i am SO RELIEVED
so. flist. i think i have an apartment. O.O by which i mean i signed a lease and wrote some checks. O.O and now the rental agent has to talk to the landlady and if everything is copacetic, i can start getting rid of shit and calling movers and packing and i'll actually have somewhere to move into on sept 1. O.O
it's almost right across the street from where tamalinn used to live, which means a. i know the neighborhood (ish), b. it's on a major road (buses! snowplows!), and c. it's close enough to davis square that i can still walk to it if the spirit moves me.
(as far as i can tell, the only potential problem is that the apartment is listed for august 1 occupancy, but because i can't move in august 1, and because they're doing some work in the kitchen, and because it's already two and a half weeks into july, the lease i signed is for sept 1, because the rental agent made it out for sept 1, and if the landlady says no, august 1 occupancy or nothing, i'll have to keep looking. but y'know, it's july 17 already and people who are looking for august 1 apartments have pretty much mostly found them, so sept 1 might be the best the landlady can do. we'll see. i still have an appointment to meet a different agent with a different agency on wednesday, and i'm not going to cancel it yet. and i wrote a check for the first month's rent and another check for the security deposit. which i can get back/stop payment on if i don't get the place, but still. it's money in hand!)
for the curious, said apartment has two bedrooms by virtue of having two bedroom-sized rooms with closets - you can't officially call a room a bedroom unless it has a closet, at least in massachusetts - and also there's a smallish living room and a kitchen with, get this, a full-size washer and dryer. O.O which makes up for the street parking, but which also means the kitchen has a weird-ass and not-efficient layout. like, the sink is in a corner, and the washing machine is like two feet behind it, so to do the dishes you have to squish between the sink and the washing machine. and right next to the washing machine on the other side is the oven, which is a weird placement but possibly the only place they could put it.
the walls look recently painted, the floors look like they're in good shape as did the windows (which are getting all new blinds, woo), i don't like the fact that there's no under-sink cabinet in the bathroom but whatever, i can get a little storage thing to put under the sink, the bathroom isn't tiny, there's decent counter/cabinet space in the kitchen and some wall space if i need to buy a rolling kitchen counter thing or something, one of the bedrooms is bigger with a bigger closet and since it's in the front of the apartment i think i'm going to use it as a dining room, and the other bedroom which is smaller with a smaller closet i'll probably use as the actual bedroom, since it's on the side of the building and i don't feel so exposed. (it's a first-floor apartment but there's a front porch so the front windows don't look right onto the street. i just feel kind of weird having my bedroom in front on the first floor. second floor, no biggie.)
i'll probably end up with an air mattress for visitors, on account of the fact i don't think there's enough unbroken wall space in the living room for a couch that's long enough to sleep on, and i personally am not a fan of sleeper sofas. if i do get the apartment i want to go back and measure, so i know what will fit where and how many bookshelves can i keep and will my tv console thing even fit in the living room or do i need to buy a smaller one.
(weird detail: there's a closet in the living room but it's actually more of a bookcase behind a closet door. as in, it's not deep enough for hangers and someone at some point put a lot of shelves in it. which means i'll probably use it for cd/dvd storage.)
and as a commentary on how fast apartments get rented around here, when i got to the rental agency at noon, the agent told me one of the two apartments he planned to show me was being taken right that second - he had to ask another agent to make sure it had just gone thru. and as we were leaving the one apartment, another agent was bringing a couple people to see it, so the agent i was with called the boss to say he'd rented this place, and we booked it back to the agency so i could sign papers and write checks and all. *whew* it is seriously all about arbitrarily good timing.
and then i celebrated by having enchiladas for lunch, for which i blame wendy, and i broke my "you don't NEED to buy hardbacks" rule to buy a hardback - the thackery t lambshead cabinet of curiosities because a. it looks really interesting, b. it's full of writers i've heard of and one or two i've even read, and c. ignipes has a little ficletty thing in it. :D and i got it at the comic shop, which was unexpected.
and now i'm going to celebrate even more by eating ice cream and watching last week's in plain sight, so i'm caught up by the time it's time for this week's in plain sight.
it's almost right across the street from where tamalinn used to live, which means a. i know the neighborhood (ish), b. it's on a major road (buses! snowplows!), and c. it's close enough to davis square that i can still walk to it if the spirit moves me.
