August 28 Saturday Day 30

6:00 AM An early day we just couldn't sleep. I think I was up nearly every hour checking the time and recalculating how many hours til 10AM. At 6AM we still have 4 more hours.....

9:30 AM Still no answer - feeling nervous. Sheesh do sellers actually wait til the last minute to decide? Not able to stand the wait, we jumped in the truck and headed to a town called Salisbury about 40 minutes away. Went to a flea market, garage sale and an Antique mall. Didn't buy much, a ladle, and a pair of clip on earrings to repurpose.

12:30 PM stopped for ice-cream, still no word from our realtor, by now we figure she doesn't know how to tell us that we didn't get the house. I msg'd her and asked her if she was busy frantically looking for new houses for us to look at. Still no reply.....feeling sick...here we go again...

1:00PM Got an email. CONGRATS YOU GOT THE HOUSE! She wasn't able to get through to us by msg or text. She had tried but finally the email came through.

Ohhh my gosh! WE GOT THE HOUSE! We are now going to be residents of New Brunswick!

We headed back to Sussex and picked up a bottle of Cabot Trail liqueur for celebration shooters tonight at camp.

We had leftovers for supper and went to John and Lisa's campfire to lightly party and share shooters with all there. (Thx for your help Angela setting up the shots!)

It was a late night and we had a blast! Ohh and slept very well this night.

I am grateful that the anxiety is done and for shooters and friends to celebrate with. Including a friend with a new tiara (Thank-you Pam for helping us with the house hunting and finding us this gem!) 

 Ohhhh!!! Wait!!!! Did you all want to see pictures of the house or something?

Here is one picture of the view from the outside of the Lookout Cabin looking down, house is in the middle near the weeping willow but you can't see because of trees.

This is the house from about a quarter of the way up the road to the Lookout cabin on the hill

 

 

More views from the Lookout

The Lookout Cabin and our dog Jack, apple tree beside cabin. 

At least one more cabin will be added next spring, maybe only halfway up for me. :)

More pictures to come soon.

August 27th Friday Day 29

 Well after making you wait a few days (sorry just busy with other stuff) it is Friday and we have met up with Stephanie at the Lookout house and we are putting in an offer.

But!!!!!!There is another offer. Our offer closes on Saturday at 10am. we are a little worried, but Stephanie is confidant.....

Even though there is a party in camp tonight, we are both too anxious to go anywhere and we didn't want to tell anyone, just didn't want to jinx ourselves. So we stayed in at the camper and watched movies.

I had downloaded some stuff from Net-flicks. The Witcher -  a series. Watched episode 1 before supper at the table, now neck hurts from looking sideways. Watched episode 2 lying on the bed and Tom fell asleep in 5 minutes. I watched 2 and started 3 but was loosing interest fast.

It was going to be a very long night.

Today I am grateful for distraction TV and a comphy bed.

So just for fun, I thought I would show you a few pictures of the houses we passed on. No names no addresses, just couldn't work for us. ;p

 

 https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/browse-author.php?a=108464    

Photo by: Kevin Phillips

https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/browse-author.php?a=86654Photo by: JB Stran

 

https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/browse-author.php?a=87  Photo by Vera Kratochvil

 

August 26 Thursday Day 28

 4 week in the camper, need I say more? Probably not necessary, but I will. 

Lorie and Barry and all of the other camper friends refer to us as newbie campers. We believe that we are very much trooper and experts by now. Especially when you consider that most campers that have jobs maybe spend a few weekends, and maybe a couple of long weekends and maybe a week of their holidays annually. According to those numbers Tom and I feel that we are way past 2nd year campers and working on our 3rd year easy. But based on those numbers how many years will we complete before we can live in a house again? Ohhh dear, I don't want to know that math. While most of it is good, or at least okay, you do have those days when if you have to inch your way around one more time to do something you are going to explode.

Even the pets get stressed over this lifestyle. They have been uprooted from their home and the cats are confined to this little camper or a crate outside and the dogs are leashed all the time. At our house in Manitoba the dogs have been used to roaming the property all their lives and the cats usually sleep in 52 different places all before 2nd breakfast.

Today is another hot and humid day, but I have internet on this day and writing a few posts to get caught up. 

