A new home for the holidays
The tree was trimmed, a single stocking was laid out on an upstairs floor next to a brand new mattress still tucked in a box, and the dark wooden floors were powdered with a mix of glitter and construction dust.
“We are having Christmas Eve and Christmas here. The construction guys think we are insane,” said Katherine Carl-Musson, 31, standing next to a tree covered in glittery icicles and purple ornaments, about a metre away from several tool-covered tarps and at least one decent sized hole cut through the floor.
Carl-Musson and her common-law spouse, Chris Briden, 32, took possession on Dec 13. On Christmas Eve, Briden’s parents will be sleeping on the still-boxed mattress upstairs, or on a futon the couple plan to move into the completely empty house.
The (roughly) 100-year-old, de- tached, three-bedroom-house came renovated, with white walls and dark engineered hardwood floors throughout. There is also a finished basement, with somewhat low ceilings and smooth concrete floors, as well as a tidy attic room, reached by a set of narrow stairs.
They bought it in November for $941,779, about $200,000 above asking but miraculously, given Toronto’s white-hot real estate market, managed to scoop it up with a straight offer, rather than a bidding war.
It wasn’t just that the home was where they wanted, but that it came almost ready to move in.
“When you land a detached home, that is fully renovated for what we were offering on semis . . .” said CarlMusson, still clearly a bit bewildered that the white walled and tidy property is theirs.
When asked if this is the last place they want to live, Carl-Musson said quickly and dryly, “I never want to look for a house again.”
In the days leading up to Christmas, they were still unsure exactly how they would manage a traditional dinner.
“We are trying to figure out how to buy a turkey,” Carl-Musson said.
Next year they want both sets of parents with them.
“We started looking in February, and my goal was to have Christmas in the new house. . . . My dream was to have everybody for Christmas,” said Carl-Musson. “We are halfway there.” Emily Mathieu