We’re back from the grand apartment hunting trip in St. Louis! We viewed about 14 places (is that a little or a lot? Depends on how you look at it…) and did come away tentatively successful.
Saturday started out in a rather discouraging way…place after place that was dirty, moldy, icky, bad part of town, ugly, dark, blah blah blah. We’d been from one end of Clayton to the other end of University City and back, and without any real success. I was cranky and tired and Jeff was tired of me being cranky and tired…we were quite the pair.
Finally, at the end of the day yesterday, the last agent we worked with said, “I have one more you might like. We just refinished it; it’s not on the market yet…”
And this is it! It’s the top floor of the home (the house is a top/bottom split duplex), and it’s amazing!
We submitted our application and deposit yesterday after looking at several other places first, just to make sure that The One really was The One. (We had a couple other close contenders, but when it really came down to it, we loved what we found 
)
So the place isn’t ours for sure yet; the application is still pending. But we’re pretty sure we’ll get it, one way or the other (may have to add co-signers…).
That’s the major stuff; here are the specs:
~University City neighborhood–on a quiet street with lots of other families, and grad students. Big trees
~2 bedroom, 1 bath
~JUST remodeled
~Carpet everywhere except hallway, kitchen, breakfast nook, and bathroom
~Central air and heat, but the old radiators are still there–just not hooked up (perfect for cats to sit on without burning their furry butts!)
~We have half a basement for storage, plus there are washer and dryer hook-ups
~2-car garage, to share with the apartment below
~Newly remodeled, with fresh paint, new carpet, all new bathroom (except tub), all new kitchen with new appliances, floor, etc.
Now, a plethora of photographs.
Closer look at the front (our door is on the left):
Going in the front door!
You walk in the front door, and immediately head up a flight of stairs, with a landing and a turn (that window on the side of the house in the first photo, is in the landing). Here’s the living room, looking down where the stairs go:
Picture window in the living room:
The side window…very Scandanavian, no?
The living room is at the front of the house, so that balcony from the first picture? Here’s the door that leads to it:
Balcony door on the left; coat closet is the white one straight ahead.
Here’s the balcony:
It extends to the left, beyond what you can see in the photo there. So it’s big enough for a couple lounge chairs, the grill, side table, etc.
Back inside, there are lots of beautiful glass doorknobs (this one is on the coat closet):
Standing in the living room, facing toward the back of the house, you see the dining room:
(love that archway).
The living room runs the whole front of the house; the dining room is about half as wide–closets and bedrooms and stuff fill the other half-width.
The beautiful new dining room chandelier:
I swear to you, if I’d gone to the lighting store myself, I would’ve picked out the same one.
You walk through the dining room to get to the small hallway that leads to the rest of the house. Next up is the bathroom (it’s all new too, remember?):
Those sconces are beautiful; the floor is slate tile (I think); porcelain pedastal sink; gorgeous oval mirror; new toilet (the bathtub–which you can’t see here–isn’t new, but it’s definitely in thoroughly adequate condition).
Inside the medicine cabinet, just ‘cuz I like to be thorough:
Back in the hallway, Jeff guards the linen closet door (left), and the basement door (right):
I took this picture, standing in the bathroom doorway. The dining room doorway and master bedroom door are to the left (out of the shot), and the second bedroom door and kitchen doorway are to my right (also out of the shot). Confusing enough?
The hallway light; another fixture I adore:
I love how in all this renovating, they kept the house’s age and aesthetic in mind–they didn’t go ultra-modern at all.
Here in the hallway is the original phone holder (the phone would rest on the platform, and its cord would feed through that decorative hole in the center down below):
Next up, the kitchen! Standing in the kitchen doorway:
Same thing, part two (you can see the stove on the right of the shot above; now it’s on the left):
Same thing, part three (you can see the edge of the sink on the right in the shot above, now it’s on the left):
Oh yeah, see that thing in the second picture? The one still wrapped in blue shipping plastic? That’s our brand new DISHWASHER!!! First time I’ve ever had one 
Across from all that business, is the fridge and some more cabinets (we’ll have cabinets out the wazoo!):
To the right of the fridge is the pantry (it has a door; that picture’s jsut at a funny angle):
Off the kitchen, all the way at the back of the house, is the breakfast nook (for those of you keeping count, yes we have a dining room AND a breakfast nook! Squee!):
It’s small…just big enough for a small table and a couple chairs, and my plants (it has lots of light, when it’s not rainy outside).
Exposed brick and the sloped ceiling tell me that the nook is probably not original:
But that’s OK; I still <3 it (new hardwood floors, too!).
A thermostat serves as proof of central air and heat
The stairs down to the basement:
Moving on to the bedrooms…
first, the smaller bedroom. We’re going to use it as Jeff’s study room, with my crafting stuff in one corner, and possibly a futon or hide-a-bed for guests:
View out its window:
Smallish closet and yours truly:
Now, on to the master bedroom!
It has a bigger closet:
I also took this incredibly interesting and helpful picture:
That was supposed to show the back-set area where we’ll probably put the bed. Well, I fail.
Heading out the front door:
Bye, House! We’ll see you next month, hopefully! (trying not to get our hopes up *too* far, but like I said above…if we need to add co-signers in order to be approved, either set of parents are willing to help us out with that).
So what do y’all think? Isn’t it a step or two up from our current place?
::EDIT:: Tuesday morning. Here’s my ghetto rendition of what the new apartment’s floor plan is like, as I recall it:
Just in case you care. Which you probably don’t. Unless you’re my mom (hi Mom!).
