For the past 2 years, I have been lucky to help a wide range of people find a new place to call home. Through the countless number of clients I have worked with, it has become apparent to me that a lot of people don’t know what they are looking for in a new apartment! The issue with not being prepared is that you might end up making the wrong decision that affects the next 12 months of your life. This isn’t necessarily the end of the world, but it can be annoying on a day-to-day basis. Here is my list that EVERYONE should consider when apartment hunting:
10 Tips for Apartment Hunting:
1. Determine what YOU can afford and break it down. Look at what you can afford for your overall Living Cost (Rent, Parking, Utilities, Cable and internet, etc). Your budget needs to match what you are looking at. You wouldn’t look at leasing a BMW for $600 a month if you can only afford $175. It’s the cold truth! It is a good rule of thumb that a household’s monthly income should be at least 3 times the monthly rent (just rent). I.E. If your income is $3,000/month, you should be looking at places $1,000/month.
2. Compare your current place and other places you have lived. What do you like about those places? Also, what did you NOT like about them? This type of retrospective thinking will help you verbalize what you are ideally looking for. I lived in one place with a MICRO kitchen and ever since then, it has been important to me.
3. Make a list of features or specifications that you want in your new place. This might include features of the apartment, the building, or the area. An example would be, you don’t want to look at a place that is far away from your work place if you want to walk to work. Here’s a few examples of possible items on your list:
- Underground Heated Parking
- Windows in the Bedroom (not required in apartments)
- Lots of Closet Space
- Budget Friendly
- Modern Kitchen
- Designated Dining Room
- Large Living Room
- Office/Den Space
- Carpet
- Washer/Dryer
- Reliable Management or Maintenance
- Bath Tub
- Pet Friendly
- Patio or Balcony
- Master Suite
- Close to Transportation
- Swimming Pool
- Fitness Center
- Sauna
- Cool Clubroom
- Public Outdoor Space
- Walkable to Work
- Walkable to Entertainment
4. Make a list of what you DO NOT want. Your list might possibly be the opposite of some of the features that are listed above. It just depends on what YOU want
5. Put your lists that you have created in order of importance. If your budget is flexible and you really really want a Master Suite that should be indicated on your list. You need to know what you want instead of just going on gut feeling.
6. Look all over the Internet for information on specific buildings. You will want to look for a property website, management company, apartment search sites, reviews etc.
7. Look at the reviews. Now obviously these might not all be completely accurate and most people go on review sites to rant about a negative experience. When you tour the building, ask the sales rep about something you saw so they can address it to you.
8. Schedule a tour. You probably don’t like it when people just walk into your office and ask you to drop what you are doing to help them, so be considerate and do the same! This also gives the sales team time to prepare some information for you.
9. Ask what the Resident is responsible for paying! Some buildings might cover heat and cable, while others might not cover any utilities. This should be a factor in the living costs, which is why you should break down what YOU can afford!
10. Don’t be afraid to “hold” an apartment with a deposit. Make sure that you ask about the holding policy! If it isn’t too expensive for you to hold an apartment off the market while you are looking around, DO IT! You can’t always expect an apartment to still be available when you call back a week or two later.
These are obviously just a few tips that are based on experience as both a professional and an apartment hunter. Looking for more features to think about on your next place? Just ask me! I could probably add about 20 more items to think about! If you have any other tips that you used when looking for a new place, leave a comment below! It’s always great to hear others opinions or life experiences!
It’s been a while since I posted (again)…… Because the KLKH household has been very busy!!
The Car Accident
David got in a car accident the week before Thanksgiving! He didn’t completely total his car, but let’s just say, that thing shouldn’t be on the road. He had to deal with the insurance company for the car that he hit and all those kind of problems. David shopped around for a bit and ended up finding a Mazda 3 in this Spicy Red color- It’s great- heated and power seats, bluetooth, Pretty buttons, and leather seats– UPGRADE from his car he has had since he was 16!
The Break In
David and I went down to Lake Bluff to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family this year, and on the way down we stopped by Appleton, WI to pick up my brother from school. On the way down, I started to feel a little sick while driving and unfortunately it did not go away like I expected and it got progressively worse throughout our visit.
