344 MACK ST - SOLD

The Essentials

An adorable three-bedroom, two-bathroom bungalow with a professionally finished basement, two gas stoves and an open plan main floor. Parks in every direction.

The Bigger Picture

I’ve known for a few months that this sweet little house was going to be sold this season, and almost every day I’ve wanted to haul my beaten-up soapbox to the exact centre of one of the many neighbourhood parks and yell out the address through my battered aluminum megaphone, throw open the doors and hand out welcome baskets. I can be impatient.

Even this week, when I was able, finally, to announce its imminent arrival on the market, and got to install a sign on the lawn, I wanted to do more to show it off - hire a band, maybe, and have them set up on the front porch to sing songs of secret longing.

There are a few reasons for my being so damned keen about this particular listing.

First off, and perhaps most importantly, is the simple fact that there has been such a shortage of really good, well-priced housing out there in recent times. And by well-priced I don’t just meant that the price has been set at a reasonable, defensible level (although that is certainly true here). I mean that this lovely bungalow is, by 2023 standards, more affordable than most properties on the market. Tell me the last time you saw a city listing that looked the way this one does that was priced well under $600,000.

Secondly, I like so much that you won’t have to embark on expensive renovations. The house is move-in-ready. (I realize even as I write that phrase that I’ve never used it before, and I am instantly, absurdly proud of that fact. But if there is a house fit to drag those words from me, I’m okay with this being the one.)

And thirdly? Well I think I gave that away in the opener - it’s a sweet, utterly charming house. Everything just seems right - the rooms are the right size, the windows are in the right place to illuminate your lives. You put a vase of lilies on the kitchen counter, as I did, and the light falls right on their face, as if to endorse them, elevate them, make them the best damn lilies they can be.

The square footage is a modest 800 on each level but the sensation is never of being closed in. The walls - and this likely won’t makes good sense until you visit (which you will, won’t you?) - give you all the space you need. They are like the friends who understand when you need a minute to yourself.

The plan is generally open and by that I mean that if you’re fixing breakfast at the stove you’re not going to be isolated. You can still talk to those same friends, who are now sitting at the dining table, playing with their juice glasses, snapping the newspaper flat, telling you stories you’ve heard before, surely, but which strike you as funnier than ever in this space, with everyone smiling, and neighbours already passing by on their way to the tennis courts at Compton Park. It’s as if you’ve become part of the film of your own life. The star of the show.

There are two bedrooms on the main level, both tucked away at the back of the house, away from any chatter and away from the street, and there’s a third bedroom down below too, where it’s a little cooler in the summer, and a little darker too. There’s a fabulous rec room where I’d have the television, or at least a screen on the wall to watch films. There’s another bathroom too, and a second gas fireplace. You could put a kitchen in this professionally finished space, back where the laundry is makes most sense, and you’d have a nifty in-law suite, a way of sharing the wealth.

I’d suggest you spend a little time with the tour. See if the house might be as right for you as it’s been for the sellers. As perfect in its modest way as it seems to me.