And we're off!

Nova Scotia, here we come!

Come on in!

In my last post, I shared the inspiration pictures for our Nova Scotia house and the design we finally settled on. Today I’m sharing some front entry inspiration pictures.

The house siding is going to be cedar shingles. They’ll weather and turn grey over time, and I’m thinking that a bright green on the front door would look great with the grey, and would be a fun and welcoming colour.

 
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And on the other side of the front door, these are some entries that are inspiring me. Love the turquoise door and ceiling detail in this one.

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The only ceiling fixture from our current house that’s making the trip to Nova Scotia with us is my star light. Maybe it’ll go in the front entry… maybe wallpaper and a turquoise door too!

 
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I’m a big fan of the horizontal planks in these next entries…

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The little round window in this entry is so charming.

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What’s your favourite front door colour?

Our Nova Scotia house-to-be

Pretty much from the moment that we saw the lot in Nova Scotia, we started thinking about what our dream home would be. All during the drive home, I was envisioning a house with lots of windows so we can see the ocean from every room. Not too big and not too fancy, just big enough for us and our dogs to be comfy, with a bedroom or two for friends and family when they come visit. I couldn’t believe it when I actually found the exact house that I had envisioned, designed by MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects:

Floor to ceiling windows all the way around? Yes please! Then there were these houses with more modern lines also designed by MLS Architects…

  

And more traditional house designs…

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And kind of in between modern and traditional, both by Hutker Architects…

But in the end, we both agreed that the perfect design for our house was based on the cottage that we stayed in last September. It’s not fancy, but it’s got everything we want and need, and the interior layout is super-functional.

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Our house will be a bit bigger and have way more windows to bring in the ocean view, and we’ll have a metal roof. But otherwise, this is the house that we’ll be building.

Now if we can just get the road access sorted out!

Beach rules...

Happy Weekend!

It all started with a random turn

Whenever we go traveling, I love to explore random roads and see where they bring us. On our trip to Nova Scotia in 2009, we took a random turn and ended up discovering a beautiful beach on the South Shore. I fell in love with the area, and told Brian that we had to move here one day. Specifically, into this house:

As it turned out, a year later this house was for sale. For $850,000. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. But a girl can dream, right?

And dream this girl did, for the next five years. During which time we took trips to PEI, Cape Breton, and Maine. All gorgeous places by the ocean, but there was just something about this little gem of a place on the South Shore that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

 
Last September, we took another trip to Nova Scotia  and stayed at a rental cottage right in the middle of my favourite spot on the South Shore. The cottage is owned by a local real estate agent, so we asked him if he knew of any inexpensive fixer-uppers in the area. Then after seeing what an inexpensive fixer-upper looks like, we decided to focus on finding a lot and building new instead!

The last day of our holiday, he sent us about 10 minutes north to look at some lots. There was a nice one – 10 acres, on the river, a private peninsula – but it wasn’t the ocean. And that was when Brian finally realized what I’d known all along… you can’t move to Nova Scotia and NOT live by the ocean!

7:00 that night with the sun setting on the last day of our vacation, the real estate agent took us to look at a couple of nearby lots. The first one was big and had great views of Lunenburg. But it wasn’t on the open ocean. Then he took us to the second lot. And we knew right away. THIS was exactly what we were looking for...



We put in an offer a few days later, which the sellers accepted. But the lot still isn’t officially ours – we need to sort out a legal issue with the road before the sale can be finalized. So after eight months of waiting, we’re still not 100% certain that we’ll be able to go ahead with all of our plans. I guess that’s just part of our Nova Scotia adventure!

The adventure begins…

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In about a week, we’ll be packing a trailer with our essentials, loading up the dogs, and heading east on a new and exciting adventure – we’re moving to the South Shore of Nova Scotia! We’ll be renting a house for a year (or two) while we build our dream home by the sea…

Drawing by Atlantic Home Designs

This blog will be a journal of our adventures as we build our home and explore our new surroundings in Nova Scotia. There will be lots of pictures and probably many rants – because who ever built a house without having a whole lot of problems? :-) We hope you’ll follow us on our journey and share in all the fun!