Before we got married, I was living in an apartment complex for college students/singles (each room is rented out on its own lease in a furnished one-gender apt ... not exactly meant for marrieds) and Danny was renting out a bedroom from a friend's house. Needless to say, we both had to move out so we got to find a place for us to live when we got married. Another married couple friends of ours were living in a townhome-style apartment really close to campus but after two years there, decided they were ready to move to a house (he had just started his PhD and she taught chemistry at the high school, so they were going to be there a while). They talked about how much they liked the apartment and how they wouldn't really leave except they wanted a yard so they could get dogs. They showed us the place, and while older, it looked fine and definitely in our budget, so, they gave a good word for us, and it was great. It had two bedrooms, one bath, and tons of closet space, and even a washer/dryer hook up (which we amazingly enough got for free from another friend who was updating hers, so while they looked like, and probably were, from the '70's and only had one setting, they worked), and for a really low monthly rent. so, yay for us!
... then we actually started living in it. ... let's just say, the price was cheap for a reason. I can't deny that I liked having the amount of space and closets we had and the washer/dryer. Those were the nice things. ... the problems? ... where to start? They were built in about the '50's, and hadn't been upgraded since the 70's. All the outlets were two-prong only, and often sparked when you plugged things in. The insulation was very poor so the air conditioning didn't work very effectively (the heater didn't even work at all, though that wasn't as much of a problem in Texas until about December when we'd wake up and it'd be under 50 degrees ... inside. *sigh*). You could see huge gaps under the front door when it was closed. The blinds were missing panels. The first floor (living/kitchen) was floor to ceiling, every wall, covered in dark wood paneling (and if that wasn't bad enough, a lot of the panels were bowing off the walls), with very little windows ... so it made it feel like a basement. Plus all the kitchen cabinets were dark wood too (there were tons of cabinets, but many of them had broken hinges or sticky doors that wouldn't get clean and most were out of my reach, even with a chair... not very useful). The upstairs was painted white (a little more inviting), but really poorly done with splashes of paint on the floor and all of the outlets, door hinges, etc. also painted over. Which made it tricky when we had to take the doors off to get our furniture in since they were so narrow, plus the fact that each door was screwed on with different types and sizes of screws. The carpets were kinda dingy, well, everything was, where the more you clean, the dirtier it feels just because you notice the dinginess so much more. All of the plumbing was waaaay messed up, and just scary to look at. The hot water pipe to the washer was broken, so everything had to be washed in cold water. You'd have to warn someone when you were using the bathroom because the toliet could only be flushed once every half hour or so. The shower head was at
my eye level (about 5 feet high), so you can imagine as tricky as it was for me, what it was like for Danny to try and shower (he's 5'11"), though one good thing, since it was old, we had great water pressure (not water saving)! lol. There wasn't any fan in the bathroom either, or any towel racks. All the pipes leaked, and there was a huge leak from the bathroom (upstairs) above the kitchen stove that dripped constantly and flooded the oven and cabinets (and didn't get fixed for two months). This also meant there was lots of mold in the walls of the kitchen and bathroom, which (I like to blame this at least) made me really sick almost the entire time I lived here. There were only six parking spots on the street for the entire building of four apartments and the duplex next door. If there weren't any openings, you just had to circle around and wait until someone finally left. And, on top of all this, our landlord(ish) only owned our little building, like a side-job or something, so while he was nice, he was really hard to get a hold of and took even longer to get anything taken care of (like our kitchen leak), and things like our rent checks didn't even go through until three weeks or more after we sent them (very nerve wracking).
*phew*. It was the place we lived for a while and it served it's purpose, but it never quite felt like home. Danny calls it our "humbler". Every place after that will be great! haha. I suppose that's true, since we certainly love our place here now, even if it's not the most expensive or trendy place here. I guess the biggest factor for me, at least, in how I see the difference of our first place and our second... I actually want visitors here, haha. so please don't be offended if I didn't want you to come to our first place, it's not you, it's the apartment. honest. and if you don't believe me, I did take some pictures when it was at it's cleanest so it won't be forgotten... as if that were possible.
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| living room |
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| kitchen (the large peninsula counter was nice for baking...) |
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| ... a set of salt and pepper shakers we got from the wedding. When we first opened them, I was pretty much thinking, "uh, you've got to be kidding me... " (they're really bright and don't match any of our decor), but Danny at the same time said in all seriously, "... that's so cool!" and so, we are still using them, and I'll admit, they do add a splash of color and they're growing on me. |
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| ... the stairs (one other upside, our quasi-landlord did actually replace this sconce that had been broken ... a month or two after we moved in...) |
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| ... our little bathroom |
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| the bedroom |
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| the office - my side (I am grateful we were able to get a two-bedroom apartment ... we both have L-desks and use them more than anything else, so it's nice to have space to put them) |
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| the office - Danny's side |