Our Thanksgiving was nice with just my close family around our Dining Room table – I don’t get to see my family much so this really meant a lot to me. Later on that evening, my Grandma revealed that after going to the Doctor earlier that week, she had been diagnosed with a very minor type of Breast Cancer (everything is good now thankfully!)
Then Sunday rolled around, we were about to go watch the Bears destroy the Vikings, and we got a call from Mark and Jessica- Our house had been robbed! David made a few phone calls before we could hop in the car for the long “beautiful” 6 hour car ride back to Minneapolis. Once we were in the car, don’t worry there were 4 accidents making sure we couldn’t get home any faster!
The gracious and wonderful people who entered our home without our permission were at least somewhat “respectful”- or at least as respectful as you could be when breaking into someone else’s home. Here’s a quick list of what they “borrowed without returning”:
- Our huge Living Room awesome TV- David’s first big purchase once he got his job after college
- Jess and David’s work computers
- David and I’s Dell Laptops from college (jokes on them, they don’t work!!)
- XBox
- Tiffany’s Necklace
- BRAND NEW Ugg boots (RUDE!!)
- Our fireplace remote- HOW DO I TURN ON MY FIREPLACE??!
- A few other random things
The crazy part is that we have 3 other flat screen TV’s, TONS of expensive liquor, and other things they could have taken. We are lucky that they didn’t go through the place with a baseball bat and destroy everything!!! Here’s a pic of the missing TV:
I’m glad they didn’t break my Butler poster!!!
These hooligans did break through our front door and that was a pain in the tush to get back together!! Here’s a picture of what it looked like for about a week:
This is a HUGE piece of plywood on front of our front door
The next weekend, we were able to get a new door installed and then we decorated our house to make it a Christmas Haven (I’ll put up another post of our winter wonderland!)
The Towing
This past Sunday, we went to Bears/Vikings game here in Minneapolis and had an AMAZING time (it was just so much fun with all the snow!!!) Here’s a quick pic to show how much fun we were having:
David and I about to go into the Vikings Game– SO MUCH SNOW!!!
Craig and Erin were supposed to leave right after the game….. But they couldn’t get out of the parking spot because of all the snow! So they came and bar hopped with us. When we finally decided to make it home, cabs were trying to charge us $35-$80!!! Sorry sir, but that’s ridiculous! We ended up finding a nice cab driver and made it home….. to find our cars looking like this:
Are there cars underneath all that snow?!?!
David woke up around 4 am to check on the cars and how much snow is on them, and all 3 of our cars were gone.
Later on that morning (aka a normal time to wake up) We weren’t sure what time the plowing company was going to come by to clean our driveway, so David and Mark decided to take the laundry baskets to clean a path. It took us over 2 hours to go to the impound lot and get our cars and poor David bought his car not even 24 hours before!! We then all had to play $180 dollars….. URGH awesome to have this happen during the Present Giving Time of the year!
After all the time of waiting in the line, this is what we come out to:
This is David’s new car— all covered in snow 😦
SO MUCH SNOW!!
Once we made it home…… After all the events from the weekend….. David and I took a 3 hour coma nap!!!
All-in-All, we are lucky that our health is good, we are surrounded by supportive and loving family and friends, and we have Manny! But we are crossing our fingers that nothing else eventful happens in 2012- we are OK with having a relaxing next few weeks!
I have been very negligent on my postings recently- sorry! Here’s a craft that I have been working on since roughly March (about 7 months) but I am so glad that it is finally complete! And it looks great!!!
My whole craft stemmed from Pinterest…. Surprise, surprise!
Here’s a pic of the final result created after what feels like a lifetime of working on it:
7 months later….
So I saw this pin:
which is from the Girl Inspired blog ( http://www.thegirlinspired.com/2011/07/instant-gratification-canvas-photo-diy.html). SO I thought “Hmmmm, what can I do with this?” I am a HUGE Dave Matthews Band fan, and thus “our song” is You and Me by Dave Matthews Band (if you haven’t heard it, you should!) and I figured this would be really cool to do a quote and a picture on canvas!
