Downtown Girl

Well… back to our regularly scheduled programming!
Crap, that means I’ve got to actually think of things to write here. Drat!


Like I said yesterday in one of the three good things that happened during the last 30 days, Earl and I unexpectedly moved.

We’d only planned to be in the condo we were renting from one of Earl’s friends for three-ish months. I tolerated it for 10. Then I told Earl we had to move. I swear to you, that place was eating my soul.
Anyway, we have friends who live downtown and every time we went to visit them we’ve always left saying to ourselves, “Someday we’re going to move downtown.” But that sentiment generally faded because we always assumed we couldn’t afford it.

As I reached the breaking point of my soul being eaten by that awful apartment, I confessed to Earl that I REALLY wanted to live downtown. At least for a little while, just to be sure that I didn’t like it, instead of spending my entire life in the outlying areas and trying to convince myself I didn’t like it. I have always wanted to live downtown.

Earl confessed to me that he too has always wanted to live downtown, so we took the plunge and went down to the leasing office of the building our friends live in. After looking at one of the models and several of their 64! floor plans, we put a hold on an apartment… but we couldn’t move in until January.

The thing about this complex is that it’s awesome, It’s right next to a light rail station, it’s within walking distance of a ton of restaurants and other fun things to do, and because of all that, they sit at 98% capacity. To add to that complication, I only wanted to be in building A. there are three buildings, A, B, and C. The B and C buildings are “conventional apartments.” This means that they have carpet and linoleum throughout and seven to nine foot ceilings. Building A is the urban building, stained concrete or wood floors and 10 to twelve foot ceilings. Having dealt with an annoying apartment complex that chose to charge my old roommate and I to re-carpet the entire 1,500sqft apartment when we moved out because the roommate’s dog got really sick one time (and apparently they didn’t like what they saw under a black light). I have no desire to ever, ever, have to deal with carpet in an apartment, ever again.

So, when it came down to it, at our price range, in building A, there were only two apartments available, one was way too small, the other was a bit higher than what we wanted to pay, but it was doable. We signed on the dotted line and we were going to move in! We just had to deal with the condo for another few months and then we’d be free!

At this point, I was okay. The apartment was still nibbling at the frayed edges of my soul, but there was light at the end of that proverbial tunnel. And I had two-ish months to pack and clean and what not.

Then, on a fateful Friday afternoon (Nov. 12th) the leasing agent called to tell me that another apartment had just opened up and he thought we’d like it better than the one we currently had on hold.

I, always up to look at apartments, regardless of whether or not I think I’m going to actually want it – I’m nosey, I’d walk through every apartment in the building if I was able – told him we’d be there to look at it shortly after work. (Ah the glory of a seven minute drive from work) Earl was excited to go see this new place too, when I told him. We are often of one brain. Its why just yesterday, we both broke into “Love is a Battlefield” randomly with the minor trigger of an identical lead in chord structure.

We went, we looked, and by golly, we fell in love.

Then the leasing agent tells us the fun part. In order to get the rent rate we wanted… we had to sign the lease by Monday.

Instead of having two-ish months to do everything, we were moving in three days.

I’ll admit, I went into panic mode. There was a lot of stress crocheting.

The following Monday, we signed the lease, called the landlady, who was super cool about only receiving 15 day’s notice – the apartment may have been caustic, but she was really very nice about the whole thing – and started moving in.

But there will be more on that tomorrow. Here are some pictures of what the place looked like before we moved in.

I chose to underwhelm you at first. Here's the bathroom. It's actually quite large for an apartment, and the retro feel of the black and white floors works perfectly with the retro style art we've always put in our bathrooms. The shower is super tall - great for a 6'1" Earl, not so great for a 5'4" Amy who may or may not be shrinking.

 Next is a picture from the living room into the dining room with just a hint of kitchen. (Ignore the music stand for now. We’ll get to that.) You can see the lovely hardwood floors that run throughout – except the bathroom of course.

Here’s the kitchen. It seems small, and it’s a galley style kitchen, but there’s six feet from the counter to the opposite wall, so it doesn’t feel as small as it is.

This picture might be confusing at first. I’m standing in the living room (in the same place I stood to take the picture of the dining room) and those seven foot walls are the walk in closet, the space behind them is the bedroom. Yep, the bedroom has no doors. It makes the entire apartment feel bigger. I didn’t actually take a picture of the bedroom because, well, it’s basically a white box with wood floors. Nothing exciting there.

Here’s what made me fall in love with this apartment. (Ignore the music stand and what not. That was their attempt at mini-staging) The floor to ceiling windows in the living room are amazing and while (as you can see) we do have a pretty good view of the Lexington Hotel across the way, we also have amazing views of deck park (just to the left of the hotel). The thing that I was in awe of – and Earl may have made fun of me for – we have the best view of the Central Phoenix Library!

More tomorrow.