How we found our apartment
our living space
It was one month into the lockdown and I was staying at Collin’s apartment in San Clemente, I only had a few of my personal belongings: toiletries, a few work outfits (although workout clothes quickly became the norm in the WFH era) and my workout gear: a yoga mat, free weights and ankle weights for my evening walks, a must have while gyms were closed. Although I could fit these few essentials into his apartment, I knew there was NO WAY we could combine our lives and fit comfortably in that apartment without killing each other. So, as his lease was ending near, we decided to start the apartment hunt.
At the time, I was working in Irvine and Collin was working in Cerritos, we both had solid treks to work and with the beaches closed, aka no surfing, it didn’t make sense for us to be all the way south in San Clemente anymore. So we determined that Irvine was a good central location for us both.
We each started to look on Zillow in our free time and made a list of our top options. From there, we weighed the pros and cons and scheduled tours for the ones that made it to the top of our lists. On our first day of tours, we found one that we thought was perfect for us, plenty of outdoor space and a good amount of natural light. We were so excited and decided to submit the application the next day only to find out that someone had already beat us to it!
So, the search continued and we knew that the next one we liked, we would need to jump on it. Collin really wanted to tour this one apartment home complex that had not so impressive photos and naturally, I was like “ew no”, but he convinced me to at least give it a try. Fine.
We toured the newly renovated model which was on the 2nd floor and the amount of natural light really impressed me, however, the kitchen was long, narrow and closed off and the thought of bringing an entire U-Haul truck of items upstairs was dreadful. Our guide, Rafiki, as we nicknamed him, mentioned that he did have a non-upgraded one bedroom on the first floor and asked us if we wanted to check it out. Yes, we sure did.
I instantly fell in love with the layout of the non-renovated model, it had an open entryway and kitchen, which was my main bone to pick with the renovated model. The amount of natural light was just as impressive and then we saw the patio, the first floor had much larger patios than the balcony on the 2nd floor, it was perfect! We were totally sold until I saw the lack of counter space in the bathroom…ladies, I know y’all can relate to the need for counter space in the bathroom.
So, we had a few more tours that afternoon and as we were sitting in the car waiting for the next one, we decided to submit our application for this apartment, we both had a good feeling about it and all of the pros outweighed the lack of bathroom counter space con.
We were so excited when we found out that the apartment was ours! We moved in on May 16th, 2020 and today, as I write this blog, marks 2 years of our western bungalow. We’ve worked hard to curate a space that’s a reflection of us and our favorite places. I’m a strong believer that your home should be your sanctuary: a place where you can come home from the craziness in this world to unwind and feel at peace. While we love our apartment, we can’t say the same about living in Irvine…but that’s a story for another time.