We drove up to Chicago 2 or 3 weeks before we were moving (because of many unforseen things) to check out our assigned university apartment and potentially look for something better. When we saw our assigned university apartment, we hated it. It was on 51st street, which is crowded and busy to begin with, and it was on the third floor of a very tall walk-up. Originally I thought this would be fine, even great, but after seeing it I quickly realized how impossible and sucky it would be. The floors were in really bad shape. Every step you took creaked. The rooms were HUGE (1500 square feet), and everything seemed a bit dirty. Rust came out of the faucets, and the kitchen cabinets were made out of metal, like high school locker rooms. Rent was $1,200, which is reasonable for such a big space, but we were not feeling it. The building custodian was really weird too. I think he only had one eye. The only pro was that it was literally across the street from Ken's house. :D
So we decided to stay another day or two to try and find something better. That first day was awful. We got into Chicago around noon or later, went straight to see the assigned apartment, and then continued to search. It was strange how similarly our apartment finding experience mirrored that of our car finding experience. We scoured marketplace and made about 15 calls the first day, and only got in to see i think one apartment, and when the guy saw us the first thing he said was "I don't think this apartment is for you." But we went up just to see, and it was a nasty one bedroom with a kitchen about the size of a closet, and when we walked in and turned the lights on, cockroaches scurried away to hide under the refrigerator. Yeah.
We walked back and forth all over hyde park, calling phone numbers on signs as we saw them, and after a few hours of this and getting nowhere, we were exhausted. We stopped in a Starbucks to use their Internet and get a vanilla bean frapaccino. Mmmmm. That hepled, but not enough. We drove around the rest of the day, and finally decided to just get a hotel for the night and keep looking. (I don't know why we thought we could find an apartment so fast.) All of the hotels in hyde park were over 200$ a night, so we wanted to look farther out, and by the time we finally got Internet and had a few places where we could look for rooms for the night, we still hadn't eaten dinner (it was about 8pm). Dean was screaming because he was mad and tired of being out and trapped in his carseat all day, and we were so frustrated and stressed that we would have to live in that crapy university apartment and pay more than we wanted to, that Spencer finally just pulled over, and dean was crying so hard that I started crying, and I think then spencer started crying and we were all just frustrated and crying in the car. haha. It sucked. But it is humorous to look back on now. After that we were able to calm down a bit, and we went and got some food at Medici. A giant deep dish pizza. That made everything better. Just as we were finishing up, we got a weather alert on our phones, so Spencer ran to go get the car while I payed and as soon as we threw everything in the car and slammed the doors a huge rain lightening/thunder storm hit. We just sat in the car and waited, still trying to find a good hotel on our phones' crapy Internet, while it stormed around us. I convinced spencer to try near the midway airport, so we headed in that direction and found a great room for the night. Me and dean shared a bed and spencer got his own bed. Dean was only 2 months old.
The next day we tried to search with a little more focus, and set up some appointments and promised ourselves we would eat lunch and dinner on time. We saw a good number of places, but none of them were great. One had rolling wood floors and just walking across the room I got dizzy. Another one smelled like cat urine in every room. We went and checked out some basement apartments on Blackstone near the midway and found a really nice basement apartment that they were refurbishing and would be done the next day or so. It had all new appliances, new flooring, new bathroom and tiling, bright ceiling lights, a built in office, and a convenient back entry door that opened right to the street level for easy stroller access. But it was a one bedroom, and extremely small! The kitchen, living room, and dining room were all open together in one big area, with no division, so that it felt like a studio with an attached bedroom and bathroom. We really liked it, loved how we felt inside it, loved the location, but logically it just wasn't right. It was so small! Maybe 500 square feet. That night we spent hours trying to justify how we could make it work for us. We thought, "We will have to sell or get rid of everything. Literally everything. But this could be a good chance to get rid of stuff we don't absolutely love and only buy stuff we love and use regularly." We were going to have to get rid of the crib, our bed frame, all our furniture, our clothes, everything. It was similar to how we felt about the toyota rav 4 we looked at. It was so close, but not right! I couldn't sleep that night. I should just realize that if I can't sleep, and spend the whole night stressing over something and rationalizing how we can make it work, it's not right. But we were desperate and didn't want to keep staying in hotels searching.