I went to the store and purchased the products recommended by this website (all listed below).
Here’s how I went about this project (I apologize for my first few steps I don’t have any pictures. I wasn’t planning on making a blog post about this and MAN I wish I had taken some pictures!)
Prep Work:
Step 1: Find a picture that you like. David and I went to the DMB Caravan in Chicago Summer 2011 and have an AMAZING picture of us in front of this HUGE sign. DONE- I’m crafting it!
Step 2: Figure out what size you are going to want it. Where are you going to put it? Hang it or have it laying against something? I wanted something LARGE that made a statement. I went to Michaels to see what size canvases are available BEFORE setting my sights on an unrealistic size.
Step 3: Go to Michaels/craft store and buy these items:
Here are the items from Michaels, except the scrapbook paper and canvas
1. Background Paint- Americana Camel Acrylic Paint
2. Frame Paint (I did a dark with a metallic top layer) – FolkArt 944 Nutmeg (base) 2842 Metallic Royal Gold (top coat) Acrylic Paint
3. Matte Modge Podge
4. 2 in Larger Sponge Brushes
5. 1 in Smaller Sponge Brush
6. Scrapbooking Paper- Any color you want! I purchased 3 sheets and I believe I had leftovers.
7. Smaller Painting Brush- this is for the letters
8. Paint for the letters- Liquitex Acrylic Color Basics Bright Aqua Green (YOU DON’T NEED A HUGE BOTTLE LIKE I BOUGHT- BUY A SMALLER BOTTLE!!!)
9. 3 Canvases (I went with the same size, but it depends on what you are creating)
I found these pictures when I was figuring out sizes :
These look good but it isn’t what I am going for!
This is the paper I went with:
This print was perfect for my project!
Step 4: Size the picture you want on the computer. You can ANY photo editing device you want! I went with (3) 11 x 24 in canvas so that is the size picture I made. You could probably also make it a little bigger if you wanted to wrap around the edges.
Step 5: Go to Staples/Office Max/Office Depot/Kinkos etc. Anywhere you can print something large. I decided to go to Office Depot and print my picture out on regular Matte Paper. I liked this option so it wasn’t so shiny, it has that “natural canvas look”.
Step 6: While you are at this place, pick up Sticker Paper! You will use this for the letters on the canvas.
Sticker Paper from Staples- This works PERFECTLY!!!!!
Craft Time Part 1:
Painting the Canvas and Picture
Step 7: Now it’s time to start the craft! I first measured the sides of the canvas and then cut the scrapbook paper into strips. For the 3 canvas I had 18 strips ( the long sides needed 2 strips).
Step 8: Modge Podge the strips onto the sides of all 3 canvas. Use 1 of the 2 larger sponge brushes you have. This is a messy, sticky job so make sure you are on a surface you can easily clean or put down wax paper! Let them dry for a long time (I put on ALOT of Modge Podge)
Step 9: Time to Put the picture on canvas!!! Once again do it the same way that you Modge Podged the scrapbook paper on the sides. The picture will look milky- DON’T WORRY!!! It will dry clear.
Here’s a picture (MUCH after it was dried) to show the side of the photo:
See how the scrapbook paper just adds a subtle detail and then the painted frame hides any flaws!!
Step 10: While the picture is drying, Paint the other 2 canvases a background color with the other large sponge brush. I decided to go with a tan color because it complimented the background of the picture.
Step 11: Once everything is dry, it’s time to create the border. I did a larger border, There was a weird gap between the canvas and the scrapbook paper on the sides. I started with the small sponge brush and took a mocha brown color and put a natural border around all 3 canvases with an extra detail in the corners.
Step 12: Once this was dry, I added a top coat of a metallic gold to give it more pizzazz.
