The Franklin Manor.....

Well I moved into the Franklin Manor in 1994. When I was looking for a new place I had a few minimum requirements.

1. It could not be in a high rise, I am petrified of living someplace that I can't jump from the window if there was a fire. This goes back to the towering inferno I think..
2. It had to have character. I didn't want to live in some bland ordinary apartment.
3. It had to be above ground.
4. I wanted to have a dog so pet friendly would be great.. Not easy to find in an apartment..

Well the Franklin manor met most of these criteria. When I first went to look at it we went in through the front door down 4 steps.. I was like 'Hold on Sista' I aint living in a basement suite!.

Well to my surprise it was only partially underground, the front of the building was about 3 feet under and the back was at ground level, so it really wasn't a basement suite. The place was really cool, it had 2 bedrooms (big ones) all hardwood, except for the pukey red / grey and yellow tiles in the kitchen (circa 1950) and it had a light green bathroom suite.. Looked pretty cool actually. There was a tonne of cool details like every room had a different plaster design on the ceiling. It was funky. I was sold.

So I gave Evonne my 500 damage deposit and first months rent and got ready to move from Monty's house of terrors.

The move was really easy since the place was only 5 mins from my old place, being on the ground floor made it easy to move in.
This apartment was unique as well in that it only had 3 suites in it. 2 on the main floor and one ginormous suite upstairs that was just beautiful. The owner of the building was an architect and used to live upstairs, so he had completely renovated the upstairs. It had about 25oo square feet, a huge kitchen, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. I was the lucky tenant to live under the living room part of his apartment. Yes his living room was the size of my suite. and also lucky for me there was room for a full size pool table up there, right above my bedrooms.. That was always fun.. b/c every tenant that ever lived up there (he charged 1900/mo rent) brought a pool table with them.. Let me tell you its not fun @ 11pm to hear a game of pool going on.. God help you if a ball goes off the table.. Nearly had a heart attack several times.. That was one of the only things I didn't like about the Manor.. was the noise from upstairs.. They had hardwood up there and I swear there was nothing between my ceiling and their floor...

While the people upstairs came and went there was always a constant with my good ole neighbor Ken. He lived across the hall and had lived there 5 or 6 years b4 I had moved in.. The first time I met him he was in a nitegown similar to what Laura Ingals would have worn.. I can still remember what he said to me.. 'Oh its just another Lazy Saturday!' I thought he should have been drinking a mint julep or something.. funny as hell. And if you can't tell already, Ken was 50 something gay man. Who incidentally tought Piano out of his apartment, didn't drive and liked to suntan in the nude in the afternoon.

Ken was a good guy, I didn't mind the piano, sometimes it was actually nice to hear, the only thing that pissed me off was the steady stream of kids running down the hallway for lessons.. Usually set the dog off barking, but other than that it was all cool.

Oh the dog.. Yes this is where I was living when I decided I needed a dog.. You see the property manager Evonne said that dogs were ok, since there had been pets allowed before. So I took that to mean I could go out and get one.. Thats exactly what I did.

I was actually saving the money that I paid for Dewie with for a coffee table, but I got a bee in my bonnet about getting a dog and ended up buying one a couple days later. I found Dewie/Meathead/Amadeus in the paper. A lady in Airdrie had a litter of cockapoos for sale for $250. So my sister and I drove out and met the lady in the Mcdonalds parking lot where she had 2 puppies in the car. There was cute little fuzzy Meathead, and a black female who looked like all cocker.. for some reason I didn't want a female and Meathead was so adorable, albeit larger than the female. My decision was made. No new coffee table, but a new little terror to bring home..
As you all know, Dewie is a 'Unique' dog.. the lap dog that I wanted ended up being a 45lb furry teddy bear, who has beat every groomer this side of Winnipeg, little neurotic, quite the piggy, loves used kleenex and took7 years to finally be house trained.. Yes the little bugger was paper trained (never do this) in my apt kitchen and never stopped peeing there.
Thank God when I bought my place he didn't bring this habit with him..\

As you can see there wasn't as much excitement at the Franklin Manor as in previous homes.. It really wasn't that bad, if it was I wouldn't have lived there for 7 years.. Crazy to rent the same place that long, I guess all the moving I had done as a kid has made me want to settle down and nest, not be a nomad..

So in February of 2003 I took the plunge and bought my house. Well actually I bought Meathead a yard.. That was my goal to own a yard b4 I was 30, well I was 3 years late but nobody said it was easy on your own to get your own house So I take pride in doing it myself.

I think everyone pretty much knows the story of my little house and the trials and tribulations the renos, the Flop house and of course can forget my lovely neighbor Gladice.. Even with all that I love my little duplex, my yard and my deck. Don't think I will be moving anytime soon..

Margo