The following page was originally written in 1997. Enjoy!
Originally, it was supposed to be finished April 30th. Tridel then reassessed its construction schedule and found the new date to be tentatively July 24th. I found out on March 24th that this has been pushed back yet again to August 20th due to inclement weather delays. This is now the confirmed date and will therefore stand regardless. Mind you this is fine with me because the extra time will allow me to save for some of the optional extras. This all means the big moving day has been shifted to the Labour Day long weekend. I plan to take the following week off to settle in and shop for household items. What follows is a brief rundown of what you can expect when you visit.
#68 Mondeo Drive is the second most southerly unit in the development. My more southerly neighbour will border on Ellesmere Road. I am surrounded on three sides by townhouses. Hopefully these walls will be solid enough to spare the neighbours the relentless onslaught of Rush and Led Zeppelin that will regularly thunder out of my place! The front side (which faces east) is the only one with windows.
The Mondeo development itself will boast walkways, gazebos, a small waterfall and a gatehouse. It will be necessary to check in at the gatehouse before entering the community. Nobody gets in unless a resident says so. A park is being built nearby and hundreds of trees will line the streets. Fiber-optic technology promises a dedicated cable TV channel broadcasting community news and current utility costs. For you Internet-literate people out there, this also means lightning fast surfing throughput thanks to new cable modem technology!
Furniture purchases can wait until the summer.
It makes more sense to order the stuff and
have it delivered to the new place than to
buy it now and then move it in. Besides,
I should be getting a dining table and sofa
that were recently discarded by my sister
Karen who moved to England. They should prove
a good headstart.
Here's a shot I snapped during the final
phase of construction after most of the exterior
had been finished. Note that the garage on
the left belongs to the house behind me on
the west side. As a result, those homes have
a full first floor because most of it isn't
occupied by a garage. My garage is the one
with all the junk in it!
I have received many questions on how I'm going to foot the bill for this sucker. Because there will be a few dozen units in Mondeo, Tridel has struck a deal with the Bank of Montreal to provide mortgages. I registered with the bank in August last year. With so much business coming their way, they are prepared to give 3/4% off the lowest rate for the ensuing fifteen months. Currently, the lowest a five-year term ever reached was 6.95%. With the 0.75% deduction this means I'll be looking at a guaranteed rate of 6.2%!!! This is what I will pay even if rates skyrocket between now and final closing (which is when the mortgage is due).
I plan to put down 40% up front which will leave a mortgage of about $98K. This will translate into between $650 and $700 per month if we go the 25-year amortization route. Factor in $135 for condo fees (which is the only thing about this whole deal that really sucks) and around $200 in estimated property taxes (inescapable as you know), we will be looking at over $1000 per month. Hey, it sure beats throwing away hundreds of dollars each month on an apartment!
One thing I will likely take a pass on is the Home Buyer's Plan which allows you to borrow up to $20,000 from your RRSP to pay down your mortgage. After consulting Canada Trust, we determined I would lose more money in interest within the RRSP than I would save by reducing the mortgage principal. To add insult to injury, the borrowed funds would have to be repaid over the next 15 years in equal installments. In short, the HBP is only for those who have no other way to make a down payment. Unfortunately, with the removal of 20 Grand from my budget, that car mentioned earlier is looking really doubtful.
This consisted of a meeting that took almost two hours at the Tridel Sales Office. With dad in tow, I met with Kellee the sales agent who helped me choose various finishing touches from collections of samples. First on the sched was the carpet which will be everywhere on the upper two levels except where there's ceramic tile and linoleum. It will be a light brown ... Sierra Leone to be exact (whatever that means). This would set the general tone for all of the other selections. From now on I will put the official design titles in parentheses. Next came the foyer tiles. I chose a shiny smooth model that had a brownish marble-like vein against a white background (Corchia Beige).
Then it was on to the kitchen which will have cushion flooring. The linoleum has white squares with a green diamond at the intersection of every four squares (Vega II - 3374 Tropez). This will cover the laundry and furnace rooms as well. The counter tops will have a cloudy white and grey design (White Onyx). Finally the cabinet doors will be solid oak with a dark brown stain finish (397 Burgundy). Dad argued that a darker motif here would make the room look smaller. I think it should get plenty of sunlight in the morning thanks to the sliding glass deck doors. This should be enough brightness for anyone!
The powder room will have a slightly more intricate marble vein design (Lt Green) than the foyer. The main bathroom will sport a pinkish vein (Euro 8x8) which complement the dark burgundy (Heather Papercraft) vanity top and shower tiles. These tiles will be all white with a striped border at the top. This border will have a light mixture of green, navy and pink (Cecrisa 6x6 - Annewh with Jessgro border). The vanity doors will be exactly the same design as the kitchen cabinets except they will be white (60 Oak) in color. All doors will have a beige marble (real marble that is!) threshold.
Not long after this meeting was held, I visited the sales office again to confirm several upgrade options. I will be getting ornate handles on the kitchen cabinets instead of the usual knobs. High-quality brass water fixtures will grace the bathrooms and kitchen instead of the boring chrome pressure-balance knobs that are standard. Despite the over $400 (yipe!) price tag, I still sprung for the ice-maker option on the fridge. Sadly, there was no way I could have swung the 4 Gs they were asking for the gas fireplace. All of these costs had to be paid for up front.
About a month ago as I write this, word came down that I was going to have to yet again wait a little longer to take possession. The usual weather and labour problems were cited as the cause. The new date for earliest occupancy is October 27th. November 1st is a Saturday so I will probably move on that day. After closer examination of the sales agreement, I discovered that there is no legal recourse. Tridel has covered themselves well on this point! Hopefully all the legal stuff can be taken care of the before then. Last weekend a letter arrived from the Mondeo sales office requesting that I fax them the address of my solicitor so they can deliver the documents for closing. Maybe this is a sign that there's light at the end of the tunnel!
Well, a good portion of my cooking stuff has been bought and now sits in my garage waiting to grace the shelves and cupboards of my new kitchen. I spoke with my cousin Kerry this afternoon who will be supplying most of the electronic appliances and gizmos courtesy of Sanyo Canada.
Last Tuesday, Kellee called to book an appointment for me to finally come and see the place. This will be happening on October 23rd. So realistically, there's less than a month to go! I'm so confident this is going to go off without a hitch that I will be sending out invitations to my first party which I finished designing today. Keep those fingers crossed!
At last! On Oct 27th I entered for the first time after wrapping up the legal tangles the Wednesday before in about 20 minutes. I spent that first week inspecting the place and finding a few minor defects. With the help of my brother, father and friend Rob, we managed to get all the furniture and other stuff over in about four van-loads. The greatest pain was getting the Bell and Shaw guys to hook me up. They finally did so on Nov 4th! It didn't matter much of course because I only got my TV two days later.
These past three weeks have been a non-stop roller-coaster ride of shopping and cleaning but things are finally under control enough for me to write this chronicle of events. Now that the dust has settled, it turns out there's still a lot of room left to play with. The dining area is virtually empty and the alternate bedroom is completely empty except for the closet which is where I have dumped all my memorabilia.
I threw my first party this past weekend which went fairly well if you don't count the pea-sized burn mark left on my kitchen linoleum! Yes, I grudgingly relented on Rule #1 below during the final hours of the party but now regret it.
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