About a year ago I lever­aged the equity in my cur­rent house to buy a down­town condo. It’s under con­struc­tion now, due to be fin­ished in another two years. My orig­i­nal inten­tion was to rent it out or sell it (depend­ing on mar­ket con­di­tions around the time of clos­ing), but ever since I came back from Europe, I’ve been flirt­ing with the idea of mov­ing there myself and rent­ing out my house instead.

I’ve missed that feel­ing of con­nec­tion after walk­ing in cities that were bustling and full of life. There’s a cer­tain inti­macy to urban liv­ing that I long for, where every­thing is within walk­ing dis­tance and peo­ple are all around. It doesn’t help that I work from home in a sleepy area in the east end, mostly inhab­ited by retirees.

27 storeys of glass and metal.

It’s an extremely tempt­ing propo­si­tion. I’d finally have a bal­cony and view from a cor­ner unit on the sixth floor, close enough to the ground to do some peo­ple watch­ing but far away enough to stay pri­vate; some­thing I’ve missed greatly from my first years out of uni­ver­sity. I’d have big south-facing win­dows to fill the place with light in the morn­ings. I’d be in the heart of down­town, just a block off Elgin, walk­ing dis­tance from the Rideau Centre, Byward mar­ket, and the NAC. I’d have access to the 4500 sq. ft. recre­ation cen­tre which includes an indoor swim­ming pool, a sauna, fit­ness facil­i­ties, a pri­vate lounge, and guest suites.

The condo is also a lot more my style, as these are mod­ern, New York-inspired lofts (most of the suites tak­ing their names from NY neigh­bour­hoods and land­marks), each one with hard­wood floors, indi­vid­ual HVAC and stack­able washer/dryers, a flush European-style kitchen, and 24-hour concierge ser­vice. I get to pick out my colours and fin­ishes soon, and I’m already plan­ning where I’d want to put my furniture.

But I don’t know if I can give up the place I have now, due to the lux­u­ries afforded to me by the extra space: a spare room I can use as a photo and Tai Chi stu­dio, a giant closet, and least of all, a liv­ing room large enough to host inti­mate house shows or small gatherings.