THE HUNT
So after we ate breakfast at Crepes on Cole last week I started looking around for apartments in that area. We really debated whether we should look in the suburbs or the city for our first San Francisco apartment, but we are so enchanted with the city and since we don’t have to worry about finding the best schools for our kids yet, we decided we’d love to try and find something right in the heart of the action if possible. On Wednesday I found a really cute place right around our price range in charming Cole Valley {by the way, I love the app “lovely” for house hunting}. The listing said there was an open house that night. I texted McKay the address and asked him to go take a look.
He called me from the apartment and gave me a little FaceTime tour. He loved it. It was beautiful. Totally remodeled. Hardwood floors and a gorgeous kitchen. It has a little fenced in backyard with a huge redwood tree. Also - it is furnished! Which is kind of a dream for us having just sold most of our worldly possessions {twice} when we moved to and from Brazil. It seemed perfect. There were, however, just a few drawbacks. The biggest one? No Laundry. No washer/dryer hookups and no coin-laundry or shared machines or anything. This means laundromat life for as long as we live there {at least a year}. This has been a heavy prospect. It’s also a pretty small place, though pretty average for city living, and it’s all street parking, so there would never be a guaranteed easy spot to park with two little ones {and groceries?} in tow.
Still, the idea of having a backyard and living in the most perfect part of the city, in a brand new, beautiful, furnished apartment was pretty sweet.
*A breakfast sandwich from “Bacon Bacon” a little cafe in Cole Valley
We were the first people to inquire on it and we were about to just pull the trigger and take it but we started thinking that maybe it would be wise to see more than just one place before we made a decision. With the laundry issue and limited space we were just hesitant enough to wait and take a look around.
So, I hopped online and spent a couple hours finding other good options with weekend showings that McKay could go to. But he had some really big projects for the weekend, and let’s be honest, I really wanted to be the one looking at them!
*packing super light traveling solo for a day
A few hours later I had a flight booked for 6am Saturday morning, returning 11am Sunday morning. I picked up a rental car at the airport and hit 8 apartments between 10:30am and 4pm. It was exhausting!
And after my packed day, I found one other really great apartment option, which moved into the first choice spot, but only barely.
The new option is in lower pacific heights, which is still a fine neighborhood, but is a bit busier and isn’t as enchanting to us as Cole Valley. But, the apartment is bigger {quite a bit bigger} with a downstairs family room, a formal dining room and a little laundry area with hookups! And there is a shared back patio space that isn’t as cool as a yard, but is still pretty nice. It’s an old Victorian with wood floors and beautiful old details. The kitchen is brand new though {bonus points!!!!!} so it’s really the perfect little package.
*I loved driving around all the different areas of this beautiful city.
Our application for choice #1 is in and we should hear pretty much any time between now and tomorrow if we get picked!
And if we don’t land that one we’ll be really happy with our very close second choice. And we can move in basically as soon as we get the answer back!
So, it looks like we’ll all be San Franciscans within a couple weeks. Three cheers!
Notes