This old house is built on dreams

The advertisement said "large principal rooms, asking price $176,000."

My heart was in my throat – it was an exact, but larger, replica of the doll house my mother had given me for Christmas when I was six years old.

From my windowless shoebox of an office in downtown Toronto, I picked up the phone to talk to the real estate agent to see if the price was a mistake.

"No, that's the price," he said.

My next question was "What's wrong with it?"

He said the house needed updating, and the kitchen wasn't well received by prospective buyers - but added that she was a solid old house and more than worth a look if I were in the market for an antique home. As we parted, he gave a plug for Napanee but suggested I try to find a job in the area first and then look for a house.

The reality is my husband and I had been trying for several years to move to eastern Ontario, furiously shipping resumes to Kingston from our apartment at Broadview & Gerard in Toronto with not a bite to be had.

We alternated weekends in Toronto, looking at homes we'd never own unless we won the lottery or robbed a bank, with visits to Mark's parent's place in Kingston, checking out all of the eastern Ontario hamlets where we might be able to one day find refuge from the rat race.

I had toured many real estate listings before that July day, but this one I printed. The next morning, as if a light switch just went on inside me, I woke up knowing exactly what we needed to do, how we could begin to live our dream – the simplicity of it made me wonder why I hadn't thought of it before.

All we needed was to take a great big leap of faith. There was really no other way.

In spite of his aversity to risk, it was surprisingly easy to convince my husband that we should just quit our jobs and leave the city.

We did the math: zero debt + zero kids = carpe diem. We agreed to put our things in storage and stay with his mom until we found gainful employment. So on Labour Day 2004 we loaded up a U-Haul and drove from Toronto to Kingston. I glanced at the Greater Napanee exit as we went past, thinking to myself "hold on old girl, I'm coming for you."

I had not bothered to show my husband the print-out of the big girl doll house I had found. Mark had made it clear to me earlier that year on a scenic drive down Highway 2 that he would never live in Napanee. He had played the legendary Paisley many times with his band back in the 1980s, witnessing first-hand the seedier side of life in town.

77052 "WESTINGHOUSE" FAN/LIGHT PULL CHAIN SWITCH Review ...

This is the ceiling fan light pull switch that is needed to replace an existing three wire switch. This is referred to as a 3-way fan light switch. This switch has four positions with (1) INPUT (BLACK WIRE) & (2) OUTPUTS (RED WIRE & BLUE WIRE). POSITION(1)-OFF, POS(2)-Black-Red, POS(3)-Black-Blue, POS(4)-Black-Blue-Red. Be careful and make sure to disconnect the input power prior to replacing. Here's a tip: Turn the fan on and then turn the wall switch off, if the fan stops turning then it should be safe to proceed. This assumes there is only one wall switch for the ceiling fan/light fixture. Just reuse the existing wire nuts when replacing. My ceiling fan had a blue wire instead of a black wire as the input. I also used my digital camera and took closeup shots prior to replacing. This will save you headaches later on any rewiring or reassembly job.

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