Sneak preview...

In case anyone hasn't heard -- we are officially condo owners! The closing yesterday took a little while -- it already takes long enough to plod through the two-foot stack of papers you're required to sign at a closing... but then once we'd signed everything, we waited more than an hour for the lenders to get back to us to say that everything was approved. Even though they supposedly ALREADY approved everything last week. Apparently they were concerned that we'd secretly run out over the weekend and bought another condo... or a couple cars... or a small private island in the Caribbean...

But eventually, everything was approved, we got our keys, and we drove to our new place with a few boxes of summer clothing from storage. Later, we took over some winter clothing from our rental condo, plus the very first piece of furniture to occupy our new space -- a coffee table that Faisal has been kind enough to keep at his place for the last few months (since our storage unit was completely full and the furniture in our rental condo is about to overflow into the street sixteen stories below...). We've decided that we might need a smaller car eventually -- our new garage is TINY... or, rather, the garage itself is quite big, but the driving/parking areas are very narrow. In fact, in order to maneuver our MDX through the garage, we have to make a three-point turn at one location. And in order to pull into our space, we have to drive uncomfortably close to the cement wall and then hope the mirrors clear the huge columns on either side of the space. Every time we park the car, I'll be holding my breath... Still, it's hard to justify buying a smaller car just for the parking garage... especially since our present car is paid off... and besides -- we hardly drive anywhere anymore.

So I've spent much of the day doing laundry, packing a couple random boxes, and cleaning our rented condo so they can start showing it soon for new tenants. I'm not sure why I'm spending so much time cleaning this place, seeing as we don't own it. To put it bluntly -- if no one rents it, it's not OUR problem. (I am a cold, callous person... :)) I have a feeling it has something to do with my recollection of when I first walked into this place back in December, when the obviously under-the-influence-of-something previous renter opened his door for us and then threw himself back on his couch to watch a game, while we wandered around the cluttered apartment attempting to avoid clothes on the floor and food on the counter. I've never viewed a condo for sale or rent that was left so unprepared for a showing. He hadn't even bothered to toss away his leftover pizza in the kitchen. Of course, as soon as I got a glimpse of the skyline view outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, I was able to overlook the mess... :) But, since I don't want people walking in and thinking that the Worst Housekeeper in the World lives here, I've been busy cleaning up today...

I probably won't have any decent pictures of the new place until we're mostly settled, so in the meantime, here are a few poor-quality camera phone pictures:

Standing in the living room looking toward the kitchen...

Looking into the living room from the kitchen -- the guy who just moved out built his own corner TV stand thing. It was screwed into the floor, which means if we take it out the floor will be damaged -- but we really don't want to keep it there. Although the red sconce lights are kinda cool...

My new view... sigh... :) At least I still have part of the Hancock Building. One thing we quickly realized when we were searching for a condo was that it was very unlikely we'd find EVERYthing we wanted. We'd have to compromise on something. And this place fulfilled most of our wish list -- large square footage, open floorplan, tons of light, washer/dryer in unit... it even has a gas stove, which I prefer over electric. But we had to give up the awesome view. But don't worry -- I'll be sure to continue snapping pictures of the skyline for the next few weeks, so I'll have plenty of photos to browse through when I'm feeling nostalgic... :)