5 Things I’m Going to Miss and Not Miss About Our Apartment

As we get down to our final weeks living in our apartment, I’m battling mixed feelings of relief and nostalgia. This was the first home that Garrett and I shared together, and it’s full of so many great memories from the last three and a half years. As we get try to enjoy these final days before our next big adventure, I thought I’d share some of the things that I’m really going to miss about this place…and a few of those that I will not miss.

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I will miss the old neighbourhood.

We were lucky to find an apartment in an older historical neighbourhood and it was kind of a dream come true to be surrounding by these amazing well cared for homes. I’ll admit that we never really got into the community – partly because we didn’t think we would stay here even as long as we did – but it was still lovely to get to walk around and enjoy it.

Our walks and bike rides were always full of tours around big beautiful older homes. It’s funny to look at them now and try to figure out how we want to make things work at our own century home.

I always looked forward to walking to the weekly Saturday morning farmers market and coming back with bags overflowing with local produce.

We lived right by the big community park, which meant there was always something going on, whether it was music in the park, an outdoor movie night, a big baseball game or a jazz festival. On some summer nights we’d sometimes hear music playing in the distance, and just leash up the dogs, grab a blanket and walk over to see what was going on.

I will not miss the traffic.

Ironically enough, this apartment in a quiet suburb town had way more traffic going on than my busy apartment in Little Italy, Toronto. The guy across the street (we call him “the hero”) always flies out of his driveway into traffic like its the start of the Indy 500. For about a year, every night around 11pm there was someone who drove by and honked at a house nearby. We made up lots of stories for this scenario – a scorned lover? a rogue squirrel who jumps out in front of cars at the exact same time every night. The mystery continues…

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I will miss the charm of this old house.

Our apartment definitely had it’s quirks, but we loved all the little snippets of character, from the thick crown molding to the big windows. It had so much natural light!

The dining room was formerly the second storey balcony, which you can see from the super thick exterior wall between the kitchen and dining room.

I still think my favourite thing in the house are the old doorknobs and keyhole plates. (and maybe the front hall light fixture)

I will not miss the uneven floors and wonky ceilings.

Every floor in our apartment has something weird going on. The dining room tilts towards the windows (so if you spill something in the kitchen, you have to chase it downhill), you have to step up to the bathroom (where Garrett hits his head on the door frame) and there are little random raised pieces of floor from the duct work (which I stub my toes on). Even the bedroom has a random drop ceiling. It’s an old house that has been broken up and pieced together over time, so it’s bound to have some weird configurations going on, but there are still so many of them that make us shake our heads. (Why did they do it this way??)

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I will miss our good neighbours.

We’ve been really lucky to have some pretty great neighbours. Just last week the couple who lived by the parking lot moved out and it was sad to see them go too. They always kept an eye on our cars or offered us a hand.

I remember one time I decided to check something under my car after I parked it and a minute later the big burly husband was standing over me to see if I was okay. He thought I had fainted when I’d just disappeared. Oops!

Our neighbours downstairs are Rick and Reta,  the really sweet couple who gave us the lovely painting in our front hall as a wedding gift. We’re having them over for dinner this week for a proper send off. I’ll miss our little chats on the front steps and catching up over tea.

I will not miss the partiers. 

About a year ago (feels like forever), a bunch of young guys moved into the unit that shares a wall with our bathroom and bedroom. It turns out that one of them is an aspiring DJ and likes to test out his new beats at home…around the clock. It was like a rave every night in the bathroom while brushing your teeth and we’d fall asleep to the lovely sound of bro-fights and techno music. It wasn’t uncommon for Garrett to wake up for work at 4am on a Monday and hear them still partying. It took many calls to the landlords, by-law officers and even the police before they started to be more respectful of everyone in the building. This clip from Neighbors, is exactly how we felt at the beginning of this whole saga.

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I will miss how cozy it was.

It didn’t matter where we were in the apartment, we were always less than ten feet away from each other. That meant that we had to learn very quickly to deal with our problems and move on because there was nowhere else to go.

It also means that we actually enjoy being near each other so that I can cook dinner while Garrett reads something online. Or he can watch TV while I’m only a few feet away blogging in my little office. It will be weird to be in a big house with so much space to ourselves. I keep joking that we’ll still follow each other around the house like we’re used to.
I will not miss renting.

Renting an apartment was the right thing for us to do for a very long time, but now the idea that our money will be going towards our own house and not into someone else’s pocket every month feels really good.

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I will miss having someone else do the maintenance.

I have to admit it has been nice to have someone else do the snow removal, lawn cutting and repairs. They’re all things that we’re more than happy to take on (and with almost an acre of land, we better get used to it), but it was nice to have someone else do that for awhile.

And if the racoons got into the garbage (again)…not my problem.

I will not miss our wonky appliances (or lack there of).

As with many apartments, our appliances are all the cheapest models will no bells and whistles (I never realized how much of a luxury an oven light is). Most of these little quirks on things that we could get around like the brand new stove that doesn’t get to the temperature it says it will (always have to make it a little higher), the baseboard heaters cutting out (including a small yet scary electrical fire), the super sensitive smoke detectors that make me sound like a bad cook and the internet that turns off for about 10 minutes at exactly 8:20PM every.single.night. I have to laugh that some of the things we’re looking forward to the most with the house are a dishwasher and washer and dryer. It will be a dream come true – ha!

I just remembered the time Whiskey knocked a blanket on the baseboard heater and tried to kill us. So long crazy heaters!

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All joking aside, there will be lots that I miss about our cozy little apartment, but I’m excited to pass the torch onto another young couple as we pack up for our new home (which I’m sure will be full of it’s own quirks!)