Having just celebrated eight years in our “new” home, my husband and I have been taking a trip down memory lane, reminiscing about the experience. When we first purchased the house in 2006, it was a heady combination of excitement, apprehension, hope and frustration – all rolled into one! From securing a mortgage to purchasing brand new furniture, saying goodbye to the city and hello to the suburbs, it’s so easy to recall the feelings and emotions. (And the arguments… usually centered on his eclectic taste in coffee tables.)
Because our first home was a new build, we had the opportunity to add custom touches to reflect our tastes and personalities. There’s nothing quite like visiting the design and décor centre to select finishes for your brand new home. I fondly remember pouring over the samples of foyer tiles – at the time, the decision to go with either gray or white grout seemed insurmountable. Because everyone notices your grout colour, right?
(One of our favourite past times: visiting the property week by week to see the progress. Here’s my husband in 2006, standing in our “foyer”!)
When the house was finally ready to take possession in summer 2007, we had some pretty big decisions to make.
First, how would we fill the home with furniture? Having come from a one-bedroom loft in Toronto, we now had about ten extra rooms to decorate. Bedrooms… a living/ dining area, a great room… the basement? There seemed to be a lot of “space” and we had enough furniture to fill about 1/5th of it. …