The Condo Reno

Feeling sort of sentimental today so thought I'd share a little slideshow of HandyMan and my first reno together. Here's the transformation of HandyMan's 1980's condo into a modern masculine space.

Timing is Everything

I thought today's post would be about the preparations HandyMan and I have made over the past few days to get my condo sold. We've already bought a new house so the pressure was on to get the condo sold by the end of July. We've spent the past few weekends scrubbing and polishing every nook and cranny - the place hasn't looked this good since I bought it! And finally, this morning, the mls listing was put in.

Well, as with the best laid plans, this one too went awry. Instead of telling you about how we're waiting on pins and needles waiting for a fair offer, I'm blogging to let you all know that I SOLD MY CONDO IN SEVEN HOURS!!! Yup, you heard right. A great offer was presented and with very little fuss, my home of the last three years is no longer my home. I'm still in shock (disbelief?)... I bought this place before it was even a hole in the ground, and now, in less time than it takes me to do a full day's work, in less time than I get in a night's sleep, in less time than the time between breakfast and dinner... I have sold my condo. WOW.

The timing couldn't be more perfect. We'll hold both the new house and old condo for an overlap of three weeks, enough time for us to do some of the dirty renovation stuff like pulling up carpet, sanding down floors, and tearing down wallpaper. While I'm excited to jump into the renos and start building a house that is "ours", truthfully, nothing will compare to that first moment I walked through the door of my condo, stood in the middle of the empty room, and said "This is mine. My first house". Goodbye McKee, you were my first great experiment in home ownership. I'll remember those lessons well.

Condo no more

It’s finally sinking in. In two months, HandyMan and I will have our first home together. We’ve both had our own condos separately, but this will be our first place together, as soon-to-be-husband-and-wife. We were sooooo tired of the condo grind. Do you know what its like to renovate a condo when you can only work between the hours of 9am-7pm weekdays and 12pm-4pm on Saturdays? No wonder it took us over a year to finish the renos!

And in a condo, everything is everywhere. There’s no back shed to store your tools so the general feeling of living in a condo while you’re doing renos is one of “chaos”. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to get used to using 8 stacked packs of laminate as a coffee table :)

It was a great learning experience though. We got to try out a few things on a small scale. Like the workspace - we built it out of a former storage closet by knocking out a wall and installing some Ikea kitchen cabinets. We also had a custom desktop installed by one of HandyMan’s friends in the trade. It turned out pretty sweet.

Its interesting too how a house changes you. Because of this condo, I will forever more always have a wood-burning fireplace in my home. Have to have one. Got to. It’s a must. Won’t be home without it.

And so too, I can say that I will never live in a condo again. It was me once, and now, I want something ‘more’. I’m sure our new home will live up to that expectation.