House Purchase

October 1, 2021

October 1st was the closing date for our house purchase, and we officially became homeowners. 

We had been looking at buying a house in Ocean Falls since the spring, and we had looked at six different homes, but there was really only one of them that interested us because of its location and condition. The previous owners had moved away three years ago due to old age and medical issues, and they were looking to sell their place. They contacted us, and made us a sell offer. 

We were in touch with them through the spring and summer, and when we accepted their offer it turned out that they were not quite ready to sell, as they wanted to make one last trip “home” with the plan to collect some of their possessions. In August, they made the trip in and showed us, in a detailed way, around the home and property telling us stories about their 30 years of living in Ocean Falls. When they left, we shook hands on the deal and the man left us with a key, giving us permission to start working on the place and making it our own, but it was not until the 1st of October that it officially became ours. 

The property is at the far end of Twin Lakes Drive in Martin Valley. On the one side, and all along above our property, is forest. We have trees that are ours that go down the hill below the house to the road, and to the other side of us is a row of houses which are all currently unoccupied until the 5th house along. Our immediate neighbour is a person from Vancouver Island who recently purchased the place and plans to fix it up for a summer vacation and fishing home. Our house is a split-level home, filled with stuff. 

The previous owners were not hoarders, but they did have a LOT of stuff. They put up shelves on the walls just to have room for more trinkets and knick-knacks. We have a lot of work ahead of us just to sort through and thin out everything that they left behind. 

To prepare the house for us to move into we have started with the upstairs three bedrooms and hallway. 

Flowery wallpaper covered many of the walls, old pink carpet was covering the floors, and there was stuff everywhere. 

In one of the bedrooms which had been set up as an office we found an entire drawer of cordless phone batteries and old cell phones. We started by sorting through all of the stuff, giving some away, taking some to the garbage, and setting items aside downstairs that we wanted to keep. Then came the removal of the wallpaper. 

In the largest bedroom the wallpaper peeled right off and we were optimistic about how the process would go, but in the small bedroom it would not come off at all. 

We had to score it, soak it with warm water and fabric softener, and then scrape it off; it was a messy and very time-consuming process. Once all of the wallpaper was removed, we proceeded to clean the walls and discovered that in the larger bedroom, where the paper had pealed off so easily, it had actually left behind a layer of glue. So, we had to wipe this down with warm water and fabric softener, and then wipe off the layer of slimy, gooey, glue. The old pink carpet had to go, of course, and underneath we were happy to find beautiful hardwood floors. 

In one of the bedrooms, however, an old blue carpet had been glued down, and when we pulled up the carpet the disintegrating backing remained firmly adhered to the floor. 

We had to scrape as much of it off with a hoe as we could before sanding. 

We are going to sand all of the wood floors and refinish them. When we were removing the baseboards in prep to sand the floors Jason found two old baseball cards, we were hopeful that perhaps they would be worth a lot of money, but unfortunately they are only worth 39 cents according to the internet. Jason has started the floor sanding and he has sanded about six inches out from the walls all the way around, as well as in all of the closets, in preparation for using a drum floor sander. It looks like the floors are going to sand up beautifully. 

We have also started patching the walls, and it is amazing how many patches are required. 

There were a few bad spots that the wallpaper had covered up, but most of it is simply pin, tack, and nail holes that have accumulated over time. 

On the outside of the house the wooden deck was covered in a thick layer of slime and growth from three years of no attention. 

Jason went at the deck, garden shed, and stairs with a pressure washer and practically made them look like new. 

We also have done some yard work on some of the nice weather days, but there is still much to do. 

Our house will be a work in progress for a while as we make our way through the house and yard renovating and making it our own. It will be a fun project as we watch it come together. 

Since owning the house we have seen salamanders multiple times. They seem to like to go down our concrete stairs to the entranceway door. Perhaps they are attracted there by the damp coolness, but I don’t think it is a good place for them. 

Either way, whenever we find them, we carefully move them to an area with more foliage and protection. It is nice to get to see them however, as they are quite cute. 

If we are not mistaken the darker and larger one is a Northwestern Salamander and the smaller reddish one is the Common Ensatina.