Mike recently wrote about our great experience with the people who manage our apartment building, so I thought I’d post about the apartment itself. If you’ve followed this blog for awhile, you’ll notice all our same stuff in yet another environment!
Ever since I visited Chicago in 2001 I’ve wanted to live here. When Mike and I came in 2007 we even looked at condos for sale! So when Mike got laid off last year the first thing I thought was “Yay, now we can move to Chicago!”
Even though we had both visited Chicago several times, we weren’t 100% sure where we wanted to live. I thought Lakeview/Wrigleyville would be pretty Chicago-y so searched CraigsList for places up there. We weren’t able to come out to look for a place and it was super hard to do via CraigsList and email- only about 5% of the people we contacted even bothered to get back to us! SO LAME. But finally someone did get back to us. The apartment was in Lincoln Park which is the next neighborhood south of Lakeview, so I figured it was close enough. The apartment was just a 2 month sublet anyway, so it was fine. But we love Lincoln Park. There are places in Lakeview that are nice, too but it seems a little more young up there. Plus, we actually live right on the border of Lincoln Park and Lakeview, so it’s the best of both worlds.
Anyhow, since it IS Lincoln Park, it’s expensive (the second most expensive neighborhood in Chicago). We couldn’t get a super huge place. In fact, we got a super tiny place. It’s only about 370 sq feet, with the main room only about 225. When we moved we weren’t sure how much space we’d have or how long we’d be staying so we just brought the bare minimum basics with us. It’s small but it’s working out fine for us and we haven’t managed to kill each other yet.
Over time we’ll probably fix it up more so consider these the “before” pictures.
Our very small studio apartment in Lincoln Park, Chicago. We found the painting next to a dumpster! We liked it so we took it home. The photos above the couch were taken on our many road trips.
Another view of the main room. We left about 90% of our stuff in storage in Colorado. We did bring the bar stuff- like I said, all the basics!
Our dining area. The metro shelf is on rollers so it can be moved closer to the kitchen when I need more counter space, or out of the way when we want to use the table. The table is a wall mounted fold-down model from IKEA and fits perfectly behind the metro shelf when not in use.
We got this desk from IKEA because it fit perfectly in this little nook. The space above it needs shelving or art or something.
The desk area needs some work.
The kitchen is really little but surprisingly functional.
Tiny apartment stove!
I like the plain white countertops and appliances. I'm glad they haven't been redone all contemporary with faux granite and stainless.
There are no drawers and no space for a knife block so I got the wall mounted magnetic knife holder from amazon.com.
I normally don't like a lot of junk on tops of cabinets but I had no choice here. So I put the cute colorful stuff up there and keep it dusted.
Same with the top of the fridge (the tiny fridge- which is also surprisingly functional- nothing gets shoved to the back and out of sight).
There are no drawers and not enough counter space for a utensil holder, so Mike put this pegboard up for me. I also thought it would be cute to have the pans hanging on the wall.
Luckily Home Depot is walking distance.
There's a decent sized walk-in closet with hanging bars/shelves. But the shelves were hung too low so I had Mike move them up a few inches. He was happy to have a home improvement project!
Ok, so the closet needs work! Remember this pic as the "before"!
This kind of tile is not my fave. I’m more of a subway tile kind of girl. At least it’s just in the shower surround and on the floor and not all over all the walls. I’ve lived in some hideous rental bathrooms and this is quite an improvement on most of them out there. I love the big window for ventilation and view. You can open it and take a bath with a view of the other high-rises in the neighborhood.
I like to keep the bathroom neutral and simple with white towels and shower curtain.
We've never had radiators before. They're hot! We have had the window open every day - even when it's cold outside.
Our apartment is on the 14th floor with an awesome view.
The view from our apartment.
Another view from our apartment.
The cats enjoy looking out the window, too.
Our apartment is on the top floor, the stairs across the hall lead to the awesome roof deck.
The roof deck is a nice place to have a drink.
There are chairs and chaises for hanging out.
View of Lake Michigan from the roof deck.
And a view of the park.
It's nice to go out on the roof at night, too.
The view in the other direction is the sunset.
I watched the runners in the Chicago Marathon from the roof deck.
Another pretty view.
Stay tuned because you know we won’t be able to resist home improvement.
