We're Moving

So, it's not absolutely sure yet, but it looks like we've found a new flat. We're all set to move at the beginning of August, as long as my references don't sabotage me, and I think we'll be OK there.

We can't continue living in the studio paradise past September because neither one of us will be students by then, and this is student accommodation. And since we're coming back to Iowa from the end of August to the beginning of September, we're moving early.

Anyway, we've been on the prowl for a new place for a bit over a month now. At first we had very definite ideas about where we wanted to live - near a park. We didn't care if it was a studio again, as long as it was near a park. The idea was, we could run in the park for free, and not have to join gym memberships.

Well, it turns out that Grace really enjoys having access to the gym's equipment and doesn't actually like running that much. And I think I want to try swimming instead. So, then we decided that living near a park wasn't so important. By then we had gone out to look at a few places pretty far from central London and we sort of felt like we were isolated, so we decided we wanted to live in the city centre again, like we do now. This basically limited us to another studio, on our budget.

So we looked at a few places, but it wasn't that promising.

Suddenly, one day I woke up day and realised I did not want to live in a studio anymore. I confessed this to Grace and she said she had always felt that way.

There were a few things that made me sick of living in a studio.

1 - Grace always has to get up when I get up for work because there's just one room for me to eat breakfast and get ready for work. We have a sleep mask which she wears, but still, I'll be invariably making a lot of racket for an hour.

2 - Our building has some great facilities, including sound-proofed music rooms, where I have been playing the piano. I'm really enjoying picking up the piano after a decade of neglect, and would like to keep it up by buying a used electric one that I can plug a headphone into (note to Knifeblade and Erica or anyone else: Do you have any advice about this?). With a studio, that would take up a lot of room, and it would be a bit hard for Grace to concentrate. Furthermore, to learn songs, I watch people play them on YouTube and then basically copy them. And even with headphones for the piano, the laptop would still make a racket.

3 - Never any guests. We never have people over. And when we do, it gets pretty tight. Exhibit A, is this photo.



Furthermore, we've got Grace's sister coming to visit in September and we'll be having other guests come across the pond hopefully down the road as well. We really need to be able to offer them a place to stay. Paying for a hotel in London is just too expensive.

That's pretty much the main reasons. Obviously having more space is great in and of itself as well.

So, we expanded our search criteria and started looking for one-bedroom flats. We didn't have too much luck, but since we weren't in a big hurry (we don't need to find a place till the end of August) we could afford to wait for a good deal.

And I think we found one. It's an interesting situation. We'll be living in a converted attic of a family home, an old Victorian home. That means we have to go through their front lobby and up the stairs, past the kids bedrooms, before we get into our flat. Because of this, the place is cheaper than it would otherwise be. Today we met with the family for two hours, and we all get along great, so I think everything will be grand on that front.

So, the flat. It's not one, not two, not three, but four rooms (and that's not even counting the bathroom). We're quadrupling the number of rooms we live in. A 400% increase in number of rooms. There's a bedroom the size of our current flat. There's a living room, also the size of our current flat, and it has a fireplace (not in use, but it's a 'period feature'). There's a kitchen, almost as big as our current flat. Get this. It has a REAL oven. Currently we use have a microwave/oven. You push one button and its a microwave, another and its an oven. It looks sort of like this:



It's good for cooking pizza and stuff, but not really for baking. And we only have two stove top burners. The new place has a proper oven and four gas burners. It's also got a fridge which would look tiny to Americans but looks enormous to us. We currently use a dorm room type refrigerator. The new one has TWO doors, one for the freezer and one for the refrigerator. Also, it has a toaster. A toaster is a pretty cheap thing, but we literally do not have enough countertop room for one. Finally, it's got a washing machine. Does it get any better?

Yes, because it has another room, which can be used as a study. Oh man.

And its in a nice area, albeit quite far from central London. My days of walking to work will be over, and I'll either get a bike or take the bus.

Anyway, we're quite excited. If everything goes according to plan, we'll be moving in on the first weekend in August.