Anthony and I are moving at the end of October, and I thought it would be a good idea to go through our thought process in deciding on a new apartment in a new city. For some context, we have lived together for the past two years in New Hampshire. We moved in together my senior year of college, and our main priority then was to make sure we picked an apartment that was an easy commute for me to school, and an easy commute for him to work. We lived in a tiny one bedroom, and although we had very little space, that apartment will always be special since it was our first place together. We stayed there for a year, then moved to a two bedroom, still within the same complex. Now that we're making a more significant move, we wanted to make sure that we chose a place we would love and be really comfortable in. This list outlines the things that were important to us to have in a new place, but also things we weren't considering when we first started living together, so they can be good things to think about when looking!
A space we would want to live and work in
This is probably the most important consideration we had when finding a new place. We knew we would both be working from home for the foreseeable future, and wanted to be sure that the space was somewhere we would feel comfortable being in virtually all day. Because we are both either on the phone or in meetings a lot, we knew we would want separate work spaces from each other. This was a bit of a challenge because it meant we would either need a three bedroom ($$$) or we'd need to get creative with layout. After a lot of consideration, we opted to go for a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment that was larger all around and had a good size living space. Neither of us really wanted to set up our office space in our bedroom, so this felt like a good compromise. We love our new place because the living/dining room is large enough to put a decent sized desk, and still not feel cramped. It was also the perfect excuse to spring for a desk we really wanted, because it would be apart of our main living space!
Location, location, location
This factor was tied in importance with the first item I mentioned. It was important for us to be close to both my office for when everyone goes back, and also in an easy location for Anthony to be able to get onto the highway and get to Portsmouth for the times he has to go to his office. Our new apartment is walking distance to my office and has easy access to the highway for when Anthony needs to make the commute. We also love that we have such easy access to the city, but our actual town is more residential feeling.
Not living on the ground floor
In both of our apartments, we have lived on the ground floor. In the beginning, the main purpose for it was because it was slightly cheaper in terms of rent, and for ease of moving furniture in and out (we knew we wouldn't be staying for very long, so wanted to have an easier time moving). Of course living on any floor besides the top, you'll have to deal with the noise of your upstairs neighbors. All things considered though, we didn't have a bad experience on the ground floor with our first place. That being said, when we moved to a two bedroom, we decided to opt for the ground floor again. With our second apartment, we definitely had issues with moisture from a crack in the foundation of our building, which led to some complications. From this current experience, we decided that it would be best to stray away from any ground floor units. Although moving is definitely easier, and rent tends to be a bit cheaper, we felt like it was overall a better decision to live on a higher floor.
Having overhead light in every room
This was something we never even considered when moving to our first place, and it didn't dawn on us until move in day. Many apartments only have overhead lighting in the kitchen/main living area, but ours only had the kitchen. This really isn't a huge deal, especially in the summer when everything is bright until very late in the day. I will say from November to March, it is more annoying because you have to rely on lamps to light every room past 5pm. It can definitely make your living space seem darker and less inviting, so this was another area we wanted to make sure we looked for when searching for our new place.
Having a kitchen island
Again, this is something that never seemed important to me when first moving in together. I definitely undervalued the importance of having more counter space when choosing our first apartments. Having a dedicated place for food prep is really beneficial, especially if you cook together. At our current place, the counter space is pretty minimal and makes it difficult to both be in the kitchen at the same time. What we really like about our new place is that the island also has built in storage, which we'll probably use to store pots and pans and other items we use for cooking on a daily basis. We ordered bar stools for our island (linked here) after reading all of the positive reviews (plus they were a steal) and can't wait for them to arrive!
No carpeting
This was by no means a make or break for us in terms of finding a new place, but it was something we were interested in having. We had really light colored carpeting in the living spaces of our other two apartments, and we found that they look dingy pretty quickly and are overall more difficult to clean and maintain. Although we're excited that our new place is all hard flooring, we definitely want to invest in area rugs that will break up the floors and make the space feel warmer. We've been doing a lot of research on the brand Ruggable and I'll link the specific rug we have our eye on for the living room here. We were drawn to Ruggable because you can actually detach the top rug portion from the mat on the bottom, and put the rug in your washer/dryer. The brand has great reviews and we're so excited to give their rugs a try! Let me know if you have any experience with Ruggable!
In unit washer/dryer
This is something that we have never had, and are so excited to finally have our own! Our previous apartments have all been shared laundry, which was totally doable. However, it definitely will be nice to do laundry later in the day on a Sunday and not have to worry about having to wait for a machine. Again, not a make or break, but it definitely is an added perk.
Although we were able to find a place that checked off most of what we wanted, it is important to mention that it's not perfect. We don't have access to a gym in our building anymore, which is something we would have liked. We also don't have covered parking which was something we were hoping to find. We realized that it's important to understand that you're not going to find that absolute perfect place that has every little thing you want. But making a list and prioritizing what matters most to you is something that really helped us in our search. We were reminded of what we knew we wanted, and were able to make decisions based on what we knew we were looking for and what we knew we could get by without. I wanted to include some pictures of our new place, but I do want to mention that this is not our actual unit. These pictures are screen shots from our building's YouTube channel, and this unit is not the same layout as ours, but the lighting is much better than the pictures I have!
