House hunting in the Cowichan Valley

We reached our hotel, the Thunderbird Motor Inn, in Duncan early at about 13:00, but the room was vacant and clean so we could check in right away. Rita, the receptionist who manages the hotel with her husband, is an absolute sweetheart with a smile that will charm anyone. We booked in for two nights. They had just installed new, super fast internet and it is blazing. We got our stuff into the room and regrouped for a bit. Shelagh was still a bit upset so we took it easy for a while. In the room I contacted Dean, our realtor in Langley and asked him to recommend a realtor to us in Duncan. We soon had the name and number of a realtor for our next search. I fired off an e-mail to David Lowes from Remax Duncan to let him know he had been recommended and that we would like to meet with him and get to know each other. Just then an interesting e-mail showed up in our inbox...

Sharon, who has Casey the Cairn Terrier, wanted to know if we could house sit for 11 weeks starting Christmas eve. This would coincide with our plans very well. If we were to choose to build a house here, we could live in Sharon's house while she snowbirds, and watch the  progress of our home being built. Shelagh replied to her message saying that we just happened to be in town looking for our next home and that it would be so nice to meet up and give Casey a ruffle. Well, Sharon replied that she would be going to Victoria for Thanksgiving and that we would be welcome to stay at her house 'till Monday! The universe is working with us. Three nights in her house with Casey would be great and save us about $300.00! We gladly accepted. We phoned the lovely Rita at the hotel counter and she happily cancelled our second night at the hotel, after we officially cancelled this night with "hotels.com". We were all smiles and the woes of our Victoria experience faded a bit.

 Casey, such a sweet little guy...

By now we were hungry so we walked across the parking lot to the York St. Diner. This resaurant serves enormous plates, so it is a good idea to share a dinner, or you will bring plenty of it home. We ordered the Ukrainian plate complete with Pierogis, Sauerkraut, Kielbasa Sausage and Sour Cream. Delicious and one dinner was enough for two people.

We waddled back to the hotel room across the parking lot and settled in for the evening. David had replied to my e-mail and we were to meet at 09:00 at his office just two blocks away. We had some wine and relaxed, then to bed, sleep came quickly for me but Shelagh still struggled a bit through the night...

Up at 07:00 coffee on, check e-mails, shave and shower and ready to go. We were at David's office at 09:00 precisely and we chatted for about half an hour letting David know what we were looking for. New build, rancher, maximum 1500sqft, two or more bedrooms, two bathrooms, kitchen with stone countertops and a modern appliance package. Easy peasy. As usual inventory is low, but David had some properties to show us. First we went to a development called "Stone Village" it is a "Bare Land Strata" where there is a council elected who will regulate the way things go in the community, nothing new to us, we have lived in stratas for many years and we kind of like rules that people need to live by. But the development was a bit too high density, houses too close together and from experience in Walnut Grove, we concluded that this would become a problem place over time. However there was one unit on offer that was, for the price, almost too difficult to ignore, 2700sqft for $495000.00!

Then we went on to "Keystone" the final phase in a large neighbourhood called "Stone Manor Estates". This development is a bit more low density and no strata. We liked the last phase very much and told David to proceed on getting a detailed builders list as to what exactly is included in the final price. We also informed him that we might make a few additions to the plan, like adding a natural gas outlet at the patio for a barbecue and a 220 volt outlet for a hot tub and a gas outlet in the kitchen because I like to cook with gas. David took all these notes and we parted company at 11:00. Then on to Sharon's place to meet up and pick up the keys.

The house we like and phase four called "Keystone" in "Stone Manor Estates".

Sharon was happy to see us again, it had been a couple of months, Casey remembered us right away and gave us lots of love. We left her house to return a few hours later after she had left for Victoria. In the meantime we returned to the construction sites and snooped around trying to figure out how we would manage in these new neighbourhoods. We came to the conclusion that a 2700sqft house would be much too big for us at this stage of our lives, even though it is a bargain, why would you live in a place that you would not use completely? So we nixed it. We will spend more money on a smaller place but it will be in a better setting... Hopefully we will build on lot #15...