I've found a sure fire way to make myself instantly dissatisfied with my life.
It involves apartment hunting in Sydney, Aus, while simultaneously reading Real Estalker. (Go on, torture yourself: http://realestalker.blogspot.com.au/ )
It's like eating mi goreng instant noodles while you watch Master Chef. Totally depressing.
We're geating a head start on the apartment sourcing, because we're planning to move again at the end of the year. Several reasons. We want downsize pricewise just a *teeny* bit. We're spoilt with our apartment right now - it's this huge modern one bedder with a courtyard, in this condo type block with a pool, gym, spa, sauna and BBQ area, 24 hour onsite management, two security doors and swipe card access to get into our hallway or underground parking.
The bedroom, dining/study/extra cooking space part of the living room, and the comfy, in front of R's giant mansized TV part of the livingroom.
My issue with it is that theres only two of us, so we don't quite need this much space, the kitchen is on the smallish side of tiny, and we both like to cook....Mr R especially likes to cover every possible surface with okra and semolina powder. We also dont use the facilities nearly enough to be paying for them, the suburb we live in is barely a suburb yet - theres no cafes or restaurants or shops or anything. It's literally a train station, dentist office and chinese grocer amongst all these highrise apartment blocks.
I don't dig it. It lacks character.
My last home was a bedroom in a split level Victorian terrace with ornate cornices, archways and my bedroom was massive with an original marble fireplace, and shitty flatmates aside, I loved that room. That house was just on the city fringe, walking distance to the city and to the harbour, full of hipsterish cafes and second hand bookshops, wine and tapas bars and 5 minutes from the job I had managing a boutique stationary store in a historic landmark mall. Like I said, shitty flatmates aside I loved it there.
Livingroom/hallway in the terrace. Note mosaic female bust, and doorway to shitty flatmate #1's bedroom :P
Original marble (plus Ikea wardrobes, tonnes of candles, vintage smoking stripper poster and suitcases)
Before that I had a room in a two bedroom, blonde brick 1970's deal with an ageing bathroom and kitchen. BUT it was in a gorgeous suburb my lovely late father lived in, where I have fond memories, where the man at the indian diner and the boy at the fruit shop used to flirt with me/give me fresh flowers on the weekends, where I used to buy sweet potato chips at the deli and order woodfired pizza from the rival italians on the main street. My flatmate hadn't turned shitty yet, and my apartment had a wrap around balcony I could access from my bedroom, on which I kept two pet bunnies (Othello and Iago....Othello was the black one), and a table and chairs for noodles and drinks with a dreadlocked interloper we used to host. We used to have mass sleep overs there with my old Uni friends. Once we lost two of the girls, one of them was sitting on the doorstep when we got home, the other showed up a few hours later with "Harry from Lewisham" who's cab she'd stolen and then invited in for a shower.
Mass sleep-overs in the teeny livingroom.
baby Iago, who lived in a vintage suitcase when he was inside
Before that was my parents modernish, glassish, gorgeous coastal house. And before that was a 100 year old farmhouse - complete with farm, stables converted from an old milking shed and a swimming pool.
My mother's ah-mazing house, two blocks from the ocean, swimming room, huge gourmet kitchen. That woman has worked her butt off raising me and my sister on her own and working insane hours at an insanely stressful job. Moving into a home where she can watch whales from her balcony in the morning is a more meaningful triumph than anyone can imagine.
So now we (I) want to go back to the Inner West of Sydney, where theres a bit of a village-y vibe, nice cafes, nice delis, trees, pretty terraced houses, where everyone has a puppy and you're never more that 15 minutes to the city.
The problem with that is that R has his little heart set on modern, clean, shiny...and the Inner West is mostly Victorian terrace houses or fairly ugly boxy brick 60s/70s apartment blocks. The terraces we can't afford, and the boxy brick things are mostly unrenovated and R would sooner camp than pay for their ugliness. So needless to say I'm struggling to find the few modern apartments in the area, and the few nicely renovated terraces, semis or art deco units in our price range. And in the meantime I'm torturing myself with multi million dollar Manhattan penthouses and Miami condos. Dammit!
Something else photo-ey coming soon.
x
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