Oops?

Some people celebrate Gay Pride, and others choose to transport a stove.

We picked up a stove that we found on Craig's List today. Luckily it wasn't too far from us, so Erik rented a dolly and we wheeled it home. Our route took us across Boulevard Montparnasse and straight through the parade.

Doesn't he look too happy to be wheeling a major appliance down the street?


Looking up our street from Montparnasse. It was deserted because of the parade, and we had fun walking down the middle of our usually busy street.

Our new gas stove is now living in our bedroom, where we surprisingly found room for it beside the desk.

In other news, we went back to the apartment today so that Erik could get a better look at the fuse box, and so that we could start making a plan for all the electrical work that needs to be done. It's the one major thing that really needs to be done before we move in. Erik was happy to find that there was a ground wire coming into the apartment in the electrical box (none of the outlets are currently grounded), apparently that will make things easier once the work begins. We stopped into Conforama on our way down to the metro, and found a good deal on an undercounter fridge and freezer. They were both on sale (it's the Soldes!), and with the very generous gift card I received from one of the classes at school the price was right, so I think they're next in line to be bought. Only problem is where to store them...

The agent was telling us a bit about our new neighbourhood, and apparently we have the second best croissant bakery (there is actually an award) and a couple of award winning charcuterie stores in our neighbourhood. This means that anyone who is interested in a 'working' holiday in Paris will be well fed. :)

So we signed....

....on the dotted line.

On September 18, if all goes well, we will be proud apartment owners!

The rez de chaussee apartment....

Offer made, negotiated, accepted.

Now the fun begins....

We Went Back...

And we took lots of pictures! Please enjoy the wallpaper.

Outside the building, main entry from the courtyard. The two windows to the left of the door are the kitchen and bedroom.


The street side of the apartment, the living room window. Quite picturesque, isn't it? :)



Entry (the bedroom is just to the right of the mirror)



Living room, facing onto the street


Kitchen entry, with a closet opposite the bookshelf



Kitchen facing onto the courtyard


The beautiful bathroom (the toilet is in a separate room right beside the tub room). You can't really fully appreciate the beauty of the wallpaper from this picture.


View from the bedroom and kitchen.

I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of the bedroom! I took one of the view, and one of the crack on the wall, but that's it!


Here are the two big cracks on the walls. The left is in the bedroom, and right in the living room.

Afterwards we went and looked at another place. Smaller at 38m2, and 20 000euros less expensive, but on the second floor of an older building (1930). Large separate kitchen, tiny bathroom (much smaller than what we currently have), chair rail and ceiling moldings in the living room. Electric heat, all the rooms overlook the courtyard which is opposite a school. Clean and in excellent condition, nothing needs to be done. Really, it was perfect, if a bit small. We also thought it might have better resale value than a groundfloor apartment. In the end, we couldn't decide which we preferred, there were pros and cons for both of them. So, we've just made offers on both. Hopefully that will take care of things for us.

The hunt continues...

We looked at some more apartments this afternoon (sorry, no pictures), and one of them was a real winner. The price was right, and it was in a new building (1970) being sold by the original owner. It was in great shape, and was a lot like stepping into a time machine, in that it had pretty much been preserved in it's original state, with floor to ceiling wallpaper in every room (even the ceiling was papered in the bathroom!), and I'll let you imagine what lovely patterns the wallpaper was. Just imagine shiny....

The kitchen, bathroom (comes complete with bidet!) and electrical need to be updated, which is what we want to do, it has a good sized storage space in the basement, has double exposure onto the street and courtyard, has central heating, has a great layout with a big entry way, and it's big!! Almost 50 square meters.

The only thing that's stopping us from making an offer right this second is that it's rez de chaussee, or street level. The bedroom and kitchen open up onto the (very nice and flowery) courtyard, and the main room opens up onto a very quiet street facing an elementary school. All the windows have lockable shutters, but I don't know, how to you get around not being able to sleep with the windows open in the summer? Or just the fact that during the day, anyone can essentially stick their head into your living room as they walk down the street....

What would you do? For more reference, the apartment that I talked about in the previous post that we really wanted has been sold, so we're moving on, to hopefully bigger and better things. If this apartment were on any other floor, I think we would have already made an offer.

Apartment Hunting

For anyone who is interested, here are some pictures, and information about our apartment hunt. We're looking to buy something, along the line 6 of the metro, likely in the 13th arrondissement. With our budget in that area, we're looking at two or three 'rooms' (pieces), around 40 square meters total size, about 5 more than we currently have.

Apt #1: 3 rooms, 40 m2, first floor in a three floor 1920s building (that's the second for all you North Americans), two windows looking out onto the street, three or four looking onto the courtyard. Needs work. Also, our favorite. And, the pictures make it look a lot nicer!

Living room

First bedroom, we'd probably use it as an office/guest room. There's also a closet behind the door on the right that was once a toilet, and another larger storage space around the corner on the left.

The third room, with water hook ups hidden in that slanted wall thingy. We'd like to eventually move at least the shower into this room, and make the kitchen bigger (kitchen and bathroom are currently next to one another)

Kitchen-we'd like to open up the walls here and make it an American style or open kitchen.

Bathroom--the only room in the house that had been recently updated.

This place needs to fixed up. The floors are covered in old linoleum, and the walls have a gross textured wallpaper on them. The windows would eventually need to be updated (double panes), and it has electric heat (but a gas stove!!) It also was originally two apartments, which is why there are plumbing fixtures in the farthest room, which is good news for us. Best of all, this place felt huge! Having the second bedroom made it seem a lot more spacious. The location is great, and well, we just both fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.

Apt. #2- 2 pieces, 42 m2, ground floor, 1960s building, in good condition, not requiring any immediate work. Over looking a park, radiant hot water heating in the floors.

Kitchen


Living area


Bedroom


Bathroom. Toilet was in a separate room.

Don't have too much to say about this place. It was about the same price as the first, but was nothing special. It also seemed smaller.

So there you go. Hopefully we'll see some more places next weekend, but we really can't stop thinking about that first place.

For Deb...

...and anyone else who likes strawberry desserts.

Here is the recipe for the Strawberry Mascarpone Tart that I made for dessert while Mom and Deb were visiting.

And this is the crust recipe that I used.

Enjoy!