I’m still reeling a little bit from the whole thing. We’d been talking about buying something for a while, but only in the “oh shit an artisanal marshmallow shop just opened up around the corner, how long until we get priced out of the neighborhood, please don’t let this be another Williamsburg situation” kind of way. And also in a “lol, sure, we’ll just strap on our money helmets and go down to the money store and someone will totally give us a few hundred grand, NBD” way. Because even though our neighborhood is largely known for college kids accidentally getting murdered during drive-by shootings and by its distance away from downtown, it’s still Chicago and it’s not cheap. (But the neighborhood is actually amazing and is the only part of Chicago that’s made me feel like maybe I could be happy here instead of New York, so finding an apartment somewhere else wasn’t an option.) I’m definitely someone who prioritizes location above everything else, and our rental was amazing: three blocks from an El stop and two blocks from the beach, and a grocery store, used bookstore, tons of good bars and restaurants, and a farmers market all within 2-4 blocks. So I wasn’t exactly ready to downgrade, but everything in our absurdly low price range was basically out in the boonies.
Then one day in November I was browsing Trulia, and saw there was an open house in a building on the lake that I’ve always kind of wondered about, and the price was miraculously and mysteriously within our super tiny range. So we strapped on our snow boots and walked on over.
It was love at first sight.
We spent about 5 minutes looking in the rooms, and then I went up to the agent and said “We love it, we don’t know what to do now, please help.” And thus began some of the most stressful three months of my life. It turns out there is a LOT involved in buying a home, and then even MORE involved in buying a co-op. It was honestly a nightmare. I cried a lot. It came close to ruining our trip to Vietnam until James emailed everyone and very nicely told them to please fuck off while we were trying to enjoy our vacation.
But that’s all over and we live here now and it’s amazing. I’m going to do another post with more details, but here’s some pictures from the day we closed!
(That’s the lake there. Also these blinds do not go up. I will DEFINITELY be getting into that in another post because omg I HATE MINIBLINDS.)
5 comments
Congratulations! As someone who bought a place less than a year ago, it is so stressful from the first day until you get the keys. P.S. Your new home has awesome ceilings and a cool vintage bathroom. I would have loved it at first sight, too.
Thanks Maya! Right up until they got the keys I was like “okay, don’t get too excited, this could fall apart at any second, that 20 pounds of paperwork you just signed might be a decoy.”
The ceiling beams are actually radiators! So strange, but it makes the floors all nice and toasty.
Do I gasp first? Or scream? It’s awesome! I’m so excited to see more of it whenever you’re ready to put more of it on the internet for strangers to gawk at!
Just found your blog through a post on Kitchn and I’m hooked!! Congrats on your new place, what a fantastic way to welcome spring!!
Thanks dude! Moving into this bright, clean, happy place just as the Chicago winter starts to wrap up really is kind of making everything feel like an official New Chapter of Our Lives.