Townhouse vs. Apartment

So we decided on an apartment in Huntsville. We already have a truck rented and were planning on moving in on Monday, but we chose the one apartment complex with an office that will be closed on Labor Day. But they were able to process our paperwork quickly enough and we signed everything yesterday. Yes, that means we're paying rent for 4 days before we actually move in, but so be it.

Moving into a smaller place really made us evaluate what's important to us in our home! This is what we currently have:

It's over 1500 square feet (although the tax record shows 1618 so that's how it's listed, but it's wrong) and we bought the place new. Because we bought it (as opposed to renting), we've been able to plant a garden, landscape the front, paint walls, etc. Because it was new, we were able to choose the flooring, the colors, have the shower heads raised, and other little things that I can't even remember now. All that goes away when we move into an apartment.

This is what we will be living in for the next year:

It's just over 1300 square feet, so actually it's not too much smaller that our current home. The most striking similarity between the two is the large, open kitchen and the great room. We like the open feeling of not having walls in the "common" living areas. We're not really big fans of hallways. Most of the apartments we walked through last Wednesday seemed so small and dark, and so much wasted space used up in hallways! This one appealed to us so much because of the openness. But we're giving up a patio. There's not even an option for a patio/balcony with the floorplan at this complex. Not sure why. Seems like it would have been easy to put a patio/balcony to the right of the solarium, under the office. We're sad to not even be able to grow tomatoes in containers. We are going to grow some herbs, since they don't need to be pollinated, but that's about all we can do.

(Speaking of tomatoes, we didn't plant any this year because we weren't sure when we were going to move, but one came up from last year. We let it grow, of course. Turns out to produce large yellow tomatoes, a variety that never produced well last year! Funny how that happens. We also have a couple lettuces and turnips that we weren't expecting, and there's a basil plant that somehow came from our neighbor's garden. Do we blame the cats?)

Another feature we're going to sorely miss is the amount of closet space. In our townhome, we have a large storage space under the stairs, two closets in the master bedroom, not to mention an entire one car garage! This apartment has very little closet space in comparison. Although all three rooms DO have walk-in closets! But we're expecting to fill most of the office closet (and some of the office) with most of the stuff from under the stairs and in the garage. I'll be able to put some things in Zachary's closet, but I do want the closets in the bedrooms to be usable, not just full of boxes and such. Because we chose an apartment with (essentially) three bedrooms, we're planning on putting everything in the apartment and not renting a storage unit. If we had chosen a two-bedroom plan, we would not have had the space to put it all in the apartment! As it is, I'm a little concerned whether it will all fit. And it may all fit just fine, but it'll feel like we're living in a storage shed! I'd really like to contain the storage to one area so we can enjoy tidiness in the rest of the apartment. We'll see how that goes. If it turns out that we need to put boxes in our room or the living room, I'm going to insist on buying fabric and turning the boxes into tables!

So these next two days we're supposed to get EVERYTHING packed up, then friends are coming over after church on Sunday to get it all in the truck, then we drive down on Monday, unload (we've hired a couple guys for 2 hours), and that's it!

Pray that we don't bite each other's heads off as the stress builds, and that Z will get some good naps these next two days, since for the last three he's only been able to snag naps in the car, poor thing.