Reminder I am writing most of this in the past and even the post of today was nearly 2 weeks ago. So the posts I was catching up on you have already long ago read since August 26th when this day actually happened. Too bad I couldn't look up the lottery numbers and go back and buy a ticket or 10.

So when I refer to today, please take it as if you were reading a book or my story knowing that more has happened since reading this but you haven't been given the latest pages yet. I find my self correcting and not correcting when I type "I was" vs "I am" 
Since I am writing from my daily notes the term I am is technically correct but doesn't always seem right after the fact. Does that make sense? Sorry if it doesn't.

Earlier in the day before it got too hot, we went to look at 2 cabins just from the outside. We are supposed to view them tomorrow with Stephanie (Agent#8) Wilkins. She is going to make appointments to see them both. I think I may have forgot to mention that Harlee (Agent 3) messaged me the other day by text and asked how the house hunting was going? Oh my, she hasn't even sent 1 listing from her computer generated program since her 1st email, how does this girl continue to be an agent? I told her we moved on. End of story.

Back to Stephanie and the 2 cabins.

Wait, I should mention, that The Look Out house keeps coming up in conversation. How we could do this if we were taking the house, and we could do that and I did spend another restless night arranging my stuff in the Look Out house and it was working this time, but only if we did this, and added that, but of course we are not taking the house, that would be settling right? Even though it almost checks off our boxes? But what if we could make it work? Nope not going to happen.

okay,  the cabins:  Both cabins didn't have a great view from the outside and surrounding area and the long distance of driving down very deserted roads and really not much for amenities and the concern of flooding... But wait! The Look Out house would never flood....The Lookout house is less than 20 minutes to Sussex, yes to Sussex our favourite town, The Lookout house has a great view from the house and from the Look Out point way on the top of the hill. Beautiful views of the water and bay. This is crazy right? Why do we keep coming back to this house?

The house is too modern - But if we add a large deck on the outside we can make it look more rustic.

The colours inside are dark - just paint it all

Dark wooden kitchen cupboards? - Painted White and insert screens so I can show off my dishes.

Guest bedrooms? - 1 bedroom can include a built in Double Murphy bed and another Queen Murphy bed downstairs in the family room. With the possibility of cots and day beds. And maybe the She Shed too?

The floors are dark brown Mahogony hardwood - (okay don't hate us) they can be painted too...maybe.

My studio? - A huge room will get built right away and with an old porch door entrance (Toms idea) and a screen window to watch the TV  in the living room. ohhh I likey, I likey alot!

Pets area how can they be outside with a highway right at the end of the driveway?  - we will create a fenced in area under the deck with a couple of treetop catwalks with easy access through the basement walk out and a 2nd small patio deck. (more to come on that idea) we can do this easily.

What about my collectibles and antiques? - my idea: time to downsize anyway and still can be incorporated into parts of the house and my studio and a She shed that we will build next year at the top of the hill next to my neighbour Tom and his Man cave lookout.

Garage? - we always did park outside in Manitoba

Work space for Tom? - The back room unfinished in basement at the other end of house could work.

This is crazy, but we contacted Stephanie and cancelled viewing the 2 cabins and asked to go see the Look Out house again. We are going tomorrow morning (Friday August 27th). We cant stop talking about this crazy idea. 

Did I mention the house has an above ground pool and a back deck and 2 ponds and at least 10 apple trees, Heidi? Just sayin right? ;p

More to come!

Here are some random pics. Tom on the trails with the dogs and our cats in outdoor cages and all 4 on the bed at once (very rare, and only fun til someone gets hissing)

 

August 25 Wednesday Day 27

Today I woke up in tears, I didn't sleep most of the night. I found myself virtually unpacking the container that hosts all of our stuff waiting to come to New Brunswick. 

In my thoughts I unpacked my antiques, my studio stuff, my collectibles and everything I have gathered for our new rustic home in New Brunswick. I was trying to fit it into The Lookout house but nothing was working. There is just no way I can live in that house with my stuff. It is just too modern. I couldn't even begin to unpack Tom's stuff in my mind because there isn't a garage for all of his tool things.

