6 Things I’ve Learned from my New House

It’s been almost four weeks since my significant other and I moved into our first house. We’ve had a steep learning curve. We were coming from a high-rise apartment building; the house is about 80 years old and mostly unrenovated, except for some basics like wiring.

So far, we’ve faced more logistics than we would’ve thought possible, which has been exhausting…but we’ve also fallen in love with our new neighbourhood (while not forgetting the old) and we’re still glad we moved.

Things I’ve learned so far:

1. Number your boxes. I numbered off the rooms in the new house, then numbered each box as I packed it: Room 1, Box 1, short description of contents. Boxes with higher numbers got packed later, so I knew the items in them were used more often and therefore they should be unpacked first. Bonus: the movers knew which room to put each box in. We’ve had almost no trouble finding anything. (We also haven’t unpacked everything — but that’s a post for another time.)

2. Be flexible. Our freestanding wardrobe wouldn’t fit up the stairs. It has now been repurposed as a pantry, supplementing our kitchen storage. I did have to mourn the loss of it in our bedroom, as well as come to terms with the way it dominated the kitchen, but I have to admit that it’s very useful in its new home.

A Farewell to My Neighbourhood

One of the things I love about Toronto is that it’s a city of neighbourhoods. Every little chunk of the city — every ten-block stretch of commercial/retail development surrounded by residential streets — has a unique flavour. There’s a Chinatown and the student district, of course, but there’s also Greektown and Little India and the hippie corner and the hipster stretch. Like many different cities all inhabiting the same space.

The neighbourhood where I’ve lived for the past seven years is one such place, a microcosm unto itself — or maybe several.

A Love Letter to Our Future House

Somewhere in a big city sits an old house.

Its current occupant lives lightly, her world condensed into four rooms on the ground floor. The dining table is covered with a lace tablecloth and then plastic to protect it, the wood well hidden. In the enclosed front porch, tiny green shoots grow in long planters. A statue of Jesus overlooks the dim living room, where she watches television, alone.