Moving On Up!

Hello everybody!  Today I have some very exciting news to share with you. This is something Melissa and I have been planning for months, and I am so excited I finally get to share it with you. On march 15 we will officially be moving!

Ever since we renewed our lease for our current apartment last year, we knew it was going to be the last year we spent in it. Our apartment has been exactly what we needed up until now. I was finishing up college, Melissa was still in school and working part time. Now that I have graduated, and our lease is coming to an end, we are super duper excited to move into a bigger and nicer apartment. 

We started the process of apartment searching early last fall. Since we knew we were planning on moving, we wanted to be as prepared as possible. By beginning our search so early, when it came time to choose which apartment we wanted to move into, we were confident in our choice. Since we had time to explore all our options, we avoided that fear of 'well maybe if we had a little longer, we would find an even better apartment'. 

At the beginning of our search we sat down and wrote out a needs list and a wants list. Our needs list included things we wouldn't compromise on a new apartment having which was the following:

• Dogs allowed ( Dakota needs to be welcome obviously!)
• Gas stove (Melissa absolutely hates having an electric stove)
• Two bedrooms (we decided we want an office space in the new place)
• Nice area (we were tired of living in not the nicest or safest of areas due to our budget)
• Within budget (we needed to be sure the apartment we chose was affordable and reasonable with our incomes)
• Washer/dryer in unit (we've done the whole no washer/dryer in the apartment thing, and weren't about to go back to that)

Our wants list included these things, which were all thing we would love to have, but could live without if we absolutely had to:

• Walk-in closet (two girls + one apartment = a lot of clothes)
• Separate dining room (we just really like a dining room that isn't connected to the main living area)
• Third floor apartment (tired of being woken up at 3am to various dance parties, exercise routines or just plain heavy walking from our upstairs neighbors)
• Upgraded fixtures (the small things are what make a good apartment great)
• Energy efficient windows and doors (our current apartment doesn't have these, and it really makes a different in the temperature control of our apartment)

So that is what we had in mind when we set out to find our new home. We toured many many apartments. All of them were fine. Some were nicer than others. Some were more expensive, some were bigger. All of them fit our needs, and most had at least a couple wants. But each apartment we saw also had a drawback for every draw. Nothing was just right. Until the clouds parted, angels sang and we found The Apartment. 

As soon as we saw this place online, we knew we were going to move in here. It was perfect!  It not only had all our needs and all our wants, but it had more! I seriously fell hard for this apartment. I love apartment hunting, and I've always gotten excited when moving into a brand new place. But never have I found such a perfect heaven that I will be able to call home. 

But enough gushing, let me show you what I'm talking about. Here is the first official home tour of my new apartment!

When you first walk in the door there is a short hallway that leads into the foyer area. 

There is a little coat closet that doesn't look to big, but will definitely be large enough to hold what we'll need it to.

When you walk into the foyer, you're greeted by two half staircases leading up and downstairs. Yes that's right, I'm going to have stairs!!  After five years of one floor apartment living, words cannot express how excited I am to have stairs of my very own!

I also love that the foyer is only closed off to the rest of the apartment by a railing. It really opens up the space. I just love that when you walk in, you can immediately look out into the rest of the apartment below. 

On the other side of the railing is our living room. One entire wall is dedicated to a gigantic sliding glass (double pained!) door. This lets so much light into the apartment, and I just love this feature.

In the far corner of our apartment, is the dining room.  This was another feature we loved about this apartment.  Many apartment layouts we looked at combined the living and dining rooms into one space.  Our current apartment has this situation, with a large open L shaped space for both living and dining purposes.  We really wanted a separate room for our dining area.

I am also super in love with the light fixture in the dining room.  Most apartments has the cheapest stock grade fixtures throughout, but we were pleasantly surprised with the fancier fixtures in this apartment.  I know many people wouldn't care less about these little things, but to me, they really are the cherry on top of this apartment sundae.

Next up is our kitchen.  You can access our kitchen from both the dining room and the living room, which is awesome.  It is also almost 50 times bigger than our current kitchen.  Ok that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but that's what it feels like.  Our kitchen now can barely handle two people doing stuff in it at once.  That definitely won't be a problem in our new kitchen.

There is also a ton of extra cabinet space, which I can't wait to dive into and organize.  I hope that since we'll be able to spread out a little more, it'll be easier to make things organized and pretty in these cabinets.  This kitchen also comes with an gas stove, which Melissa (the cook of our household) is thrilled about.

Here is the view of the other side of the kitchen.  This is also where our washer and dryer are going to be.  Our washer and dryer in our current apartment also happen to be in the kitchen.  It was a little weird at first, doing laundry in the kitchen, but we quickly got used to it.

There is also a nice big space in the corner behind where I was standing to take the pictures.  It's just empty space, but I'm already planning to add in some wire shelves to add even more storage to our kitchen.  I may even have a pseudo-pantry in our new apartment!  I'm still swooning over all the space we'll have in this kitchen.

Now lets take a look at the upstairs shall we?  If you go up the stairs from the foyer, you're met by a hallway that takes you to all the rooms on the second floor.  

First door on the right leads you to the bathroom.  It's a fairly simple bathroom, but I still adore all the perfect, clean white of it.  The vanity in this bathroom is also slightly larger than our current one, with the addition of two drawers!  Again, it's the little things that excite me.

The main jewel of the bathroom, however, is the linen closet.  Behind the bathroom door is the most amazing linen closet ever.  After having a linen closet that is approximately a foot and a half wide for the last two years, this is another luxury I cannot wait to explore.  I am just imagining baskets and baskets of organized linen goodness all lined up!

Moving down the hallways, the door at the end leads to the office.  We specifically chose a two bedroom apartment so we could have a home office.  This way, Melissa can have a quiet place she can work on homework and projects for her job.  But more importantly, I'll have a dedicated place to blog and do all my crafty things!  This may be the room I'm most looking forward to.

The office also has a full wall of closet space.  Since we won't need to store clothes in these closets, I'm planning to use them as an extension of the office.  I'm currently thinking about lining up a couple sets of drawers along the bottom of the closets, for maximum storage.

Finally, the door on the left of the hallway leads to our master bedroom.  This bedroom is larger than our current one, and will have even more space since we won't have to store my humongous desk in there anymore!

And last but not least, certainly not least, is the master walk in closet.  I know I've said this about like 10 other things, but this may be my favorite part of the new apartment.  This picture does it absolutely not justice, this closet is huge!

And I am just crazy about how they have two layers of shelving at the top.  I have always complained that apartments waste so much vertical space in their closets, because there is only so high you can stack things on a single shelf.  So now I'll really be able to utilize every square inch of my closet!  Cannot wait to fill this baby up, I have some big plans for in here too!

So what do you guys think?  Stunning right?  I am so thrilled to be moving into a place I truly love, and I can't wait to spread out in all the space this place has!  It really feels like we are just bursting at the seams in our current place.  I'll definitely be sharing updates as the moving process moves along (pun intended) and we settle into our new place, so stay tuned!