(as far as i can tell, the only potential problem is that the apartment is listed for august 1 occupancy, but because i can't move in august 1, and because they're doing some work in the kitchen, and because it's already two and a half weeks into july, the lease i signed is for sept 1, because the rental agent made it out for sept 1, and if the landlady says no, august 1 occupancy or nothing, i'll have to keep looking. but y'know, it's july 17 already and people who are looking for august 1 apartments have pretty much mostly found them, so sept 1 might be the best the landlady can do. we'll see. i still have an appointment to meet a different agent with a different agency on wednesday, and i'm not going to cancel it yet. and i wrote a check for the first month's rent and another check for the security deposit. which i can get back/stop payment on if i don't get the place, but still. it's money in hand!)
for the curious, said apartment has two bedrooms by virtue of having two bedroom-sized rooms with closets - you can't officially call a room a bedroom unless it has a closet, at least in massachusetts - and also there's a smallish living room and a kitchen with, get this, a full-size washer and dryer. O.O which makes up for the street parking, but which also means the kitchen has a weird-ass and not-efficient layout. like, the sink is in a corner, and the washing machine is like two feet behind it, so to do the dishes you have to squish between the sink and the washing machine. and right next to the washing machine on the other side is the oven, which is a weird placement but possibly the only place they could put it.
the walls look recently painted, the floors look like they're in good shape as did the windows (which are getting all new blinds, woo), i don't like the fact that there's no under-sink cabinet in the bathroom but whatever, i can get a little storage thing to put under the sink, the bathroom isn't tiny, there's decent counter/cabinet space in the kitchen and some wall space if i need to buy a rolling kitchen counter thing or something, one of the bedrooms is bigger with a bigger closet and since it's in the front of the apartment i think i'm going to use it as a dining room, and the other bedroom which is smaller with a smaller closet i'll probably use as the actual bedroom, since it's on the side of the building and i don't feel so exposed. (it's a first-floor apartment but there's a front porch so the front windows don't look right onto the street. i just feel kind of weird having my bedroom in front on the first floor. second floor, no biggie.)
i'll probably end up with an air mattress for visitors, on account of the fact i don't think there's enough unbroken wall space in the living room for a couch that's long enough to sleep on, and i personally am not a fan of sleeper sofas. if i do get the apartment i want to go back and measure, so i know what will fit where and how many bookshelves can i keep and will my tv console thing even fit in the living room or do i need to buy a smaller one.
(weird detail: there's a closet in the living room but it's actually more of a bookcase behind a closet door. as in, it's not deep enough for hangers and someone at some point put a lot of shelves in it. which means i'll probably use it for cd/dvd storage.)
and as a commentary on how fast apartments get rented around here, when i got to the rental agency at noon, the agent told me one of the two apartments he planned to show me was being taken right that second - he had to ask another agent to make sure it had just gone thru. and as we were leaving the one apartment, another agent was bringing a couple people to see it, so the agent i was with called the boss to say he'd rented this place, and we booked it back to the agency so i could sign papers and write checks and all. *whew* it is seriously all about arbitrarily good timing.
and then i celebrated by having enchiladas for lunch, for which i blame wendy, and i broke my "you don't NEED to buy hardbacks" rule to buy a hardback - the thackery t lambshead cabinet of curiosities because a. it looks really interesting, b. it's full of writers i've heard of and one or two i've even read, and c. ignipes has a little ficletty thing in it. :D and i got it at the comic shop, which was unexpected.
and now i'm going to celebrate even more by eating ice cream and watching last week's in plain sight, so i'm caught up by the time it's time for this week's in plain sight.