Home sweet home...to be

Obviously, our househunting trip was to find (and I quote) "suitable and affordable housing." We spent the first week driving around neighborhoods trying to figure out where we wanted to live. Our thoughts on the 'hoods:

La Jolla - Absolutely beautiful and full of very very very wealthy people. We saw a Bugatti Varon being driven. A Varon! That's a $2,000,000 car, people! We liked La Jolla but didn't like what we could afford, or the obscenely high taxes to pay for their (excellent) school system.

Pacific Beach - We found an apartment on the beach that we absolutely loved. Unfortunately, the management company was going to be too much of a PIA, so we passed. We looked elsewhere in PB but I wouldn't have felt safe walking from the beach. So, no go.

Hillcrest - A bunch of people recommended Hillcrest since it's like the Dupont of SD. We found a very cool apartment right next to Trader Joes (I LOVE TJs) and Ralphs. We thought it was a fun area but we questioned if we'd have any place to hang out. The restaurants were great but the bars were...not.

Little Italy - Little Italy is full of great apartments and condos. Unfortunately, it is also one short street of Italian restaurants and a British pub. Not quite lively enough.

Gaslamp - Fun, busy, full of restaurants and bars. We had problems finding two bedrooms with two parking spots, under $3500/month. For that sort of money, I want to be paying a mortgage.

East Village - Finally, we found a place called home. We're literally next door to Petco (see below). Since we're on the other side of Petco we're technically "East Village" instead of Gaslamp. We like that our building is brand new (it was built as condos but they're renting out the last ones), it has two parking spots, and the amenities are fabulous. Oh oh, and there is a bulldog in the building named Peaches. :) All in all, I think we made the right decision.


The lobby


Front door and kitchen


The new kitchen. Not crazy about the granite color, but hey, it's a rental.


Living room, door to master BR, and part of the walk-out balcony.


The view out the living room windows.


Left view out the balcony.


Center view. (The big pond is the building site for the new library. We like to call it "Lake San Diego.")


View right. If you look really hard, you can see Coronado's bridge and the bay.


Master BR with the smallest closet. That God there are tons of closets in other rooms.


Master BR window views.


Guest BR. Luckily it has a huge closet. Guess where my shoes are going to live??


We hear the next door neighbors can be a bit loud, especially on weekends. We'll see how they do. Go Padres!