(T)arina and (A)tkins in Chicago

Our search for a new apartment was a little rough. We visited several places and saw a lot of great examples of where we didn’t want to live. Many of the apartments were a bit run-down or just plain old. Most of them were okay, but nothing great. And some of them were in less-than-ideal neighborhoods.

It was also difficult to find places to go see. I searched many online listings and found decent places. We decided to use an agent to find our dream apartment, so we looked on this agency’s website. This is when we were introduced to the fact that apartments are renting damn fast. I perused the site, and found 22 properties. A lot of them looked amazing, and some of them looked pretty good. When it came time to see these listings, I was told that all but 4 of them were rented. And three of those were not what we were looking for (i.e. crapholes).

So, disheartened by lack of a good apartment, we drove up to the last place on the schedule for the morning. I liked the street immediately: one-way, tree-lined, quiet. Okay, so the El is right behind the property, but it’s not all that loud.
We go inside and immediately I can tell that this place is a cut above all the others. It’s a three-bedroom with new kitchen, bathroom, hardwood floors, and laundry in the unit. Yay! Here are a few pics. I didn’t take any on my tour because the real estate agent told me there was a virtual tour online. (Had I looked at the quality of that tour, I would have just taken my own pics, but c’est la vie. Here’s the link though it may be taken down soon)

This is the living room, looking into the sun porch. This is the front of the building.

This is the absolutely huge dining room. We’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet.

Nice, bright kitchen with a dishwasher. ;)

There are a lot of cool things about this place that aren’t apparent even in the virtual tour: there is a little brick patio in the back where we can have our grill. We may be able to do a little bit of gardening as well, though our landlord seems to maintain the flowers around the patio. We’ll have to see about that. And, there is enough space for a guest room! Yeah, there’s only one bathroom, but at least you’d have a nice room to yourself when you come visit!
Okay, so it’s not the perfect place: there is no central AC, no garage spot, and it’s more expensive with fewer amenities than our previous place. The hardwood floors and first-floor location make it a little noisy (as does the El), but we think it’s all worth it for the location! It’s really close to Lincoln Square, which has a lot of fun shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. We will be able to walk to the El in about 3 minutes, and Atkins’s work is only 4 stops down the line. Near to Atkins’s work (3 stops down) is an art studio/cafe where I am thinking about taking some classes this summer. It will be much more convenient and safer than going from Edgewater to Lincoln Park and then traveling back at 10 pm.

In short (too late) we are super excited about the move! That does mean, though, that we are going to have to put the anniversary party on the back burner. In fact, it will probably just become a housewarming party once we are all settled in. What does this mean for our first anniversary? Well, it may mean that we are going to be celebrating with wine and pizza in our new place surrounded by boxes.
That sounds pretty good to me! :D