my life » apartment

My final answer

Devon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:06:01 +0000

Amidst the festivities of my friend’s wedding, I met up with two of my friend’s former roommates — as it turned out, they had an opening at their place for the fall, and while it won’t be quite as nice in terms of living standards as Timpanogos Gateway, it should be a lot of fun living with guys who … continue reading: My final answer

Apartment choices

Devon — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:18:09 +0000

Well, I looked at another apartment yesterday, and it looks like I have three choices:

Move into the apartment I viewed yesterday as soon as possible
Take a temporary apartment for the remainder of the summer and then take up a more permanent residence somewhere else
Live with relatives and or friends for the remainder of the summer and then take up a permanent residence in the fall

As of this moment, my three apartment choices are as follows:

Private room in Timpanogos Gateway
- Pros:
  - Apartment is in top condition, with new appliances, leather furniture, and even ceiling fans
  - Reserved parking spots for all occupants
  - Shared green area
  - Closer to work and the football stadium
  - Large bedroom with a view of Timpanogos
- Cons:
  - The ward is comprised of older guys — at 24, I’ll be one of the younger ones. Which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but is still a little weird.
  - Location and distance from campus — I’ll be coming straight from work to class most days, so I’ll just be parking by the Marriott Center anyway, but walking to campus will no longer be an option.
  - No covered parking, so winter will involve some regular scraping/brushing/shoveling
  - No bike racks
Private room in Promenade
- Pros:
  - Fantastic ward
  - Close to campus and Condo Row
  - Sufficient parking, including two reserved covered spots
- Cons:
  - Small bedroom
  - Very small kitchen
  - Cramped living area
  - Not available until fall
Shared room in Jamestown
- Pros:
  - Fantastic ward
  - Close to campus (and on Condo Row)
  - Extremely social environment
- Cons:
  - Only one parking spot per apartment — that means parking on the street most of the time
  - Not available until fall

Moved (my stuff, not my blog)

Devon — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 05:22:47 +0000

It is done.

After a few false starts and failed negotiations, both of my apartments sold within days of each other, which led to a brief sense of homelessness, but it will be nice to have the freedom to choose where I want to live. I’ve looked at a few places already, but none have been extremely promising. Either the roommates are too sedentary, parking is overly inconvenient, or the apartment is simply in disrepair. I’m optimistic about a showing I have scheduled for Saturday morning — the apartment is actually owned by one of the students who will be living there in the fall. There isn’t any covered parking, which will be extremely annoying in the winter, and the apartment is on the third floor (not that I’m scared of a few stairs, especially considering I’ll be driving to campus from work each day anyway), which may get a little old. What I’m really interested to see is the ward/social environment. No matter how nice the apartment is, if it’s going to be the same as my previous ward, then there would be little sense in repeating the same blunder.

Emigration

Devon — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:54:37 +0000

Why, you may ask, was this post published at 2:54am? That, my good friend, is a reasonable question, the answer to which is fairly simple: both of my contracts sold early this week, and now I need to vacate my current apartment by Thursday.

I have no idea where I’ll be living come Thursday evening, other than that it won’t be here. Fortunately, I secured a UPS box on Monday and already transferred over the majority of my accounts, so that’s at least one less thing to worry about. Most of my stuff is already in a storage unit, so there shouldn’t be too much to do tomorrow later today.

Apartment — fail

Devon — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:27:24 +0000

What would be my bed

Yeah, doesn’t look like I’ll be taking that contract after all. This kid needs a maid, not … continue reading: Apartment — fail

New apartment

Devon — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:52:11 +0000

Well, I’ve signed a contract for a spot up on condo row — which means that at the moment, I have two apartments for the next 12 months. Now I obviously don’t intend to keep both of those apartments, but I also don’t have any immediate plans to completely vacate my current apartment. Why? For starters, the three guys I’ll be moving in with are complete strangers, and if I find out that they’re completely unbearable, I’m going to want to have another option. Secondly, I have a ton of stuff. Loads and loads. Which fits comfortably into my private bedroom in my current 1,850 sq. ft. townhouse, but not so much into my new shared bedroom in a 1,000 sq. ft. single floor apartment.

