divine angst

WhyLaw asked me to tell you about our apartment. I usually don’t write about stuff like that because, while the little details make me very happy, I am pretty sure they’re boring as hell for anyone else.

But because it’s a request, and I like to answer requests…

Our apartment is in a fairly urban neighborhood in Our New City. I originally thought I wanted to live a little further away, in a more “neighborhood-y” area, without a lot of tall buildings. But Mr. Angst wanted something slightly different. He’s never lived in an urban area before. So we looked a little closer to downtown. I’m glad we did.

One of the best things about our building is that, even though it’s a tall building, near lots of other tall buildings, it’s also on a street full of trees. I was worried about the area not having necessary amenities—like a reasonably priced and close grocery store, video rental place, and the like—but I shouldn’t have been. Three good grocery stores are within walking distance, a large drugstore is also nearby, Blockbuster is next to the drugstore, and there’s a rare bookstore a block further down the road. Also, our apartment building is a block and a half away from another street lined with local shops, restaurants, and bars. Oh, and our train stop is a block and a half away—right across the street from the nearest grocery store. Tra la!

As for the apartment itself, we wanted enough space to fit all of our stuff and we wanted air conditioning. We wanted storage and we wanted a logical layout. And we got all of that. We have a large living room with space for our dining table. We have a decently spacious bedroom. We have a large, walk-in kitchen (not a galley kitchen! hooray!) with cabinets coming out the ying-yang. We have two large closets (bedroom and hall), and we have a linen closet (rejoicing!). And, as a nice bonus, we got floor-to-ceiling bay windows in the living room and bedroom and no one lives above us (there are units on the floor above us, just not right above our unit).

So we got almost everything we wanted. I had wanted a gas cooktop, but alas, it was not to be. I also wanted more vintage details, but our building is sort of bland and featureless. We don’t yet know if we’ll be able to hear our neighbors through the walls, but that’s always at least something of a crapshoot. The elevators appear to be sort of slow, but I guess we’ll live with that. Yet I am OK with these “negatives” because we will still have a comfortable apartment at a reasonable price in a good neighborhood. I think we landed in a place where we can be happy for at least a year.