After months and months of searching we gave up and decided we would stay where we were and just wait for the perfect parcel of land to show itself. Then we would buy it and eventually build a house on it. I really wanted to be able to incorporate my interest in horticulture into the property so this would give me a "clean slate" on which to do that and Mike had all kinds of design ideas that he wanted to see happen so he would have a "clean slate" as well.
Then, on April 5, 2011, we went to the pub for fish and chips and everything changed.
We had just been seated at the Kings Arms pub when our friends Charlie (one of Mike's colleagues) and his wife, Lori, walked in. We asked them to join us and started chatting. Eventually the topic of house hunting came up. They knew we had been looking for land and we had asked if they knew of anything near them in Sheffield Mills. At this point Charlie said he had heard of a house right in Kentville that the owners were considering putting on the market soon. We were sort of interested since Charlie thought it was a nice place but we doubted it would fit the bill. Although it was definitely within the work radius for Mike (actually twice as close to the hospital as where we are currently living) I doubted it would have any amount of land attached to it since it was in town. Charlie made a couple of phone calls and suddenly we were rushing through our fish and chips so we could go look at the house before the sun went down.
I didn't initially like the house. It was about 100 years old so did not fit the modern style I had been envisioning since we'd decided to build. It was also missing many of the things (ensuite bath for example) that we had said we wanted. Plus it was attached to a working barn - with horses in it. But Mike was the one who said, well, maybe. So Charlie said he would find out what they wanted for a price and would call me.
Charlie called me the next day. The price turned out to be something we could manage. Suddenly a lot of possibilities opened up. It also opened up one really big possibility - Mike might be able to convert the barn into living space. This was something that he had wanted to do for as long as I'd known him. We also discovered that the property came with over 7 acres of land and was less than a minute from downtown Kentville. It was crazy that a place existed this close to town with that much property. The horticultural possibilities were quickly becoming huge.
So we contacted our friend, Matt (a contractor), and asked if he would check the place out for us. He agreed and we all met there on Saturday, April 9, 2011.
Our Saturday afternoon tour became the beginning of our new love affair with the place. We discovered the wall-to-wall carpeting was covering original White Oak hardwood floors. We also discovered the original (working) shower complete with a version of the first body jets. Check out the image below:
And for me, I could envision acres of horticultural possibilities:
So, I've decided to start this blog to journal this newest adventure of ours. The papers have all been signed and we're now just waiting for our possession date of August 15, 2011, to come around. We were also fortunate enough to find someone to buy our present home. We did well in the property buying and selling department since there were no real estate agents involved so everyone avoided having to pay any commissions. For us, that meant we saved enough money on the purchase to be able to include a parcel of land in the deal that we hadn't originally planned to buy.
Continue reading my posts for updates.
Cheers.
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