I went over today to take some measurements for some storage furniture (the desk is really nice — just not the right size for someone who’s 6’2″), only to find that my new roomie had his dirty clothes strewn all over the room. Not a good sign, but hopefully just the result of having the room to himself. We shall see. You can bet that one of us will be leaving if such a behavior proves to be a habit. Not that I’m a neat freak myself, but I at least contain my mess to my own circle of influence.

Four weddings

Devon — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:27:52 +0000

In the past week alone, I’ve received four wedding invitations/announcements, which sets a new personal record for the number received in a single week. Three of those four were from mission friends/companions, while one was for my cousin’s wedding later this month.

On the topic of the social life here at BYU, I haven’t yet decided if I want to stay in the same ward next fall. I’ve signed a contract at Mt. Vista after successfully negotiating myself out of a rent increase, but one of the guys who I was hoping would move in wasn’t able to come up with the deposit in time. Because our apartment complex is at the very edge of our ward boundaries, the social scene is pretty quiet. Since it doesn’t look like I’ll be having a sociable roommate (my current ones are great, don’t get me wrong, they’re just somewhat antisocial), I may want to find a different complex where there’s a bit more going on in that aspect. The problem is, at 24, I’m hesitant to move into a ward where the average age is 21 or 22. My current ward, while geographically abstruse, is wonderful in the fact that the average age (for males) is 24-25. Plus there’s the economic factor. I could afford a nicer apartment, but those complexes typically cater to a more, dare I say, snobbish clique. It would be foolish to move to a new ward/complex in hopes of a better social scene with the foreknowledge that I would have little in common with the majority of the ward. It’s my personal belief that relationships usually have a better chance of success when the two parties have similar socioeconomic backgrounds.

To summarize, were I to look for a new apartment and ward, these would be my criteria:

Social roommates. Not party roommates, just social ones.
A nice apartment. I don’t care how nice the roommates are if the place is a dump. I do have to live there, even if only on nights and weekends.
An older ward. Sorry, but I have to admit that in most cases maturity is directly correlated with age.
Peers from middle to upper middle class families. I’m not trying to hate on either end of the spectrum, there are some amazing people who don’t fit inside that range, but if your dad bought you a car that’s worth as much as my first house will be, something is wrong.
Within walking distance to campus. Even if I never have to walk to campus again, it’d be nice to be close enough that I could do so should the need arise.

Back to Provo

Devon — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:50:43 +0000

The air in Oklahoma really is a whole lot cleaner. Flying in to Salt Lake, it was startling to see how bad the smoke and smog was. Made me grateful for all of those Oklahoma windstorms.

With the new semester looming on the horizon, my roommates and I have been giving our apartment a thorough cleaning. While our apartment was fairly clean to begin with, there was still a whole lot of junk left over from previous tenants. Once (if) it’s completely clean, we’ll be able to a bit of interior decorating and make the place at least somewhat presentable.

My sister got back from an LDS Church mission to South Korea two weeks ago today – she’s doing a great job at adjusting to normal life. I went with her and her roommate to IKEA yesterday to purchase a few items they were missing for their apartment. I picked up a couple dozen glasses to reduce the frequency of dishwasher runs in my own apartment and a few other odd items like some rolls of shelf protector material and a thing to store/recycle plastic shopping bags.

My classes this semester look pretty intense, but it’s too early to say how bad (or good) they’ll really be. I purchased a laptop for my CS classes, so that should help me reduce the time I have to spend in the basement of the CS department. Which can only be a good thing.

Lastly, my dad let me borrow his road bike, so I have it out here in Provo now. It’s a classic Motobecane Grand Touring model, so it’s been interesting trying to retrofit accessories to fit the frame, but it should give me a chance to get some nice rides in before the winter sets in.

Window screens finally installed

Devon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:57:48 +0000

Solar Window Screens, West

Solar Window Screens, South

Now that summer is almost over, I finally managed to install the solar window screens that our apartment has so badly needed. Besides making the apartment look a whole lot better from the outside (our windows were pretty darn nasty and our landlords wouldn’t do anything about it), having them installed meant that I could finally put away all of the supplies and tools that I’ve used to assemble and install them.