When I told Tom he was totally okay with the idea that we were not settling for this house. I was getting depressed thinking that we may not find something and we must consider finding a house to rent until next spring when we can look again. over and over he kept telling me that we need to keep looking.

We did laundry, cleaned up camp and the trailer again and stayed put for the rest of the day.

Stephanie Agent #8 (sounds like a secret agent) is sooooo good to us. I told her how I felt and she just kept sending houses to look at. Nope, nope nope. poor girl!

Too big, too small too haunted (yes a 10 bedroom mansion, beautiful but a big no for Tom)

Then I sent her pictures of farm houses, beach houses, boho gypsy hippy stuff, and a trampoline swinging bed. She had never heard of the trampoline bed. I told her it would go in my she shed someday filled with books, wine and chocolate. She was very much interested in staying in that room. We messaged back and forth and she kept sending more houses to look at. Nothing seemed like it would work.

If the day wasn't bad enough to me, it is so very hot and humid. My feet swollen like hobbit feet. I am really missing my gal pals back home and wanting some serious creative time with them. It is Wednesday after all, and we meet on line on Wednesdays. But the time difference wasn't going to work tonight. I am over the top tired from not sleeping and wouldn't make it to stay up late to meet up with them.

We ordered pizza from Sussex pizza and I drove to town to pick it up. Our campsite really is so close to Sussex, my favorite town in NB. We need to find a house near here. 

Note to those that live near, and haven't had a Sussex Pizza pizza yet. If there are only 2 of you, DO NOT order the extra large unless you want to eat pizza for 3 days. We had over half a pizza left and we only have a bar fridge in the camper that is full to the max. The prices are fantastic too!

We messaged the campers through the group fb page to find one of our campers that would take the pizza. Finally Dawn and Bobby said they would like to have it. I walked over to their camper and dropped off the pizza. Of course the gift of gab kicked in and I chatted with them both for near an hour, and when I finally left their place I walked a mere 10 feet and Angela was outside of her camper and I chatted with her for another hour. By the time I had visited the 2 campsites, it was dark when I got back to camp. Tom had made a fire and was starting to think he should come look for me. I came back chatty and happy, talking about a cute cat (Dawn & Bobby's) and fairy gardens (Angela) and  in a much better frame of mind. I know I will sleep better tonight. 

I should mention that the day I met Angela was at our newbie party. She was the adult in Unicorn PJ's. Someone at the party had a mug with the logo of the Animal Campsite on it. I asked about the mug and it turned out that Angela had designed the vinyl cuts of the original logo using her Cricuit machine.... Hello? Can you say Kindred spirit? She has no idea what is in store for her in the future. When I asked her about the logos, she went back to her camper right then and there and cut 2 for us. While I haven't found mugs to put the logos onto yet, I have included a picture of them. Thank-you sweet Unicorn Angela!

Today I am grateful for great takeout food and friends to share it with and grateful for creative friends in camp while missing my gals in Manitoba!

 

August 24 Tuesday Day 26

Woke up this morning, excited and of course cautious. 

We have 4 houses to look at.

We had all of the addresses and pre-arranged appointments, but we like to get there ahead of time, just to look around a bit and get a feel so that we don't have the ole "deer in the headlights look" on our faces when we meet the agent. Haha seems I like these silly phrases! 

The 1st house was down a very long highway, a little crazy but not bad, but then it turned into a very crazy road that led to the dirt (not gravel) road the house was on. As we drove down this road we had to close the windows for fear of getting poked in the eye from the branches that were pushing back into the truck. This was definitely a one car road and you needed a machete to get down it. 

When we found the house, there was another house nearly touching it on one side, and someone building another house on the other side that would have been near touching as well. Sardines in a row along the whole road. Most of these houses would be seasonal and our guess is that we would be very much alone most of the winter.

Now don't get me wrong, we want seclusion and privacy, but to a point. We don't want to take a team of dogs with a sled every time we want to get a quart of milk. And what if we need medical assistance? Then in the summer it would be no doubt very busy with cabiner's and their friends and families, how would we pass someone on the road? We would certainly be able to pass the toilet paper from 1 window to the next if the need be. Nope! Not even going to waste time looking at it. We called Stephanie and said no. It was on to the next house. She arranged for an earlier viewing and we were headed there, down the very same highway but a little further.

