Hi! My name is Erica and ‘Nestled in the Trees’ is my personal blog about rural living in Ontario, Canada.
My husband and I didn’t grow up in the country. If you asked me back when we bought our first place in the city if I could’ve imagined that we’d be where we are today, living rural in the country the answer would’ve been a strong “No!” and yet here we are enjoying our beautiful forested rural property.
I had a passion for travel and studied Travel & Tourism. After 10 years in the industry I decided to leave the travel industry altogether to venture out and start my own business, inspired by my dog Quin. I owned and operated ‘V.I.D (Very Important Dog) Walking Service’. When I had my son in 2015 I made the decision to cease operation to take care of him full-time. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom ever since and during that time also had a beautiful girl.
In 2008, my then-fiancé and I took our first step onto the property ladder and purchased a 1 bedroom 525 sq ft condo. We knew where we wanted to eventually end up and with our moderate incomes, this was the starting point that we could afford. In 2012, we sold our condo and got our first (detached) house but quickly felt pressured by the immense mortgage we had to take out in order to get a house in Toronto, Ontario (Canada). On purchasing the home we knew it wouldn’t be our forever home but thought it was a great investment and over the next four years we spent every spare hour renovating. These were monumental years for us from having our first child, getting our puppy, starting my then dog walking business, and learning to renovate and maintain our first house. In 2016, we sold our beautifully self renovated detached home, made a profit, and moved to Midtown Toronto, location, location, location. The project we chose was a charming 1920’s semi-detached house that needed some love. After our previous house and now with kids in the picture we realized that we wanted our kids to have roots, so we knew we were up for one more project before we were going to settle down. In 2020, we sold the midtown Toronto semi-detached house, made a profit, and bought our first house for us. This is the house we weren’t going to renovate but planned to stay in and raise our family. This is the fourth property my husband and I have owned and it wasn’t until now that I have felt “we are home”.
So now we find ourselves on a 1.33-acre lot, not too far from the city but far enough away that we feel relatively isolated. Onto our next project, we’ve always loved everything natural and now it’s time to learn how to garden, grow our own food and overall become more self-sufficient. At this point I have many questions about what the coming years will entail. How much produce will we be able to produce? Will we get chickens? How far will we go with reducing our waste and living more sustainably?
Come along on our journey and learn with us. I hope you enjoy browsing my blog!
~Erica~
