A Strange House and Yet, I Call it Home.

A few of you have asked me what it was like seeing my new home for the first time, considering I hadn't walked through it before.

I started feeling the anticipation when we crossed Confederation Bridge, it's 14 kms long, so there's a lot of time to let the expectation build...would PEI still be as beautiful, now that it was home?  Here is the video of us leaving the bridge and landing in the province we now call ours:

You may or may not hear the sound file attached, as the mike doesn't function very well.  If you can, yes that's me singing along with the radio and Ron talking in the background.

We weren't actually sure whether we would make it to the house in day light and we had to stop to get out the map to try and get home on time.  We only made one wrong turn and then we turned up our street.  I was looking for the house on the wrong side of the road, but suddenly as we went around a bend I could see the house in the distance:

It looks much friendlier from a little ways down the road, sitting in the middle of all the fields, but the first time I saw it the sun was shining, low on the horizon, and it made the whole thing very homey.  (It's not as far away from the road as it seems, by the way.)

The outside trim and that is a bit more dilapidated than I thought, but nothing some elbow grease and fresh paint won't take care of.  The inside is an interesting muddle of rooms with wood floors and crooks and crannies like you would expect from a house that's 102 years old.  There are some things that we need to take care of right away...like the wasps making a home in our attic and the absolutely atrocious wall paper in the living room...imagine (if you can) huge turquoise and dusty pink cabbage roses highlighted with gold foil and pearlescent frosting.   (BLICK!)  The carpet in the living room has to go too, but that might have to wait, we'll have to see.

It's a wendy old house with a servant's staircase (I know what you're thinking...affluently retired...I just wish!) that leads up to a huge bonus room attached to the upstairs bathroom.  The bath itself has two entrances, the second leads to the bedrooms (of which there are three), but one can only really qualify as an office.  The main stair (going up to the bedrooms) starts just left of the front door as you come in the house, on the right is the living room and down the hall is the dining room, which sits between the downstairs bath (which is GIGANTIC) and the kitchen, also immense - I had to take a moments pause when I put away all of my pots pans etc and there were still empty cupboards.  None of my things are stacked up as they were in the condos we lived in.  The small appliances all have homes of their own...I just can't explain how cool that actually is!

The house is big enough that when we're looking for eachother we can miss one another as we go to various areas of the house, each using a different staircase.

So in answer to your question about how I felt...I was certainly glad to be home, it's been a long road to get here.  I think it's a bit like meeting an unknown sibling; its someone you feel you should know, but you don't so you're overcome with excitement, fear & just generally overwhelmed. 

It's funny how something doesn't feel like yours until you get to know it a little.  Once I've used both showers and put my stamp on the rooms this is very definitely going to be home.  Every day makes it a little more so...I can feel the charm of the country creep in to my bones and once the unpacking is done my heart will be filled with this beautiful place, quirks and all.  Interior pictures to come, but for now I bid you good day and sweet dreams.

Sunset from our front porch.