We're kind of last minute people. Or the "Next to Last" minute, if you will! (Ahaha!...Okay, done.) But we waited up until about 1 month before the wedding to actually go apartment shopping. Actually, I have to pause here and say that I really don't know how you would get a place any sooner when both of you still live at home? It's not like we could say, "Hey, can you hold this apartment for us until September?" It's more of a first come, first serve thing. So we stopped in and had a tour of an apartment complex, and the landlady said she didn't have any 1-bedrooms open right now (Gasp!) BUT...there was a lease coming up, and she'd give us a call. That kind of settled it for us...we didn't even look anywhere else! Just waited to see if she would call and say it opened up. Luckily it did.
This is what our space looked like.
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| Box-o-living room. |
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Giant white walls (of course), beige carpet, a balcony that overlooked a scenic parking lot...
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| The kitchen, where I belong. |
It was nice. Fairly new, cute, cozy. Don't know why I didn't bother to try and give the illusion that I'm a good housekeeper. Look at that mess...goodness.
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| Tiny bathroom. |
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Do you have favorite decorating space? In this old place, I loved the kitchen and the bedroom. I felt good about them when I walked into the room. Satisfied with the colors and amount of stuff. The bathroom started to get that way too toward the end of the year there, but no matter what I did the living room always eluded me. That space NEVER looked complete.
Then, on my way to a doctor's appointment about 1 month before our year lease was up in this space, (at the very last minute, just like the year before!) I spotted a small sign in a front yard of a huge pretty white house that read,
"2 Bedroom Apartment FOR RENT"
Long story short, we got a tour of the place, filled out an application and crossed our fingers and toes that we would get it. Lucky again! We paid duel rents so we could get in before Ryan was born. I waddled around packing boxes while Nick and his awesome friend Adam did the majority of the moving. Shout out to Nick's mom, too. And Nate and Jeff who came to help with the heavy lifting.
It's a dream come true, really. The space is awesome and the pictures to follow just won't do it justice. The best part? It has got to be at least 3x the space we had for only $30 more than we were paying!! Now that we have this, I can't imagine having cramped ourselves into that cookie-cutter sardine can with a crib in the corner and a rocking chair shoved awkwardly into the tiny living room for a whole 'nother YEAR!
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| Living Room |
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There's a mirror ($60 mirror for $12!!!) hanging out in the closet waiting to be put up above that fireplace. (Which doesn't work, by the way, but it makes the space way more awesome anyhow). And I could probably make a list a million miles long of all the furniture and decorations I would love to buy. That winning the lottery joke from yesterday is looking more and more like a necessity every day.
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| Kitchen |
The only thing that isn't my favorite about the kitchen is that it's sorta "servanty"? Cause it's stuck in the back corner of the house and I'm more used to being in a place where the food and hangout spaces are linked together. But the negative has actually turned itself into a positive! Nick and I have probably had dinner at the table more times in this place than we ever did for a whole year at the other. Since it's forever away from the living room = forever away from computers and TV.
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| Bathroom |
Checkit, the bathroom is so much bigger it can't fit into 1 shot like the other space! The pot and much nicer tub are around the corner.
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| Bedroom |
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| Ryan's Room |
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You could easily get lost in this place the first time here. I did. There are doors that lead to doors and a massive closet in each room. Also? Ryan's room is just an extra little sun room...that's not even the other bedroom!! It's full of storage, so I'm not gonna bother picturing it. But it's just downright cool too. There's an apartment above us a lady rents out for storage, and we know the people in the other apartment downstairs because Nick works with her. They also just had a baby boy a week or two before us. Awesome, right?
It's amazing the way God has provided for us. I feel like the woman in the Bible who has that tiny bit of oil left but it pours enough to fill tons of jars? So often I feel like we're calling it so close. That we just managed to get it together this month and I don't know what's gonna happen next. How, on our 2 part time salaries are we here? How do we have the luxury of running our air when we please, enjoying the internet, plenty of food and this massive space? We have been
so blessed.
I hope you enjoyed the tour. It's even better in person, and we love company! =)
