Our new apartment - still a work in progress

This whole apartment situation happened crazy quickly. Last Tuesday we found out our condo was falling apart... we sought out our other options and decided this was a nightmare/headache/terrible situation and got out. We headed out for the day on Saturday to look for a place to move into within the next 7 days. We had to be out of our current apartment by March 7, but Derrick had planned to go skiing leaving on March 4 so for him the sooner the better (he couldn't go skiing unless everything had been moved in - only fair). Some people told me a couple of names of places and we knew we wanted to be in the relative location of the condo we were supposed to get. We love the location. 5 minutes to downtown, 4 minutes to my school, direct access to the greenbelt (hiking trails and just awesome area) - yep we knew what we were looking for.

We went to the first place at 10:00 - as soon as they opened. We really liked it and they had an immediate move in -- as in Monday morning! I was set to do it but of course, Mr. lets-look-around vs. Ms. this-is-good-why-waste-the-time... yep I lost. We went to 4 more places ... 2 of them were not nearly as nice... the other 2 were ridiculously expensive. So we ended up getting the original one we went to ... the first one ... the one I initially said.

We decided to move in on Monday. Nothing was packed... the current apartment was a disaster. We got the UHaul on Sunday and loaded it up -- everything except the bed (which we planned to trash... it is so old and I don't think I have ever bought a new mattress). I also kept out the food and 3 days worth of clothes for the work week since we were planning on moving the stuff in on Monday but not fully living there till Wednesday when the utilities could be hooked up. I still had school on Monday so Derrick had planned to just do the whole move in by himself. Isn't he wonderful!?! He got everything moved in on Monday and when I got home I helped him move in the only remaining thing -- the couch. He had already started unpacking boxes and everything!

After we unloaded the couch we quickly dashed off to return the UHaul. We hit terrible traffic and I had an appointment with the HR for my district on my next steps for losing my job (mostly just some papers - nothing too informative). On Monday during the day I called the utility places and got them to put everything into my name on Tuesday, but everything was on so we could live there. So straight from my meeting we headed up to the old apartment and loaded up my car with everything left. We came back, unloaded the car, and actually made dinner:) Officially spent the night there on Monday night.

Tuesday morning I woke up to head to school and realized one vital thing I forgot... the shower curtain. Hahaha oh well! I washed my hair under the tub faucet and sat in the tub and washed my body the best I could with the running water through the faucet. Luckily I wasn't stinky or sweaty from the night before.

We love it ---- 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, bigger living room than what we are used to, smaller pantry but we made it work, and still a small kitchen which I guess is expected in an apartment.

The grand tour - the before pictures... over time I will post the afters:)

The view when you walk in - living room to the left, master through the door straight ahead, dining to the right, kitchen to the right, and there is a hallway to the left before the living room where the 2nd bathroom and bedroom is
living room - empty and in need of more furniture/decorations/curtains
kitchen with laundry room through the door
spare bathroom - thanks Nikki for the curtain
spare bedroom - futon mattress is being used as our bed currently -- all of the little piles are Derrick's things that he isn't sure how to organize yet. He plans on putting an L-shaped computer desk along the wall by the window and build his "ultimate" computer
master bedroom - so master like isn't it? hahaha - air mattress underneath the futon mattress while we wait for our new bed to come in. I got these really neat shelves from JCPenney that I plan on using as our new nightstands
master bathroom with a garden tub (which I thoroughly missed and love) and my HUGE closet to the left which is still so much a disaster I cannot even thing about showing it yet. I want to change the bathroom to a black/white theme to kind of blend with the gray/yellow in the bedroom I plan on doing
entertainment center area that will soon have a big tv in the middle slot. Not sure what we are putting at the top spot and the bottom section has storage ottomans that I have blankets, DVD's, and photo albums in and will double as extra seating:) - on sale at Target $16.99
the wall that needs help! The table is new - Target on sale for $39.99 - originally $59.99 - whoo hoo! It is really a cool table because it fits into the corner with 2 huge shelves but if you want to put it on an angle there is more shelving behind the "back" - I stored some stuff back there that I will want in the living room but not all the time. The plan is the put a cool lamp on the top of the table and get a funky chair/ottoman to fill the space and some neat artwork/pictures to fill the way.