Sweet Home Chicago

I spent six hours apartment hunting yesterday. SIX hours. I saw 12 apartments. From Roscoe Village to the Ukrainian Village. But I think I found it. No, I did find "The One".

Its in Roscoe Village. Near the park. 3 blocks from Roscoe Street bars & shops. Down the street from The Beat Kitchen. And a stone throws away from the busy night life of Wicker Park, Lakeview, & Lincoln Park.

Its a one bedroom coach house with wood floors and a ton of closet space - it would be my first walk in closet! White crown molding. A dishwasher (this is big people!). Its a 2 flat, with one tenant that lives above me. She has apparently been there for over 40 years. This could be good or very bad...

The coach house is separated from the main "house" (read: 3 flat) with a mini backyard sanctuary. A little bit of grass, a bench, flowers. Not to mention the landlord is from Ireland. And since I love accents (plus we'll likely share an affinity for beer) I'm sure we'll get along just fine.

There are only 2 downsides: No parking and the cost. There is street parking but I can only imagine it being my worst nightmare when I can't find parking on a wintry day after a 2hr commute from the 'burbs. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this doesn't happen and I retain my sanity. Now the cost. Its about 100$ more than I want to spend. Doesn't sound like a lot, right? Well, when you're talking $1000/month for rent alone (no utilities included) that means I will be on a tight budget. And this girl is bad at budgeting...especially when drunk at the bars. Somehow that credit card comes out A LOT.

So I put in an offer of $900/month. It may or may not work. The way I think about it is this: if you don't ask you'll never know. The worst he says is no then I either start the search over or suck it up and pay the full amount. But since I would be willing to move in May 1 vs. June 1 it is in the landlord's best interest to meet me at $900 versus loosing an entire month's rent. We'll see what happens. I should hear back by Monday or Tuesday.

Once this is settled, its time to move onto the fun stuff.

UPDATED: ANNOYING - I spent about 10min trying to get this post to actually have paragraph separations. As you can see it didn't work.