Welcome Home!

My future husband and I have our first address! After a whirlwind apartment shopping spree, we've found our first home :) We couldn't be more thrilled with it! Beautiful community, perfect floorplan, all the amenities we wanted and then some, and most importantly, an extremely convenient and SAFE area. We ended up taking the apartment that I was describing in yesterday's post at Cambridge Court. We did go to visit the last place we were interested in (Silver Spring Station), but it didn't take much convincing for us to drive straight over to Cambridge to fill out our application...

Ben left work early to get to Silver Spring at 4:15, after being told that while the office closes at 5, they take their last tour at 4:30, and getting there around 4:30 wasn't good enough, he needed to try to get there sooner. Of course, I had every intention of getting there on time especially since I didn't go to work today, but I had spent the day nursing a migraine and was scrambling to get out the door. I didn't start my shower early enough, I forgot I needed to get a copy of my pay history from my admin lady at work for applications, I had to stop for gas... and then there was an accident on 695 (of course) that held me up significantly. Ben and I were texting and calling back and forth the whole time I was driving, and I'm stressing and weaving in and out of traffic trying to get there in time. At 4:30 I told Ben I was about 15 minutes out, but this girl would only wait 5 minutes before starting the tour for Ben. So, knowing that I'd never make it in 5 minutes, Ben went ahead and started the "tour" (which consisted of them showing him one unit with the floorplan we were interested in, so it obviously didn't take long). When I was less than 5 minutes out I sent him a text - they were already back from the tour, and he asked if she could stick around a few more minutes to just show me the apartment so that I could at least take a quick look (it's 4:47 now), to which she replies "Ummm, it's 10 of 5..." and gives some lame ass excuse about how they "don't leave anyone behind" in their office so if she stays everyone has to stay. He gave her one last "come on, just a few more minutes" and her response was "sorry". So no more than a minute after he got into his car, I pulled up - it's now 4:50. The damn office is still open for 10 more minutes, but apparently they might as well close at 4:30 because you can't get them to do anything past then. So he told me what they said, told me there was nothing special about the apartment he saw (about the same size, same amenities, just crappy people in the front office - and only $10 a month cheaper). So it wasn't difficult to make that decision! We went straight over to Cambridge and applied.

She approved us within 5 minutes (it was a tense 5 minutes though!). While she was running the app through, she let us know that the other leasing agent she works with had a couple come in today who was very interested in our apartment and had asked her to put a hold on it for them tomorrow if we didn't take it today (our hold was good til 6pm today). So apparently we did the right thing by hurrying up and getting our other visits taken care of so we could make a decision. So anyway, once we were approved, she let us take the keys and go visit our new home for a few minutes before closing time...

Our Building

Our community, complete with nice new playground and pool so we can be the cool aunt and uncle with the pool (sorry Em & Josh... LOL). The "pool", while it's large, is 3'6" deep the whole way around! Pretty comical. Moving on...

When you first walk in, you see the kitchen. Complete with it's GAS STOVE (this makes me INCREDIBLY happy), dishwasher, garbage disposal... and that door opens to a full size washer and dryer :)

Looking into the kitchen from the corner of the dining area - we'll definitely be putting some bar stools there at the overhang to make our own little breakfast bar

Looking from the kitchen out into the dining area - the black square over there in the upper right is our gas fireplace :) And it's a small thing, but I love the extra-tall 6-foot windows. They just open it up and give it a slightly more modern look. And if you turn left at the window, the staircase up to the loft is on the other side of that wall.

Ben showing his excitement in our new living room with cathedral ceiling. That door over there opens to our little deck - it's about 6 or 7 feet square and will definitely fit a little table and chairs :) Or maybe just two chaise lounges for relaxing outside in the evenings when it's warm... (I may be GROSSLY overestimating the amount of "relaxation" time I'll have over the next 4 years...)

An aerial shot from the loft looking down into the living room and dining room

The loft - also known as my study room and the snake's bedroom and the guest room... but at least it's 15x8 feet and has its own cable jack :)

Our bedroom - I spared you the closet pic, but it's a nice-size walk-in

The bathroom - very exciting I know. This is looking through the doorway by the living room. Obviously there's a shower in there on the other side of the toilet ;)

This is a shot of the bathroom from our bedroom (we may not have a master bath, but we do have our own door to the one bath we have!)

So that's our humble abode, which we'll be calling home for at least the next 4 years! The rooms could be a little bigger and the price could be a little lower, but for the perks we're getting and the wonderful, safe neighborhood, those are worthwhile sacrifices. It's only the two of us - we don't need an oversized floor plan. It's a NICE place for our first, so we're not going to complain about not getting every last little thing we would've liked to have. We're just feeling incredibly blessed to have found this at an affordable price! We "move in" March 26th (which basically means we get keys and start paying - neither of us is living there til we get back from the honeymoon), so we'll have from then until the end of May to paint and slowly move things in and get it all set up for our new life together :) There were LOTS of smiles and "woo hoo"s and fist-pumping and kisses and hugs today! I'd love to ramble on (and I know you wish I would... haha!) but it's WAAAAAAAAAAY past this girl's bed time. I'm off to dream about paint schemes...