A virtual tour of the unit....

This is not the exterior of my unit, but it is part of the same development. My unit is on the third floor, so if you look for the triangular section of the roof, and look below it, you'll see the balcony off the living room. The two sets of windows to the right are for the two bedrooms.

Here is my diagram of the condo I am buying:

5 rooms, 2 bedrooms, 2 full baths. The listing says that the unit is 1100 square feet. My estimate is that the unit is roughly 40 by 25 feet.

The long axis runs east-west, with the entrance on the west end of the unit. As you enter, the living room is to the right, with sliding doors leading to a small balcony. This area gets a lot of sun, as can be seen in the fading of the carpet. (All non-wet areas are carpeted in the same color: a medium dusty pink. It's actually quite pretty, although I think a medium variegated beige would be more practical. No matter. I'll live with the carpets, and when they need to be replaced, I'll put down wood flooring - which is the look I prefer, anyway.) The walls are painted off-white here as in the rest of the unit.

Back to the carpet... The two blobs of color are meant to give an idea of the color. Bear in mind that my color memory is not great when dealing with colors I've seen only for short periods of time. The color on the left is my best approximation of the color. Some monitors and browsers may not display this correctly, so the color on the right is a "simpler" version. It's too dark, but it's the best I can do at the moment. (Yes, I wish I had remembered my DMC floss chart on the day of the inspection!)
   

To the left of the entrance is the dining room. There's some stencilling high on the walls, near the ceiling. It isn't ivy, but it is a similar leafy sort of pattern. Since I don't have a suitable dining room table, I will probably end up using this area for Mystery Boxes and Other Artefacts of Moving, in the short term, at least! In the long term, this may well become a sort of library/den. Wall-to-wall bookshelves and a comfy chair - sounds promising. Or I may break down and get a real dining room table...

Further on to the left is the kitchen. One word: cabinets! Yes, this kitchen has plenty of cabinets. It also has a fridge with ice maker, a dishwasher (I've used one once in my life - this could get dangerous), and a gas stove with a hood. The cabinets form an L, with the refrigerator at one end of the L, the stove at the other end (more or less), and the sink set diagonally in the corner. There is a small window near the stove, opening to the dining room. There is an empty corner suitable for a table, which is probably where I will be eating my meals, since the dining room will be Mathom Central. The backsplash area has some interesting paintwork - the same sort of leafy stuff that's in the dining room, although it's more overall and random. There's also a apple stencilled on the wall near the fridge. There are two light switches. One is for a swag lamp over the dining corner, and the other controls the lights mounted on top of the cabinets. The plastic diffusers (don't know what else to call them) are discolored and cracked, but I should be able to replace them fairly easily.

Continuing east, the hall closet is to the right, followed by a second bedroom. The west wall of the bedroom is entirely closets. And, since the building is only about 12 years old, these are modern closets, where you can get to all the corners. There's a clock built into the wall above the door. The clock works are raised, and the "numbers" are dots (large pushpins?) on the wall itself. The clock seems a little tilted, but it also seems accurate. Since I will likely end up using this room as a home office (and guest bedroom), the clock will stay.

Opposite this bedroom is a full bath. Pretty standard. Some interesting paintwork, which looks as if a checkerboard-cut sponge was used. The switchplate is intact in this room. Most of the others were decorated and were taken by the seller when she left. (The one in here is decorated, but is cracked, which is probably why she left it.)

Also opposite this bedroom is the utility room. Washer, dryer, water heater, and gas furnace. The inspector gave me a flying overview of the system. Apparently, the stove, clothes dryer, water heater, and furnace are all gas powered. The realtor recommended that I get a contract to have someone come in regularly to clean the furnace and the air filters. I appreciate this advice, since I am admittedly clueless about these things. Besides, the main thought in my head when I look at that room is: I will be able to do laundry whenever I want! This thrills me.

Continuing onwards, we come to the master bedroom. Pretty empty. And pretty big. Some roses stencilled high on the walls.

Off the master bedroom are two doors. The first door is to a bathroom. Again, this bathroom is pretty standard. It isn't quite wide enough for a full bath, so it has a shower instead. The walls were sponged blue, so they look like a cloudy sky, and a rainbow is painted above the towel rack.

The second door leads to the walk-in closet. (Excuse me for a moment while I savor those words: "walk-in closet".... Mmmmm.....) In the ceiling of this closet is a trapdoor, leading to the attic. More storage space - I can't stand it!

In contrast, here is a diagram of my current apartment (same scale, same level of accuracy):

2 rooms, no bedrooms, 1 bath. Roughly 500 square feet. The long axis runs roughly east-west, with the entrance on the west end of the apartment. As you enter, you are in a hallway. There is a coat closet in the hallway - a weird triangular closet that can't handle a standard hanger even at its wide end.

Further to the left is the kitchen. No, my hand did not twitch when drawing this area - the kitchen really is this odd shape. And the fridge, sink, and stove really are squashed into one end. There is only one cabinet. It's about 4.5 feet long, and is above the sink. That's all!

The main room is bedroom, living room, computer room, et cetera.... Do I really need to go into detail?

Beyond the main room is a tiny hallway. The door to the left leads to the bathroom. The door to the right leads to a closet. The door in the center is sealed shut, and is a leftover from the days when this apartment and the one next door formed a larger suite.

I walked into the condo, and my first thought was "hmmm... I wasn't expecting the pink carpet...." I walked into the master bedroom and saw what it would look like with a bed that I don't yet own. I walked around, and all I could think was, "yeah.... this is it...."

So what if I don't know what I'll put in the dining room!

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