The Reinhard Chronicles: House #3

I’m beginning to wonder if each house we live in should get a name rather than a number. House #1 was a series of bad-decision-trailers that leaked, lacked AC, and had way to much hidden mold (the trailers have thus been named Squib and Honkey). House #2 was our duplex in Michigan, located next to the “Doggy Styles” pet boarding and grooming business that kept us up at night and woke us up too early on Saturday mornings with incessant barking. House #2 has been given the title Chateau Levrette. This week, we officially moved into House #3, an apartment in Columbia, medium in size with a pool and a fitness center. No name yet for the new apartment, but I’m sure we’ll come up with one as soon as we learn all of its quirks.

We found this apartment while scrolling endlessly through rentals in the Columbia area, and after visiting five different complexes throughout the day, sort of stumbled on this one. Not far from Cheshire’s old apartment building, this one has a pool, fitness center, and *gasp* gate.

When it came down to things we wanted in an apartment, there were a couple things that were a MUST:

1. Pet Policy. Since we have Miracle, we had to find a place that allowed large dogs. Miracle is more of a medium sized Golden Retriever, but some apartments have weight limits on their breeds, and we wanted to make sure Miracle fit the bill.
2. Light. I don’t know how many times I’ve said: “I’m a big fan of natural light.” And I am. I would much prefer lots of windows to lots of artificial light bulbs.
3. Low rent. We had a maximum we wanted to pay on rent, but we also had to keep an eye on the application fee, deposit, pet rent, and pet deposit. Even if the rent was within our budget, the application fees might not be.
4. Closet space. I have a lot of clothes and shoes. But Cheshire has more. We had a target gift card with which we bought a few things. One of those things were two stack-able shoe racks. Chesh just informed me that his shoes take up the whole rack. There is no space for my shoes. Sigh.
5. Second bedroom. Another thing we have a lot of are books. So many, in fact, you may remember that we filled our whole second bedroom with books and turned it into a library in Chateau Levrette (House #2). Some people may have a guest bedroom, but we have a library.
6. Neighborhood safety. Columbia isn’t really the safest place in the world, so we wanted an apartment that felt a little more protected. Domino’s won’t deliver if you live in a bad neighborhood, and delivery pizza is a priority.
7. Open floorplan. Chesh and I love hosting Dungeon and Dragon campaigns at our house, and love having a lot of people over. Having a big space connecting the kitchen, dining room, and living room gives us a better overall space to partay!

A couple of lovely shots of our new home, complete with Miracle the Wonder Dog. It’s all pretty empty looking right now, but soon enough we’ll have stuff up on the walls and couches in the living room. In the meantime, we’ve been sorting and searching for missing screws and 3M hooks, and praying Hurricane Florence doesn’t decide to destroy our state.

Eventually I’d like to do a showcase post, and show you all the finished product of our apartment. That might take a while, though, so don’t hold your breath. There’s no guarantee it’ll look halfway decent any time soon. I still haven’t found all the 3M hooks…