Day 8 -- Calgary home-finding
I know that I should probably stop the Day count, since we're here already...but it doesn't seem right to stop counting until we have a home of our own (even if that doesn't mean moving into it). Our realtor, G, is pretty confident that we'll find a house by Wednesday, so, I'm going to keep up the day count with that hope in mind.
We took an early drive to see some new construction houses this morning. Calgary is a city bent on expansion...there is a central core to the city (resembling a large Reno, Nevada)...and there are some cute shopping districts & older sections, but most of the city's growth is up and out into the surrounding hills. All of the new neighborhoods can tend toward "cookie-cutter," with the accompanying shopping centers and green spaces, but Calgary does have a nice law where every community must retain 10% of it's green for parkland. Each neighborhood has a name and they are similar enough to make it really confusing.
RKZ and I had seen some interesting new houses (called "Aspen Hills") on the internet, so we wanted to check them out before we toured with G. We were only able to see the outside of the homes, so we couldn't tell too much until our afternoon trip.
G actually told us that "Calgary is a much more American city that any of the other cities in Canada." I only include this because it's certainly true of the housing. If you have seen a new community built in the West or Southwest of the US in the last 10 years, then you have seen the basic footprints and decorative styles of the houses we spent the day seeing. Craftsmen, with the open kitchen/greatroom floorplans seem to be the norm. I'm not complaining, mind you. We have seen a lot of nice, big houses. I think the average size was about 2200 sqft not including the basements. But, the houses aren't cheap (the way we might dream them to be).
We looked at 9 houses -- and appreciated about 3 of them -- but only really loved one. We are calling it "The Springborough" (the neighborhood it's in) & we particularly liked it because the field (currently undeveloped) behind the house is designated as a school playing field. For the winter, the field will remain an Aspen grove (which is cool). I will try and get pictures (I keep saying that, but I mean it!).
G has said that he knows of about 8 more houses we can see tomorrow. I hope Buck can stand it. He is being great, but it's a lot to spend the day being carried through strange places. It was also about 30 C/85 F, so once we found some airconditioned houses, we were all ready to stay.
Right now, RKZ must get to work on his Fantasy Football line-up. We did see one house that was holding it's own draft in the backyard. Poor RKZ, I think he would have just stayed right there today. I'll tell you how it turns out tomorrow.
We took an early drive to see some new construction houses this morning. Calgary is a city bent on expansion...there is a central core to the city (resembling a large Reno, Nevada)...and there are some cute shopping districts & older sections, but most of the city's growth is up and out into the surrounding hills. All of the new neighborhoods can tend toward "cookie-cutter," with the accompanying shopping centers and green spaces, but Calgary does have a nice law where every community must retain 10% of it's green for parkland. Each neighborhood has a name and they are similar enough to make it really confusing.
RKZ and I had seen some interesting new houses (called "Aspen Hills") on the internet, so we wanted to check them out before we toured with G. We were only able to see the outside of the homes, so we couldn't tell too much until our afternoon trip.
G actually told us that "Calgary is a much more American city that any of the other cities in Canada." I only include this because it's certainly true of the housing. If you have seen a new community built in the West or Southwest of the US in the last 10 years, then you have seen the basic footprints and decorative styles of the houses we spent the day seeing. Craftsmen, with the open kitchen/greatroom floorplans seem to be the norm. I'm not complaining, mind you. We have seen a lot of nice, big houses. I think the average size was about 2200 sqft not including the basements. But, the houses aren't cheap (the way we might dream them to be).
We looked at 9 houses -- and appreciated about 3 of them -- but only really loved one. We are calling it "The Springborough" (the neighborhood it's in) & we particularly liked it because the field (currently undeveloped) behind the house is designated as a school playing field. For the winter, the field will remain an Aspen grove (which is cool). I will try and get pictures (I keep saying that, but I mean it!).
G has said that he knows of about 8 more houses we can see tomorrow. I hope Buck can stand it. He is being great, but it's a lot to spend the day being carried through strange places. It was also about 30 C/85 F, so once we found some airconditioned houses, we were all ready to stay.
Right now, RKZ must get to work on his Fantasy Football line-up. We did see one house that was holding it's own draft in the backyard. Poor RKZ, I think he would have just stayed right there today. I'll tell you how it turns out tomorrow.
posted by BGrady at 5:33 PM
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