STRESSTEST

EMILIE DINGFELD weighs the pros and cons of trading a city loft for a long commute.

ON MAY 30, I DID SOMETHING I NEVER THOUGHT

I’d do: I packed up all of my belongings from my loft in Toronto’s King West neighbourhood and loaded a 17-foot moving truck that headed to Hamilton, Ont., where my boyfriend, Todd, and I had bought a house in the city’s North End. In heading westward we bid adieu to the city we’d planted our roots in more than a decade earlier, trading an adjacent French patisserie for a drive-thru Beer Store.

Just the year prior, Todd and I first moved in together into the loft that made us rethink everything. It seemed we had hit the jackpot: It was in close proximity to the city’s trendy Trinity Bellwoods Park, a couple of blocks from some of the country’s best restaurants and a 35-minute walk to my office (or a 15-minute sardine-tin-like commute on public transit). Todd works from home mostly, as a professional photographer, so he’d bask in the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows as he edited photos.

The decision to swap big city living for smaller city living was at first a matter of math. When we considered buying a similar condo, if not the one we lived in, we found out quickly our dream dwelling was just that—a starry dream. With a price tag of $400,000-plus and monthly condo fees around $600, it was out of reach. This financial conundrum spurred some serious, strategic conversations— which were religiously held across the street at a local bar. With drinks in hand, we weighed the pros of buying »