house hunting!

that's right folks - KC and i are in full force looking for apartments! ok, not "full force" [whatever that means] but we are looking harder than before! we visited three different locations [and four different apt. layouts] on Monday. Here's what we thought.

Location 1 [Apartments 1 & 2]
pros:

1. great location - central area, 10-12 minute drive for us both to work
   
2. opportunity of gated parking
3. really cool interiors
4. high ceilings
5. quiet
6. large windows
7. dishwasher & disposal
8. laundry on each floor
   
9. 2 full baths in Apartment 2
   

cons:

1. tiny rooms
2. gated parking is $40 a month per person!
3. other parking is off street or in another area's parking lot
   
4. at the top of our price range
5. no dining room
6. not much storage
7. small closets
8. 2nd Apartment didn't have as much light
9. 2nd Apartment had upstairs loft bedroom with no door and overlooking entry and living room
   

Location 2 [Apartment 3]
pros:

1. entry is at a super cute courtyard
2. good size kitchen with lots of storage
3. dining "area"
4. large living room
5. large 2nd bedroom
6. decent price

cons:

1. entry is cute courtyard...but also scary and secluded...makes us nervous for dark nights
2. kitchen kinda looked run down, pretty out dated...
3. 1st bedroom is slightly bigger than my closet
   
4. pretty much no privacy - 1st bedroom has a window open to the kitchen, 2nd bedroom is open to the living room and has no door
5. bathroom is really tiny and icky
   
6. very little storage
7. overall it was just dark
8. parking was on street - this wouldn't be too bad but it's METERED parking from 9-6. so, either make sure you leave before 9 and get home after 6 or take your chances. they ticket on saturday - so the guy said you can again - "take your changes" or pay for 8 hours...

Location 2 [Apartment 4]
pros:

1. 3 bedroom + dining room, good sized kitchen, pantry & bathroom
   
2. nice yard with beautiful view of lake erie
3. clean
4. basement for storage & washer & dryer
5. upstairs guy would probably shovel our driveway and neighbor would mow our lawn

cons:

1. bedrooms weren't too big, but that wasn't so much of a big deal
2. view is great - but there's a huge vegetable garden and old garage blocking it
3. on street parking
4. possibility of brand new house being built next door. this could be good or bad...
5. ok neighborhood...but a few blocks down it gets a little scary
6. upstairs guy seems to do a lot of woodworking in basement...what if he did this at 7am saturday mornings!?
7. pretty much we want to purchase the land at the back of the house which overlooks lake erie and the pepsi amphitheater and build a new house on it. we would then be able to watch fireworks and shows from our front lawn.

we plan on looking at another place next weekend that could be promising.

oh, and in other very sad news - they had to put my gramma's cat that had the kittens down on Tuesday. she was really really sick [some digestive disease]. couldn't keep any food down, super skinny and just moaning in pain. it was pretty sad, but the kittens are doing fine and she was really suffering. if you could give a quick prayer or thought for my grandparents for that and my gramma's got more cancer tests coming up soon [and has been having some post-cancer related health problems].