House #2 is where we met Stephanie. First thing she met Highway and Jack and jumped right in to meet them. Turns out she has 2 big dogs and 5 cats, okay I like that, she knows that we need to accommodate them. 

We looked all around the outside of the house, needs a deck but ready for one. Has an above ground pool, okay, but not a deal maker. It had a really tall hill on the property behind the house with a road leading up it. We went up to the top. I was huffing and puffing most of the way and had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath. Stephanie struggled a little bit (maybe just for my sake) but I felt like a smoker and struggled more.

All the way up the road to the top of the hill there were apple trees, crab apples and berries and even more at the top. At the top there was a very large plateau/landing of sorts and the view was spectacular of the water and bay. Then there was a lookout mini cabin, maybe 10 x 10 feet on a small deck with a picnic table and yet another apple tree. This would make a very fun man cave for Tom no doubt. I have named this house and property The Look Out

We headed back down and went into the house. Only 8 years old and everything is very new inside as far as the house goes. 3 bedrooms, a large kitchen, dining room with French doors that would lead to a balcony if there was one, and living room open area with dark wooden floors and dark paint on the walls. All so very very modern. Not quite the look I wanted.

Basement is a walk out with French doors but is mostly not finished. Could be a separate suite, could host my studio, plumbing is there for a 2nd bathroom and certainly enough room for a family room and a workshop for Tom, but all unfinished.When I say basement, there is no chance of flooding as the house is also on the lower part of the hill and then there is a road and then the water.

So the house has potential if we finish the basement and add a deck. We like it but still not there yet. I really was hoping for a farmhouse with some rustic character.

House #3 on a small lot with a garage and loft. Cute character type house and deeded access to the water. Okay, lets check it out! 

The cute back deck pretty much told us we are back at vintage Grandma's house. With the plastic potted flowers and the large ceramic dog and bird ornaments everywhere with loads more of wooden birdhouses and wooden signs. Yikes!

We opened the door and yep smelled like vintage Grandma! Again my nose struggled to walk through it. Too bad cuz it really had character. I couldn't even go down the basement. It was a no!

Turns out this house had over 60 up and coming viewings. I'm sure someone got past the smell and saw the potential.

On to house #4     Ocean front property

In the St George area on the Bay of Fundy sitting high on a hill on 5 acres. The property needed serious landscaping and it would probably take 3 years for Tom to clear out the brush and trees to open up the view of the ocean. The house needed some serious TLC and while there was opportunities to get it to work it would take so much time. If we were 20 years younger, I would have begged Tom to buy this house, but it really was too small and so much work that at this stage in our life we just don't want that much to do.

After visiting that house we headed up to the nearby town of St George to look around. Perhaps if St George would have had more to offer and more of the type of amenities we wanted, we might have still considered the house, but it was a long shot. And it turns out there wasn't enough to keep the interest. Sadly, good bye ocean front! 

Ocean front property

Here is what we have learned about ocean front property:

It is either out of our budget range expensive or so dilapidated that it is not worth fixing, yet you pay premium prices for what I wouldn't host as the dog house.

Houses are too close together. Absolutely no privacy.

It is 15 degrees cooler than anywhere else and very windy. That is why everyone has clothes lines, the wind like the laundry never stops. Lots of fog too!

Water damage, and flooding. They may claim it has never flooded but there is always that pungent smell of moisture and dampness. Besides we all know the story about it never flooded in 50 years, it is year 51 and you know how that story ends....

Beach access is questionable. Either you are so high on the hill that you need a construction crew to build access, or you are right on the beach fearing flooding. Then there are marshy waters, mud, and rocky terrains. There is also the tourist trap areas and limited beach access. Both drive the prices so high and make it near impossible to enjoy a quiet day on the beach.

The beauty of not living on the beach, is that you can visit pretty much anywhere anytime and be at the ocean in under an hour. And the drive to get anywhere, even to go buy groceries or gas no matter where you live is like a day as a tourist. I will never tire of this scenery.

The dream or need of living on the beach is behind me now and Tom too. We are on holidays everyday no matter where we live.

Here are a couple of pics of scenery stuff.

