Our house

So I don't know if you know, but we really lucked out on the place we found here. I looked and looked and LOOKED for a reasonably priced apartment and couldn't find anything. I also don't know if you have searched for places to live in California for under $3,000, Yes you read that right, But it is practically impossible. I mean, you have to factor in a whole lot when searching for a place to live, and safety was top on my list, but so was rent. Safety is also not as easy as you might think. But for being the largest suburb in the metropolis, I'd say we got petty lucky as far as safety goes.

We had signed on an apartment, and not two minutes after we did, a friend found a listing for this place on craigslist. It was the SAME price as the dark apartment, with the tiny elevator and creepy murder movie hallway. I didn't believe that was really the price of rent. It was a steal! There was just no way!

We had spent the whole day hopping from one apartment to the next, and I was tired and done. But 

we went right over to look at it, and we were sold. I mean, anything was better than where we had just come from, haha. But I just knew this was as good as it was going to get here, and we needed to jump on it.

We had to make our decision right then, and we decided to go for it. We snatched it out from another couple with two kids, and felt badly about it, knowing that they would probably end up in the apartment with the murder movie hallway now. But we didn't feel badly enough to go somewhere else... I'm sure they found somewhere just fine. ...I hope...

The price of living here is outrageous! To score a place like this for the price that we did is amazing. I'm pretty sure the home had been vacant for quite some time, and wasn't well kept. It has old appliances and smells musty. But I like that musty smell... so I'm happy. It's very beautiful, and we are so thankful to God for leading us to such a nice home.

Now I've just been trying to make it a home. It's hard to make a home in a new place, but as we get more comfortable in the city and meet people, it's starting to get easier. My goal is to meet my neighbors. I think it's good to know your neighbors. And I think its especially good to know them when you share walls with them. Unless they are creepy. Then you should avoid eye contact and try not to do anything that would anger them.

So part of making this place home, is by decorating. Laying a rug, or two, or three, hanging pictures on the walls, clearing the boxes out of the house, and arranging the furniture. This is where I'm having some problems.

I have some projects I want to get done before baby comes. Like painting the TV stand, and setting up the computers somewhere that isn't in the middle of the living room. But the layout of this house is hard to work with. The living room is split. You walk in the front door, and you have 1/2 a room that I have made the more formal room, and then up some stairs is the other 1/2 of the room that I have turned in to the T.V. Room. One wall downstairs has a fire place, and one wall upstairs is one big mirror.

I'll post some pictures later. Here is a picture of the formal room for now.

I'm really not diggin' it. That couch? That piano? Where would you put everything?