Home Sweet House

Big news for the soon-to-be-newlyweds!

I am on the phone with my beloved even as we speak, and he is on his way home from signing the lease for our very first apartment.

It's in University Heights, a neighborhood that Dave is very excited to live in. Walking distance (albeit a long walk) from the Cedar Lee theater. An independent movie theater that also serves beer? Um, yes. Props to our new neighborhood. I'm excited to see that over the summer, the Cedar Lee is going to be showing HD films of opera performances from Europe. I can definitely handle that.

Also conveniently close by are our favorite breakfast place, Dave's current place of employment, Little Italy, and a bunch of other pleasant places.

Have I mentioned the hardwood floors, cute residential neighborhood, and (blocked-up, but with a gas hookup) fireplace? No? Well, let me mention those now.

We can take occupancy as soon as the current tenant moves out, which will be June 1 at the latest. Today is a good day.

Living Space

Unlike a lot of couples these days, Dave and I aren't going to be living together until after we're married. Right now, I live in a dorm, and Dave rents from a friend who owns a house, so we're going to have to find a new place just for us before the wedding. Exciting!

A couple of days ago, I was struck with the inspiration to poke around on Craigslist and see what kinds of apartments we might be able to find in Cleveland.

I've lived on my own before, but I wasn't the lease holder for the apartment in that case--I had a financial arrangement with my roommate and even though the managers of our apartment complex knew me, we never ended up getting around to putting my name on the lease (whoops). Anyway, I've never been one of the 100% responsible parties when it came to paying rent.

And other than that, I've only lived in college dorms or with family.

So this whole apartment-hunting, living-out-on-our-own thing is kind of a big deal for me.

I found a listing on Craigslist for a duplex in Euclid that looked pretty much perfect. Not one to let an impulse get away from me, I sent the information to Dave, who agreed that it looked great. He called the number for the listing, and he went yesterday to have a look at the place. He liked it so much that we agreed we'd go ahead and put an application in for it.

Now, here's the problem: someone else got there first. The landlady is going to process that application first, and Dave gets the impression that ours will be processed only if that first applicant changes their mind or the application falls through for some reason.

We really, really want this apartment. It's the upper floor of an older house on the East side of Cleveland. It's a ten-ish minute walk from the lake, it's near some really nice restaurants, a park, and a library. It's spacious (1,100 sq. ft. for a 1-bedroom!), and it's affordable.

So, for those of you who read this that pray, how about throwing in a good word for us with the big Housing Supervisor in the sky? This place looks like it would be pretty ideal.



I mean, come on... look at that kitchen.