Moving

Hubs and I are moving next month. Weee!

Our current apartment is nice. It's freakishly spacious and a walk to the town center/train. There's a cage for storage in the basement. We painted the walls pretty colors when we moved in and have a place for everything. For its size, it's a pretty good price.

Unfortunately, the following is also true: It's in an apartment complex and though our immediate neighbors are great, some most of the other people in the complex are a little sketchy. We've thrice found kids hanging out in our basement. They temporarily stole Hubs's bike (before realizing they knew him from the school where he teaches) and made a general mess of things. The super doesn't fix problems, he just patches them. The bathroom is falling apart. The laundry is coin-operated and consists of one washer and one dryer for 8 apartments - and they are constantly in use (but not by us!) There's no yard. It's incredibly drafty. There's no dishwasher. My oven doesn't fit most standard-size cookie sheets, and the broiler doesn't work. One time we went 7 weeks (Feb-beginning of April) without heat because our connection was broken and the landlord/super gave us the run-around. Nothing is up to code.

The new place is in the same town, in one of my favorite neighborhoods. It is still walking distance to the town center and the train. It is the bottom floor of a two family. It's smaller in area but is really pretty nice. There is character to the layout. It will cost about the same some months, less other months, depending on our utility bills.

But the REAL reasons we're excited about moving? There is a YARD. There is a DISHWASHER. There is a WHOLE BASEMENT for storage and... wait for it....

OUR OWN WASHER AND DRYER!

I can't even tell you.

We weren't necessarily planning on moving right away. For a while we planned on moving to a neighboring town to live above one of Hubs's coworkers, but that plan is based on so many variables that it's starting to look like it might not ever be a possibility. We went back and forth on buying a home, but we are putting it off- although it's supposedly a "buyer's market" - the banks have gotten so crazy about loans that we can't afford a down-payment. Plus the area we want to live in is still totally unaffordable for us.

We looked at a place a couple of months ago that was nice, but way too small. And the yard dropped off into a ditch. For the first time, I had to consider what might happen if we had a kid in the next few years... would I have to keep my toddler on a leash all the time to keep them from dropping off into the quagmire in the yard? Yeah, no, all set with that.

On Monday I was tooling around Craig's List (which I do often) and came upon this new place. The price was right. The description seemed perfect. I made a call to schedule a visit, and excitedly told Hubs about it when I got home. We saw it Wednesday. I was nervous that I would be the only enthusiastic party, but after walking around, both of us were in 100%. We filled out and faxed the applications yesterday morning, and yesterday afternoon the landlord told us the deal was done! We'll sign a lease in a couple weeks, and the move-in process will begin April 15th.

Now comes the pain-in-the-ass portion of moving: telling the current landlord (we're At-Will), packing, unpacking, cleaning, re-cleaning, bickering, renting the U-Haul, changing the address...

I've lived in several apartments so I know this won't be perfect. There will be problems and issues and headaches, just like with any other place. But this feels right, so we're going for it.

I will post photos once I'm able to get in and take them.

I can't friggan wait to have my first BBQ.