought off Craigslist, so we moved that in too.

The next few days were all about running back and forth from New West to Surrey. We wanted to bring over as much as possible in Colin’s car so on uHaul day, we’d just have the big stuff to worry about. Honestly, these days were probably the most stressful. As well as moving things, we were still packing, eating Thanksgiving dinners, arranging for painters, etc.

And then on October 10th, we moved! Colin’s amazing friends helped us out and it was the fastest and easiest move ever. Well, it was a little bit complicated because we had to board Ellie at the vet for the day and then go to Coquitlam to pick up a couch we had bought (another online find). But the actual loading and unloading was super easy and we finished ahead of schedule – even with a huge rainstorm in the middle!

So why has it taken us two more weeks to actually settle in? It’s not because we’re bad unpackers. In fact, we had the place basically all unpacked the next day. And we had done our IKEA run ahead of time, so there wasn’t too much to buy. But there was the issue of our old apartment.

We had our lease until the end of October. So to save a little money, we decided to rent it out. We had guests book to stay at our New West place from Oct 14-24. So after we moved to Surrey, we still had to go back to New West to clean, ensure they had everything they needed and meet them with the keys. And worst of all, we had to leave our internet behind.

Lucky for us, our guests checked out a few days early (not because they hated our place but because they rented a place in Vancouver and were just staying at ours until they found something). So on the 21st we headed over to pack up all of our stuff and bring sweet WiFi back to our lives. Sadly, our internet company is the worst. We didn’t get connected to the internet until the 25th, despite being told every day until then that it should be working. Dealing with our internet provider was a nightmare.

And then yesterday, we headed back to New West to do a final clean, move our second bed out of the apartment and return the keys to our landlord. Once we got the bed all set up here in Surrey we were finally, blissfully done moving! The only thing left on our to-do list is to copy our mail key (which, in our defense, we tried to do but the key copy place didn’t have the right key) and buy some plants I won’t kill.

Okay, enough rambling! We’re home and we’re loving it. It’s so fun to have this much space. I love having my own office (/guest bedroom). There’s a great green space right across the street for Ellie. Our local mom-and-pop cafe is the best – and I would know because I spent a lot of time there in our pre-WiFi days. And the building next to us is going to become a Shoppers, grocery store and bank. Yay!

Here are some shots of our place. Please excuse my horrible phone-quality photos! I promise our place is actually beautiful and spacious.

Welcome home!