Ghetto Apartment vs. House-In-Progress

What's been happening while my computer's sat, collecting sawdust? As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words; and now that my computer's back, I have many thousands of words to show you!

Though the first two houses fell through, we had a special feeling about this new place: I'd say the view sold it upon the first visit.

niceview That, and the total absence of traffic noise. And did you notice all the nice houses outside? Rich people live in those houses!

Now, let's compare this with a view from between the bars of our former ghetto apartment: There's a lovely sewage pipe - which broke once when someone threw their TV from the second floor's 'door to nowhere'.

sewerpipeview The stuff around the pipe is what's left of the additional soundproofing tile, originally meant for the new studio. Oh, and there's a painting hanging on the side of the house to keep cats from getting into the crawlspace.

But now, after saving up money by living in this ghetto building for three years, do you think we finally deserve a real place to live?
` Okay, so there was no flooring, and the walls were spattered with cooking oil, and to be honest, much remodeling work needed to be done, but with six people living in a 10x20-foot (3x6-m) apartment, we couldn't wait another month!

Well, with all our personal effort, I sure think we deserve to move in! Here's Director Nate, painting the foyer! (We have a foyer! Whoa!)

natepainting And of course, before one can even properly move in, one must have a floor. Thank you, B-Gangsta!

bradflooring The person who did the most work of all, however, was Lucas (Lou Ryan), but that's a whole other post.

As for the other two roommates (who were going to help us pay rent), they turned out to be total basket cases and we had to let them go. In fact, they didn't even last until we'd gotten the ghetto apartment cleaned out.
` Boy was it small! I snapped this photo while standing at the opposite end of the room, so I was as far away as I could be!

oldroom As you may be able to tell, our house's living room alone is larger than the entire apartment, and I wasn't even standing against the wall! This photo was taken sometime B.F. (Before Furniture).

livingrm Of course, we very soon obtained a variety of furniture - which the cats immediately used to test our leniency.

clawrs Now here's another photo of the old apartment, this time taken from the other end of the room. Like, that's the whole thing - and it didn't even have a working oven!

oldroomagain How's this for a real kitchen? It even has new appliances (pre-hooked up here) including a 'flat' stove and a convection microwave oven!

realkitchen Our dishwasher even works now!

In another photo of the ghetto apartment, taken near the sink, we look down a short hallway toward the broken-down door.

outthedoor This is the frickin' house hallway - and that's Vada, shortly before she disappeared the first time (we found her under the living room floor).

newexploration Yet another ghetto apartment photo: the bathroom. It was taken by moi, scrunched up in the shower stall; we didn't even have a bathtub, nor a ventilation fan, for that matter, and it always smelled like a locker room.

oldbathroom Though it's not finished, this is the only useable house bathroom, and this was just after we'd gotten the white cabinet under the sink!

newbathroom Not only does it have a bathtub and a ventilation fan, but we don't share a hot water tank with nine other households!

There's other perks as well - such as this fireplace:

fireplacetest The backyard is nice, too:

bigbackyard And did I mention the view?

luvsmist So, forever shall we say farewell to the ghetto apartment house. It served us well. Though living there was absolutely insane, we only had to pay $450 in rent, and you can't beat that for an apartment with a kitchen sink and a refrigerator.
` This is the actual outside of that ghetto house the day we moved out:

oldhouse And this is a photo of out new house on the same day. Yes, we have all of that space. Though it recently has been a crackhouse, it's still in liveable condition, especially now that we're fixing it up. (And have wisely boarded up our own second floor 'door to nowhere'.)

newhouse Oh, and one more cool photo; a train cutting through the mist!

traininmist ...Yes, that's our view - through a zoom lens! Did I mention how spectacular it is?