The next day we set up some more appointments and saw a bunch of apartments. We went through a few rental agencies. But they were all crap. In my head, I said/prayed "ok. We are going home today. If we don't find the right place by 4:30, we are going home and signing on the studio/1br basement. Please help us find the right apartment for us!" Spencer set up to see one last apartment at 4:00, and at 3:30 the lady called telling us to come see it early, so we drove over and parked, and realized it was up the street from the other basement apartment on Blackstone. Sign #1 great location. It was also right next door to a huge old abandoned church that we thought was really cool. (It was built by the same architect who built some of the buildings on campus.) The realtor invited 3 parties to view the apartment at the same time, so it was weird showing up with other people. As we were waiting outside, a boy came out carrying a giant jar of coins and started talking to us. That was sign #2 that this was a good place. Families live here. Plus the kid reminded us of Graham Hatch. When we got in, we found that it was a garden/basement apartment like the last, except only underground one step, so basically it's a first floor apartment. Sign #3 very stroller accessible! Better even than the other one. We went in and the place was surprisingly huge! It had a front entry way/mud room, a large hallway room that the tenant had used as an office, a big kitchen with a big pantry room, a large long living/dining room, a bedroom, and a sunroom! As soon as we walked in we knew that this was the one. Then two other perks, she showed us out the back door into the basement storage area where there was a washer/dryer right there. You wouldn't even have to leave the building. Sign #4 washer/dryer basically in unit. Then she told me to go out the other back door and it leads around to a backyard. So I went back there and it's a cute little gated backyard with flowers and grass and climbing ivy. Sign #5 backyard! I was basically sold at that point. I came back in and whispered to spencer "we are making an offer. Lets sign on it." To which he readily agreed. We were so excited to find this apartment we were practically shaking. Haha. Spencer kept cutting her off and rushing her so we could get the paperwork and fill it out and get the money before they closed at 5. We went crazy that next hour, driving around and frantically trying to get everything done. Poor dean. I am still shocked that we got everything in on time. The lady (Angela, who we have since come to know well- she's actually really great!) thought we were crazy. But we wanted the apartment and didn't want to stay in chicago another night! So basically she said, "we have your application, everything is good and ready to go, go home. We'll do everything else through email and phone. Go eat some dinner." Haha. We were so happy. We went to Valois for dinner and spencer got prime rib steak. I got roast beef. We were so happy. And it was like my dad said, "you'll know it when you see it." I'm so glad we kept searching, and so glad our prayers and efforts were payed off.
We finished the paperwork remotely, and moved in sept 1. Spencer's parents came from Utah to help us move. They did soo much. They basically did practically everything for us, from loading the moving truck to cleaning our apartment to driving the truck to unloading the moving truck and cleaning the nasty out of our apartment when we moved in. The first couple days were rough because everything was so dirty, it smelled like a hampster cage, and it didn't feel like home yet, but two months later we love it. We scrubbed down from ceiling to floor in every room. Bleached everywhere. Cleaned the blinds and windows. I even caulked the floorboards throughout the house. (It looks a lot better!)
I sent a list of things to fix/do to the rental company, and they have done almost everything on the list. I'm in shock. I didn't believe they would do anything for us, but they really pulled through. Sure it took two months, but at least something got done! Ask and you shall receive! They painted our walls (entry way, bathroom, living room, and bedroom), and the color in the living room and bedroom makes it feel so much nicer! The apartment has horrible walls and a coat of flat tan paint really helps. They didn't paint the kitchen, sunroom, or deans room for some reason, so I'm planning something creative for the kitchen and deans room. Stay tuned. The bathroom sink was d.i.s.g.u.s.t.i.n.g.l.y. o.l.d. Spencer tried to fix it one day because hardly any water was coming out and he took off the aerator and the water came out great, but somehow it leaked all over underneath the sink and it started molding so that made everything smell even worse. I sent an email asking if they could replace it, and they said yes! They just replaced it yesterday. It looks great and doesn't stink anymore. And doesn't make me gag when I brush my teeth. The kitchen sink dripped ever since we moved in, so I called the sink manufacturer because the sink has a lifetime warranty, and they sent us new sink cartridges for free. Our building custodian John installed them for us a few days ago. Now it works great. Our toilet seat also cracked a few weeks back and so John replaced that too while he was here. Along with replacing an old outlet that fell out of the wall. There have been so many small things that needed to be done, but they all happened, slowly but surely. It actually feels more like home to me than columbus ever did. The kitchen is weird, and the whole apartment is weird, but it has so much potential and its a great fit for us. I love it.
And the best perk (IMO) is that the laundry is free. Did I mention that? And there are no stairs. Did I also mention that our rent is $925/mo? Unheard of in this area. We only pay for cooking gas ($20/mo) and electricity ($30/mo). And Internet. ($30/mo) Heat is free! and it works gloriously! more on that later. Before we moved we talked about how we hoped to stay under $1000 a month for living expenses. I honestly didn't think we could do it. So to me that is the best part of all of this. It's a huge blessing that we are able to live within our means. I don't know how we thought we could afford a $1,300/mo apartment. It has been so nice to have that extra money for the extra expenses of moving in and starting school here. And car expenses and health and life and so forth. On top of that, spencer got a part time job doing research for a professor, and I will be working part time with Karen Mancl on another film project for the next 3 years. So we plan to stay here as long as we can, hopefully at least 3 years. I forgot to mention that the location of this apartment is amazing. I don't think we could have done better. 10 minutes walk to campus, 10 minutes walk to the lake, a 5 minute drive to walmart and aldi, and about a 20 minute drive to Costco. 15 minute walk/5 minute drive to our church building. And I LOVE not living near other church members. Living near so many members in Columbus I think literally drove me crazy. At least a little bit. There were a lot of really great things about living near good people. (but not everyone was all that good. for us, i mean.) I love living a normal life away from church culture. Our neighbors here are really nice. We don't see them too often. ;) I actually heard through the grapevine that the owners above and over to the left of us own this apartment too. They are really nice. I almost wondered if its because of them that Parker-Holsman was so willing to fulfill our requests. :)
So that is the story of how we found our awesome (to us) apartment, and how we moved to Chicago. I love it here. And that's the only thing that matters.
P.s. Spencer just said to me, "Man, this apartment is like... Nice. You know?" "the church is true. god loves us. he's looking out for us. It's just so great." haha.
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