August 23 Monday Day 25

 It is pouring rain today. Our camp is a huge mudpile.

It is time to show you pics of our camp with the big pile of wood as the focal point in this picture.

A while back I mentioned that Tom had bought a tree saw to cut wood for our campfires. It has been too hot for fires at night and too late because it is still light out til later in the evening, so by the time we could actually enjoy a fire we are pretty much ready for bed.

Tom had muttered something a few days ago about returning the tree saw he bought for another style and I hadn't really paid much attention until he showed me the pile of wood he had cut when I was gone for a few hours in Sussex. I looked at the neatly piled collection and within a few seconds I knew that it was just a little too perfect...."you cut that with a tree saw?" and I looked at his face and he was smirking, then he said he bought a chain saw to do the job. Yet another item he left behind when we were moving. 

Between the 2 of us, I don't know where we are going to store everything we buy. We don't even have a house yet. But that being said, we may need the wood more than we know if we don't get a house. And he can cut wood for all the campers if he wants, he loves it and there is certainly no shortage of fallen trees along the trails in the back of our campsites.

It is 9am and we are headed to Gagetown to look at the house with Agent 7. Our appointment isn't til 11 but we thought we would pick up coffees and pre-check the house outside and the surrounding areas before the agent gets there. Gagetown is about an hour away from our campsite.

Its a beautiful town all along the water with lovely historical buildings. many of the houses have red metal roofs and have become know for that. Tom asked me if I would want a red roof? I told him I would want a red roof if everyone in town had blue roofs and vise versa in a red roof town. I much prefer to be the odd duck. LOL (odd duck? sheesh I am really dating myself).

The house we are going to see is in a newer development and is water front. According to disclosure it has never flooded. That still makes me nervous.

Our Agent#7 has now called to let us know that agent 7.5 would be looking after us as he felt it better because this was his listing and he already had taken the first offer on it. (here we go again)

Within 30 minutes Agent 7.5 messaged us that she had a flat tire and was now at the service centre getting it repaired. (here's another old saying for you: if I had a nickel for every time I heard that line) She was going to be late but would get there as fast as she could.

At first we couldn't find the house, but when we did, ohhh my it was beautiful!

The long down sloped front yard was on the water, halfway was a fire pit with chairs around it. The yard was beautifully landscaped. The deck was gorgeous, and the garage was a double garage with both heat and cooling pump system. Neighbours next door on both sides but still very secluded. 

Could this be it?

When the agent 7.5 arrived, she was still in a frenzie but she was there and we were anxious to see inside. She unlocked the door and we walked right into a magazine page. 

It was beautifully decorated, with a wood stove in a corner of the living area. The kitchen was amazing but only a few cupboards. State of the art appliances were all included.

The sunroom was unbelievable beautiful with water view. The master bedroom was again right out of a magazine. The bathroom had an antique dresser for a vanity with a smaller dresser beside for holding towels and such. 

This house was perfectly staged for selling and I wanted it all, furniture, pictures, decor, even the bed.

We now have less than 5 hours to make a decision.

The house is beautiful

It is within our budget

It is on the water

Pristine in every way.

It is just too small.... 

No place for storage, no place for guests, no place for a studio, no place for a workshop.

Yep it is a big ole NO!

We got back to camp and contacted Agent 8 Stephanie. 

Stephanie, its your show now, show us what you got! She already had appointments to look at 4 houses for Tuesday. She was ready!

Again, cant really show pics of houses that we didn't buy. Out of respect as well in case I say things that might offend the seller or deter a buyer.  But here is the start of Tom's wood pile.

 

August 22 Sunday Day 24

 Good morning all.

I thought today I should get you up to speed with house hunting and our real estate agents. It seems the market must be sooooo good that everyone is just a little too big for their britches (that sounds old) to do any work to sell a house. If you are able to get a hold of an agent they pretty much want you the buyer to hand them the houses you want to look at and then, they really only want to sell one of their own houses. If you aren't interested in their listings, they refer you on to someone else to make the sale, yet!!!!! they still get a referral commission for doing nothing.

So let's backtrack:

1st agent was prearranged from the company we dealt with in Manitoba. She knew the approx date we were arriving, upon arrival we contacted her several times by phone, email, and txt and only once she phoned back but never even left a msg. All the while I looked at listings on line setting up several accounts to get listings sent to my email.

