realcondolife

My childhood is flooded with memories of visiting construction sites, sitting in backhoes and riding the hoist elevator. (The latter, for those of you that don’t know, is the elevator that oddly sits outside a building, rather than inside, carrying trades and materials.) This probably explains why my favourite smells growing up weren’t the same as other girls my age.  Instead of rose scented perfume and cookies baking in the oven, I preferred sawdust and paint. (How our world has changed – thank you low-VOC paints.) I quickly learned to accept my differences and realized these were just the realities of being a developers daughter.

Condominiums, to be precise. So, as you can imagine, I never had the dream of the white picket fence. Mine was of a lobby, a concierge and a balcony.

The first thing I did after graduating from University and getting a job (no, it wasn’t with the family business – I had to prove myself first), was get my own place. My first condo. And so that was my abode for many years. A beautiful view, security, independence and no snow to shovel or lawn to mow. Life was good. I felt lucky. Then I rolled the dice and got even luckier. I met a wonderful guy and we got married.

As my family grew, I made the assumption that my house should grow too. And so I said farewell to my bungalow in the sky and ended up with a front door of my own, a backyard… and maintenance.  Three boys and a dog later, I wondered if we made the right choice. It feels like we’re seldom home, no one has time to cut the lawn and we’ve embarrassingly, even outsourced installing Christmas lights.

I missed the condo lifestyle. I wondered if I could have it back. Fortunately, I have a supportive partner that was willing to contemplate the idea. He gave the go-ahead that we could TRY. The children of course, needed no convincing.  My oldest son’s only question was if it was the Penthouse. I quickly told him no. And so that was the start of a wonderful experiment. Can a family of five live in a condominium (happily) for 30 days. There’s a lot to do. Where do we begin?