New Home Sweet Home

I mentioned in a previous post that the boyfriend and I moved at the end of July. Now that we're pretty settled in the new place, it's about time I told you a bit about it!

We'd been living at the same apartment for just about six years, ever since we moved to Toronto. It wasn't bad for what we were paying: a two-bedroom apartment on the 6th floor of a 1950s-era building with a great view out of our West-facing window. But we had no balcony, no control over the temperature, and laundry was all the way down in the basement at an extra cost. On top of that, the property management company made it clear that they wanted us out so they could renovate our apartment and charge the new tenants several hundred dollars more a month. And so, when the opportunity to move to a real house with a back yard, in-suite laundry, and central air came up for only a small increase in rent, we jumped at it.

At the end of July, we loaded all our belongings into a big ol' truck (with considerable help from our friends) and officially changed address! This is our new home:

We live on the main floor while our landlord occupies the basement. We have two bedrooms, and the square footage is approximately the same as our old apartment. The house has the same construction as many bungalows built in the early 1950s, post-WWII. The kitchen and living room are in the front, and the two bedrooms are in the back, with a side door near the front and narrow staircase that leads to the basement (where the laundry machines are a kept). Here's the living room, complete with fake fireplace:

And here's our new kitchen (ignore the boxes that still need to be unpacked in the back room):

There's an opening in the wall between the kitchen and the living room, making the whole place feel very open, and probably larger than it actually is.

The real selling point, for me at least, was the back yard:

As you can see, we have access to a brand new barbecue, which we have used quite a bit. The yard has a few square metres of grass, but the best part is the amazing garden. We've been told to help ourselves to it! Here's just under half of it:

Those tomato plants are so heavy, they've toppled their support sticks. The garden includes at least five or six varieties of tomatoes, zucchini, cucumber, many different types of hot pepper, kale, swiss chard, spearmint, sage, red onions, and probably much more that I'm forgetting. I've been especially enjoying the cherry tomatoes:

There's also a giant zucchini, which reminds me a little of a sleeping beast (at the time this picture was taken, it was about 2 feet long -- now it's at least a foot longer!):