2nd agent: Found a few houses that we wanted to look at and contacted another company. He was I am guessing too busy himself and passed us on to Harlee

3rd agent Harlee: Sent me computer generated listings on a very vague criteria, based on what I had told her. These listings were all ones I had reviewed on other sites and only 1 was of interest along with 1 of the houses we had originally asked about. She informed me that one house was already sold and she would create a new list for us because I commented about the criteria. But didnt arrange for us to look at the other house. Hmmmm... Finally she reffered us to another agent to look at the house because it was out of her area? Really? It is one hour north of Fredericton.

4th agent the referral: We had to contact him ourselves, left a message and heard nothing.

5th agent called the next day: 24 hours later to let us know that we had been referred to him by agent 4, sheesh agent 4 didn't even bother to contact us. Okay so now we are dealing with Kevin, who informs us that he will go pretty much anywhere we want to look at houses. We looked at the 2 houses that I talked about the other day.(Thursday). We had one of the listings from my own searches that we wanted to go see and he was going to make an appointment as well as hook us up with an agent in Grand Manan Island for the Saturday that we were there. Well that didnt happen. From Friday to Sunday morning I continued to send him listings and heard nothing and no mention about Grand Manan either.

Agent 6: So here it is very early Sunday morning and a new set of listings had come out and there were 3 other houses that we wanted to go see. Since we hadn't heard from Kevin, I contacted the agent of 1 of the houses and again got someone else that was going to help us. She (I dont even remember her name) told us not to worry that there were 4 agents in her company that would help us find a house. She would get right on the listings and make some appointments, she would get back to us right away! We heard nothing.....I even contacted her a couple of times, surely she must have heard from someone by now? No response, then finally she had 1 house for us to look at, but we were going to be referred to another agent. Ok, I'm still holding it together but barely....and we wait, nothing. 

Agent 7: There was one house in particular I wanted to see so I finally left a message with the listing agent directly to see the house. It did take a while but he finally arranged an appointment for Monday at 11AM, but there already was 1 offer on the house and the closing for offers was 5pm Monday. That would be a 6 hour decision.....

All while this was going on, we had driven up to Shediac to be tourists, and there were way too many people there for the flea market weekend. Couldn't even get into town there was so many cars and no place to park.

We headed off to Port Elgin (at the Confederation Bridge to PEI) a sleepy little town nothing available as far as real estate.

Then there was agent 8 Stephanie: Apparently Kevin had referred us on to her without telling us and she contacted me by email but again wanted our house criteria. I really had had it by then and just wanted to see what agent 7 was going to do (didn't have appointment yet). I sloughed her off and said we were moving on and only going to commit to an agent that did the work and we were not going to get passed on while an agent would still get some kind of commission. I also told her that if she didn't have the criteria, then Kevin wasn't doing his job either. She wasn't taking no for an answer....she came back with the info from Kevin. She said she would set things up right away for us and send me some listings that she thought may be of interest. I'm still not convinced but Tom and I agreed to give her a chance. I sent her the 4 listings we wanted to see and within minutes she had knocked 2 of them down as no with her explanations that #1 would be so close to another neighbour and the other house was in need of serious repairs. She would get back to me about appoints for the others. 

By then I had heard back from Agent 7 to show us the house and Stephanie had knocked out the 3rd house and said that she wouldn't take on the 4th house if Agent 7 was showing it, and she informed us that the house of Agent 7 did already have an offer. This girl was working for us before we were even hiring her.... We would talk seriously on Tuesday after we looked at the house and she started to send us listings in preparation. Ok Stephanie, we are hearing you.......

We got back to camp and Agent 6-ish finally had an appointment for us and another agent was going to meet us. At the same house I already made an appointment with directly long before she responded. I just told her we had moved on and we were working directly with the agent.

We were both numb, even thinking about moving on to maybe Nova Scotia or PEI? It was tiring and so frustrating.

Even supper was tiring, leftover chicken and left over stuff from Friday. We are done with leftovers.

Today with all the frustration, I think the best part of the day was driving through this beautiful province and enjoying the company of my husband. For that I am grateful!