Home ownership and renovations

 A lot has been made lately about housing affordability. I live in a community with decent affordability - there's a good inventory of rental units, condos, and single-family homes. Since we don't believe in purchasing homes to rent we missed our levering our home into a home in the Vancouver area. With the drop in home values in 2016 and the acceleration of housing prices out there, even with an extra $400K (buy out and inheritance) we could not enter the housing market without taking a huge downgrade.

So renovations it is. Luckily this is a custom home. We got the plan we went with inexpensive finishes to keep our mortgage down on the understanding we could upgrade later if we didn't move away. It's later. We did round one renos and have finally admitted this is our forever home.

This round we're doing windows, the ensuite bathroom and furnace/water heater. There is a green rebate but it will only cover some windows (better than a kick in the teeth). The windows are the most important for energy conservation, the water heating system important for water conservation, and the bathroom for PLEASURE (and accessibility as we age).

The process was kickstarted when I found a tile that I L-O-V-E for the shower. It has some of the beige on our walls and blue as an accent colour and will be the "feature wall" that has the shower components. The rest of the walls will be a large (8x20") white mix textured tile that really echos the lightest colour in the feature tile. The floor will be navy 2x2 antislip tile (safety first🙂) 
 

Here's the completed palette; I'm getting a quartz countertop with a white vanity and linen closet. I'm pretty sure I'm getting a blue tile backsplash for the vanity but the tile guy said to wait and see.

The problem with the new bathroom counter is Fred's always talked about doing the kitchen as well. Now I'm on board with that sooner than later. New cabinet faces, same countertop, and a new kitchen sink...after doing the energy conservation upgrades. 

I still wish I could have moved home. The only way we could have done it was if we did it before we retired so we could replenish our funds. This is something to keep in mind for younger people moving to affordable housing.