New Apartment!
I wasn't really expecting to move so soon. I was just casually surfing Craigslist every few days seeing what was coming up, and not seeing a lot of great places. My rent goes up in September, and it seemed like as good an incentive as any to think about moving. Then I came across this really sweet place that had just been posted the day before, larger than my current apartment, same rent (including utilities), in a gorgeous location on a hillside overlooking Puget Sound facing north and west (you can see the Edmonds/Kingston ferries going back and forth, not to mention the gorgeous sunsets), a minute's walk from Golden Gardens and with a forest just at the end of the quiet dead-end street. The landlady/upstairs neighbor really liked me, and I managed to scare up the money for the deposit next day after I passed the credit and reference check. This is the kind of place that gets snapped up instantly, and luckily I was the one to snap it up (if I hadn't been working at home that day and been able to view it at 1 p.m., the gal who went at 6:30 pm would have gotten it instead of me).
Did I mention that the bookcases are built in?
A few small drawbacks: It's going to increase my commute to the Eastside by about 15-30 minutes (haven't tested it in rush hour yet), but not so bad since I usually drive around the north side of Lake Washington anyway. It has a shower but no bathtub (I take maybe 4 baths a year, and there's lots of nice hot tub places in the region that I can go to if I need a relaxing bath). It is quite secluded so not within walking distance to a lot of takeout places (but I needed a reason to start cooking more anyway), and may or may not be without of range of a Clearwire tower (which I use for wireless internet - at my current place, the tower is on the building across the street and I can see it from my home office window). Also, there's not quite as much storage as I would like, but I can work with that (and stuff you never see/use is the best candidate for decluttering anyway).
The below images are my attempt at figuring out where everything is going to go. The couch will be new (current crappy catscratched couch will go on Freecycle), and I'm getting rid of the coffee table and getting storage ottomans instead. I'll also need a corner TV stand, since my current one is too big (the corner is the only place in the livingroom with a cable outlet, plus this way the couch is positioned to enjoy both the fireplace and the view).
Comments
It sounds great. I, too, live in a dead-end street with a forest at the end and outside of walking distance to the Chinese/Indian restaurants, so I cook more fresh food, which can only be a good thing.