Monday, September 6, 2010

What a month...

Remember that gorgeous Chicago apartment we drove 23hours from Boston to live in?  Well, we left there and moved somewhere else.

Our old Chicago living room.  Where the Great Centipede Infestation began.
Why?  It's all because of disgusting house centipedes.  If you don't know what they are, do a google image search and you'll see how disgusting these bugs can be.  I've seen and killed centipedes before but this wasn't a normal situation.  This was a centipede infestation.  They were EVERYWHERE!! The second night we were there we saw EIGHT!!  I had one crawl on my arm one morning...it was hiding under the kitchen sponge...and one crawled on Jerome's leg while we were watching tv.  That's NOT acceptable. Our landlords tried spraying but the creatures kept coming back in droves.

The old dining room with its beautiful French doors and chandelier.
Thankfully, after 3 weeks of torment, the landlords were nice enough to let us out of the lease without a problem.  The only catch was we had to be out by September 1 which meant we had less than a week to find a new apartment and get moved.  There weren't a lot of apartments left by that time which made our search even harder.

Then, at the last minute, we found a duplex in Humboldt Park.  It's doesn't have the vintage charm of the last place, but it includes a gated parking spot, central air, and laundry (the other apartment didn't) plus it's bigger with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and 2 separate living spaces/rooms.  As a bonus, it's just a few blocks from where we originally wanted to live in Bucktown/Wicker Park.  Now we can go to awesome shops and restaurants all the time!

The only downsides are the master bedroom and the narrow layout of the living areas.  The master bedroom is surprisingly the smallest of all the bedrooms and has doors on each wall so there's nowhere to put a bed of any size.  We had to put the bed going sideways in front of a window...we'll see how that works out!  As for the living areas, the whole house is long and narrow so it's hard to find room to put a couch AND tv.  We think we found a solution but we won't know for sure until we actually buy a couch and see how it works in that space.  I'll post pics soon.

Needless to say, this apartment is definitely challenging my design sense.  Once we get the internet turned on, I'll be posting quite often asking for ideas and suggestions.  Hopefully you're all ready to be creative :)

5 comments:

  1. I know I know! I'm horrible with a camera but I'll get some pictures up soon!!!

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  2. Centipedes?! That's terrible, I'm so sorry you had to move out, and so quickly too.

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  3. Wow, that is horrible. I don't know how you could sleep one night there. I know what those things are like, we have them in our home from time to time. {nothing like that!!} I can kill spiders all day long, but centipedes scare me. GROSS!!! Good luck with the new NEW place. ;)

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  4. I don't know how I slept there either! The night we saw 8 we ended up staying at a hotel because I was terrified.

    We only saw a few in our bedroom during the 3 weeks so I convinced myself we were safe to sleep in the apartment. We slept with the bed in the middle of the room away from the walls and I kept getting up at night and checking for centipedes which drove my husband crazy. The final straw was one crawling on the ceiling. I kept imagining him jumping from the ceiling to the bed. Minutes later we hopped in the car and drove 7 hours to stay at my mom's in Ohio and told our landlords we were NOT living there!

    So far the new place is good though I know I'll be freaking out when we finally do see a centipede :)

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