We could afford a house in Toronto, we just couldn’t live here. So we sold our home and moved to Hamilton
Growing up in the Toronto periphery, I thought downtown was the coolest.
I'd feel honoured when friends would show me their favourite Kensington Market haunts. Positively humbled by my date's favourite College Street cafe. If they knew a secret speakeasy, or underground art pop-up, they were basically gods.
The folks who lived in Toronto were the coolest. And I was a poser who had to lie to her parents about how far west she ventured on Queen Street. When I grew up, I was going to be a downtown person.
In the summer of 2018, I thought I had made my dreams come true. After eight failed attempts bidding on eight other homes that same year, my husband and I had successfully bought a detached, one-bedroom bungalow in East York. We were blocks away from our former rental, in a neighbourhood we knew and loved. Living off the Bloor subway line, it felt like the city was my backyard.
Home had always just been a place to eat, sleep and store our stuff. We went to concerts, dinners, restaurants, friends' homes, the theatre and more. I'd catch a lecture and a film at the TIFF lightbox on my way home from work. I'd meet friends on a Friday night to chow down on bulgogi then sing the night away at an underground karaoke bar before catching the last subway train home.
In the high summer, we added camping and cottage trips to our schedule. We were go, go, go.
The fact I was expecting my first child wasn't going to slow me down. I was seven months pregnant when we moved into our cosy bungalow and directed my nesting energy into setting up our new home. I felt an admittedly smug satisfaction knowing she would be a true Toronto kid. She would manifest a level of coolness I could never aspire to.
After my daughter was born in September 2018, we were out every day at libraries, museums, yoga, and mommy groups. If you wanted to see us, please book three weeks in advance for the rotating Thursday space. I hated being still and booked up each day with a new activity to get us out in our neighbourhood and around people.
But, when everything came to a standstill in March 2020, and we had to actually live in our 700-square-foot home, it did not feel cool. It felt tight. A feeling that certainly was not eased when mere days into the lockdown I found out I was expecting another baby.
We were go, go, go trying to figure out a way to make it work. Balancing working from home, a toddler under foot, and prenatal checks, without any support or child care. We continued at a frenetic pace - lockdown did not slow us down, it just meant we had to do everything without help.
In an effort to save money, and space, we curated every inch of our home. We purged the clutter - discarding knick knacks, clothes, books and collectibles. Our local buy-nothing group was a daily visit as I offered up everything from novelty coffee mugs to records and furniture.
I rotated my daughter's toy selection and anything she didn't cry for was given away. Our off-season clothes were stored in totes in the garage. As we were not entertaining, I packed the extra place settings and glassware. And after honing a thoughtful capsule wardrobe of prenatal loungewear, I packed up the rest of my clothes and every pair of pretty shoes I owned.
The process of organizing and decluttering was only one small step in finding the solution to our problem. We were still faced with no space, nowhere to go, and we had exorbitant daycare rates looming ahead. Between just child care and mortgage, we were looking at $6,500 out the door every month - and that's not including food, diapers, clothing, and other essential expenses.
The housing boom meant we were priced out of our neighbourhood even with our willing to pile another $100,000 to $200,000 onto our mortgage. We interviewed contractors with dreams of putting on another storey, but those dreams were slowly whittled away as prices soared. At one point we attempted to green-light a one-bedroom addition, only to be told by the contractor that the price had trebled.
As we weighed our options, the decision fatigue, pregnancy-fatigue, and fatigue-fatigue set in. We were overwhelmed by the options and unsatisfied by every available choice. We were privileged to crack into the Toronto housing market, but livability was still out of reach.
When my son was born in December 2020, Ontario's second wave was peaking. Between the cold, dreary winter weather, new lockdown measures, and in the haze of managing a newborn, we moved in slow, small circles. I was at the end of my bandwidth and had no more energy to investigate housing solutions.
Instead, I focused on my family's immediate needs. There was no mommy meetups, no postnatal yoga, and no big family Christmas gatherings. Just a lot of baking, walking, cuddle puddles, and a ritualized daily dance party in our living room.
Without the hustle, there was a lot of happiness. Physical space was tighter than ever, but the mental space I was allowed helped me see things in a new light.
Our list of housing must-haves changed, and the bustling pace of Toronto no longer seemed like an asset. Rural areas appealed to my husband's and my need for green space and our love of camping in the outdoors, but the long commutes seemed unmanageable with young children. We both found the suburbs unappealing, the treeless streets of identical houses cold and uninviting. They lacked the amenities of downtown, and the spaciousness of the country, and you still needed two cars to get around - an expense I'd rather put into my home.
Instead of searching by what we were willing to compromise on, we started to search by what we really needed. And we needed a house we fit in, walkability (because getting two kids in and out of car seats with snow suits is the lesser-known 10th circle of hell), good schools, a daycare, green space, and access to an urban area for work.
Through a process of elimination, we zeroed in on Hamilton, which balanced an urban feeling with a slightly slower pace, is surrounded by hiking trails, and connected to several possible job markets.
We leaned heavily on our realtor to learn about the different neighbourhoods and proximity to features that might be nice, or unpleasant, for our family. I spoke to everyone who had a word to say, and I scoured the internet for a sense of what life would be like block by block. We narrowed our search to a handful of good school districts and slowly dipped our toes in.
When we saw what is now our family home, we knew instantly. A 100-year-old, three-storey, red-brick in the shadow of the escarpment. It hit every one of our must haves and almost all our nice-to-haves. It was the first and only home we bid on, and we stayed within our budget. Despite all the turmoil that brought it about, my husband and I joke that this was the easiest decision we ever made.
Strangely, everything has been simpler for us since the move. It felt like we had been playing an impossible-to-beat game, then suddenly realized we could change the difficulty level in the middle of a boss fight.
For instance, when I began calling daycares to get on lists I was third or fourth versus the 352nd in line at our first choice in Toronto. Within three months of moving I was able to find an amazing daycare centre at half the cost that could accept both my children - and was in walking distance from our home. And although our new three-bedroom home cost $100,000 more than our tiny Toronto home sold for, with our new area's lower property taxes our monthly payments are about the same.
The process of slowing down and simplifying forced me to reconcile my life with my values. Feeling empowered and in control for the first time in I don't know how long, I've accepted I'm less of a go, go, go person than I thought.
In fact, now that things are open again, and there are places to go and things to do, I'm kind of happy at home. Which is way cooler.
Christine Testa is recent Hamilton transplant, a communicator, mother of two, and an adept stress-baker during any and all unprecedented times.
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