On finding a place to live

Today we signed a lease. The new landlady seems nice. She has said we don't need to pay the first part month's rent until Nathan gets paid next week, which is very helpful indeed. She is putting a new (well 3 year old recycled almost new) kitchen in. It looks great. The guy doing the installation is really friendly and helpful.

It is a nice spacious place, prolly built in the 80s from its style, double garage, open plan, half bath below, full bath above, three bedrooms, one of which runs across most of the width of the place (that will be our study), a loft area, storage in the attic above the other two bedrooms. We don't need to maintain the grass or deal with the sprinklers or anything (we are still freaked out on the watering grass thing). As Chris said, we would know the right place when we found it. Even better, it backs onto Spring Creek bike path - we just go to the end of the cul de sac and there it is! It is only about a mile to two places I can buy yummy me-safe food at.

Excellent!

The landpersons here seem to be a bit more relaxed than the ones at home. Or at least the ones renting to professionals seem to be. It seems that if we wanna do something, we just give our landlady a call and she will say yea or nay (why are yea and nay spelt differently?). You wanna plant a garden! Yippee! Go ahead! (Lynne says yippee too ;-) Hopefully they will still say yippee when they see it....

Now we just need furniture. Habitat for Humanity is looking good for some stuff. I bought some crockery from there. Forgot about other stuff like cutlery. The annoyingest part is that we are shipping across crockery and cutlery but it isn't here yet and probably won't be for at least another week. In the meantime we have to eat off something and with something, and I need to go buy new pots, chopping board, knives.... (The place I now have three 20% off coupons for is looking good.) The furniture place up by the I25 might have great prices but currently they are great prices that are out of our reach. Doh! At least I got to go ont eh I25 and drive at 75 mph - FAST! VROOOM! Our highway maxes are a bit under 70mph I think (110kmh).

Something I noticed here is that there are seemingly very few cheap furniture places. In Oz, I could outfit half the house for under $1000, as long as I don't mind the stuff being made out of pine (radiata pine, the tree that is endangered in its home habitat in California but grown in half of Oz in plantations). OK, it won't last more than 5-10 years if you are careful with it but when you need stuff and can't afford noice stuff, it is handy. Not so here! Well not that I've found so far.... I have one last place to look at, see what they have. Two more places - there is a place that rents out furniture. That could be good.

So today, as expected, is a better day. Still if those of you who commented could hang out with me, that would be great! Also since Nathan isn't hanging around at the moment, I can get to edit some pics and maybe get them online. But don't hold your breath waiting....

Decisions, decisions

Oh the decisions!

We need to find a place to live by next weekend. We are trying to work out what we want most. We know where we would like to live, but most of the places there are not available until August. Dang! We only have a week left in the Residence Inn.

So should we go for a place that is more than we want to pay but is nice, has a basement, has a two car garage, has enough space and has a nice yard that the land lady would love me to play in and create a garden?

Or should we go for a place that is a mile further south than we want to be (ie further from the shops I want to have and the established suburbs that we both like) and go for a nice apartment in a nice area that has just a little verandah but is well within what we want to pay? (but does it have a garage?)

Or an apartment in a managed block that is where we would like to be, is the same price as the place above but is not as nice? Plus it is on a street that shares its name with the maiden name of my old boss. (She was younger than me, actually, not old at all!)

Or maybe keep looking to find another place? Only problem is we need something that is available now. Very little is available now.

Oh, only one of these places has potential for fleece washing (ie a place where I could throw the yucky water away not down the drain). Cathy, I might end up coming your way! LOL

We have looked at several other places but one was too big, one was too small (honestly if you opened the bathroom door and someone was on the loo you would half kill them), one was too far away, one is not available for another month (and was dark and warm but spacious and in the area we want)....

oh decisions, decisions! What would you choose? We would really like to save as much as possible to get as much paid off the mortgage at home and/or buy a place here. We have no furniture and very little in the way of household goods (someone forgot to put them into our air cargo - we will have crockery and cutlery but that is pretty much it). The next month's pay will go on getting a place and getting some basic furniture and kitchen wares. At least I have a toaster for me and an electric kettle.

Locals, do you have any suggestions for good stuff at good (bargain) prices?

Anyone, what would you do? Go for a larger, more expensive place with more space? A smaller place on a nice open space? A smaller place in the area we would like?

Help! We are overwhelmed!