A Fleeting Diversion

Tonight is the last night we’ll spend in the house we’ve lived in for a little over 8 years. I don’t really go in for sentimentality at the best of times, but this occasion in particular isn’t really moving me at all.

When we moved to Brisbane in 2002, we needed to buy a house somewhat quickly. It’s hard to find a rental place when you have two large, hairy dogs. I spent a week here looking around, and then Kylie came up and found this place. I made no secret of the fact that I wasn’t overly keen, but we bought it, and in my mind it was only ever a temporary home – until we found, or could afford, something better.

I threw a spanner into the works of that plan when I decided to go back to uni a couple of years later and then worked as a lowly paid teacher for a few years. The temporary home became a little more permanent than I had hoped.

Despite that, the attachment was never there. I’ve never really liked the suburb, never really got to know the neighbours, never really felt like I’d want to stay here for a long time.

So, as we lock the door behind us tomorrow, I’m not expecting that there will be much in the way of emotion. If anything, it will be a relief to finally be moving on.

Two weeks ago, we had a phone call at around 6:30 on Saturday night. It was one of our real estate agents wanting to bring some people through. Now. Apparently they were at his office, ready to sign a contract on another place, and saw our listing in the window.

After a hasty clean, Kylie and I packed Jonah into the car and went for a drive. After what seemed like an eternity, the first call came through. “They want to know whether you have ADSL2″. A promising sign. A few phone calls later and we had an offer, conditional on a couple of things. First – the deck, mentioned in Buying and Selling. They also wanted confirmation that the other major renovation – raising the house and building in underneath – had also been approved.

Another few frantic days of checking things with Council and we had a list of what had been approved. There was something in 1967 called “Dwelling Addition”, but Council don’t keep detailed records for that long, so we didn’t know whether that was the correct one. Back to the buyer with an offer of “it could be it, but we can’t be sure. We’re not going to go through the whole certification process for something that may already have been approved, so make us an offer”. At this point we just wanted the whole sorry mess behind us. The offer they came back with was more than we were expecting, and enough to afford the house we want, so we were happy. But it still depended on the deck being approved. More uncertainty.

Monday night and Tuesday morning were probably the most stressful 18 hours of my life. Not knowing anything much about building, some of the notes on the plans were a little scary. But the inspector turned up around lunchtime and finally, thankfully, approved it.

So, all going to plan. The sale will go ahead, and we’ll be homeless on July 13. We’re hoping to be able to push the purchase of the new house through pretty quickly, but it looks like we’ll be living with Kylie’s parents in Ipswich for a week, or two, or three. I wonder if I can arrange any extended work trips during July.