(Note: This post was written by Laurel Regan and originally published in a separate blog called “Why Windsor…”, which was later merged with Alphabet Salad.)
Well, my husband and I are now back in Victoria after spending a week in Windsor searching for a home and getting an introduction to our new city. We had a fabulous visit, and the week simply flew by! While the vast majority of our time was by necessity spent on the home buying process, we were also able to do a bit of exploring while we were there (more in future posts!), plus meet up with a long-time internet friend who lives in the city, so despite the fact that I had a nasty cold throughout the entire visit, I’m happy to say that it was a great and successful week.
After much research into the various areas of Windsor, we decided that our lifestyle, tastes, and budget would be best suited by living in Walkerville. Over the past few months we narrowed our search down to thirteen properties in that area, including one which we’ve been keeping an eye on since last January and one which I found quite recently, both of which intrigued us greatly and seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. Our patient realtor toured us through all thirteen houses in one long, hot day (of course, the fact that I was sick at the time and therefore my body temperature was out of whack sure didn’t help matters any). I don’t think I’ve ever gone up and down so many sets of stairs all in one day!
The whole process was really interesting. One thing that was reinforced to me is that while you can do all sorts of preparations ahead of time… look at pictures of houses on MLS, research the statistics, explore the neighbourhood on Google Earth, and so on… it’s not until you actually walk through the door and feel it for yourself that you know whether or not a place is right for you. As an example, the place we’d been looking at for months and thought would be our dream house… wasn’t. On paper and in pictures everything seemed right, but it simply wasn’t our house, and we couldn’t have known that until we saw it for ourselves. I’m not saying I’d base such a large purchase on gut reactions alone, but I do believe that gut reactions play an extremely important part in the decision making process.
While we were disappointed that this long-admired house wasn’t right for us, we were delighted that the one I’d found online not long ago was exactly what we were looking for. As soon as we walked in the front door, we knew it was home. It was only the second of the thirteen houses we saw that day, but none of the remaining properties could even hold a candle to our house.
Apparently, others thought so as well, and we were surprised to find ourselves in competition with two other prospective buyers. Yikes! After an anxious day and a half of waiting, our realtor called us and said (after a slight pause – realtors can be cheeky that way), “Welcome to Windsor!” We are so very thankful that our offer was accepted, and that we can now look forward to moving into a lovely Walkerville home in November.
After living in new (or comparatively new) homes for most of my life, moving into a 100-year-old house will be a whole new experience for me! This particular property has had pretty much everything done to bring it up to very current standards, but the character and charm remain… the best of all worlds, as far as I’m concerned. I can’t wait!
Now, to start packing…