This is what it finally looked like:
This sat on our walls from March until November- David was not too happy about it
Craft Time Part 2:
Fast forward about 5 months and I finally get to adding the quotes on the canvas. I had a hard time trying to figure out how to get the words on the canvas. Did I want to just print them and stick them on? Did I want to try and write them in and then paint? I have pretty bad hand writing so that wasn’t an option. So I’m sitting around one night with my boyfriend’s sister Susan, his mom Kathy, and his brothers girlfriend Jessica- I tell them about this craft that I started and how I’m stuck trying to figure out how to fix this problem. All three of these ladies are MUCH craftier than I am (mega jealous) and recommended using this Cricut machine that they use for scrapbooking. Susan has a Cricut so a few weeks later I go over to her house and she helps me with this task (and I got to play with Lily, the cutest 3 year old alive.)
For what I was looking for, it made sense to print each line out on a piece of paper, save the actual letters themselves, but use the background paper as a stencil. This might not make sense, so scroll down and look at some of the pictures and it will- I promise!
Step 13: Use Microsoft Office to create a template of what you want the canvases to look like:
I put the page orientation in Landscape (11 inches long) and then played with spacing and fonts to get a general idea of what it will look like
Step 13: The Cricut has different cartridges for different fonts. Obviously from my Microsoft template, I wanted a bolder font. So Susan and I looked through the ones she had to find one that will work. We decided on the Alphalicious font.
This is what a Cricut Machine looks like
Sorry for the Blurry Picture!
Step 14: Choose a font size. I decided on around 2 inches (I did a few different sizes depending on what the words were). Print a few different sizes and see what fits on the page landscape wise and what needs to be altered. I RECOMMEND WORKING WITH AN EXPERIENCED CRICUT USER. I would have had no idea what I was doing!
Step 15: Save each line in a separate envelop with the cut out letters and the little spaces (like the inside of an “a”). Write on the outside the size and which words are in the envelop to keep organized.
Step 16: Paperclip together the stencils themselves. I paperclipped them by canvas.
Step 17: Time to put the new stencils onto the canvases. I was nervous the sticky paper would rip off the paint on the canvas, but thankfully it didn’t! Play around with the spacing between the ends, each lines etc. This is where you will be glad you kept the letters separate, it’s easier to find the little pieces that go inside the stencil letters. Here’s how It started to look:
I got ahead of myself and forgot to take a picture of the stencils before I started painting 🙂
Step 18: I chose a teal color of the words because it goes perfectly with the yellow/teal theme within our house. I used a small brush to paint the letters to make sure I got all the little nooks.
Ste 19: Let it dry for an hour or so:
Here’s what it looks like with the stencils still on while drying
Step 20: Peal off the stencils and little pieces in the letters. AND ADMIRE YOUR BEAUTIFUL WORK!!!!
Here it is!
My spacing is a bit off but it’s ok! So these are my 2 favorite DMB Quotes. “You and m together can do anything” is from OUR song (You & Me) and then Eat, Drink, and be Merry is just always a classic. The final touch is the date at the bottom, the day we met.
Feel free to contact me if you are trying to do this and need help!!!
Obviously I’m addicted to Pinterest- as most people who use it are!
Well I saw this on Pinterest:
Here’s the Picture from the Souther Vogue Blog
It’s posted from The Southern Vogue Blog (http://www.southernvogue.com).
I decided I wanted to make them as well! Of course I went to over 3 different stores before I found the Ghost Peeps (which is why there are Pumpkin Peeps too). But here’s how I put together mine:
I forgot to include the Ghost Peeps in the picture! Graham Crackers, Herseys Bars, Peeps, Clear Bags, and Ties
First, I bought clear bags, but they didn’t fit the content right, so I ingeniously though to cut off the tops of sandwich bags and use that!
Regular Sandwich bags with the tops cut off
Then I broke up the Graham Cracker bar into 2 pieces (no picture shown because it’s pretty obvious on how to do this). The Ghost Peeps were pretty easy to tear apart (DO THIS SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY) but the Pumpkin Peeps needed to be cut apart to keep the shape and orange color. I also recommend putting a paper towel underneath because it gets a bit messy with the orange sugar.
I took a knife and cut them down the middle
MY apologizes for the poor picture quality! I’ll do better next time…
I placed the 2 Graham Crackers into the bag, then a Fun Sized Hersey Candy bar and the peep on top of the crackers. Grabbed some twist ties, and there you go!
Both Ghost and Pumpkin Peep S’mores!
So all you need are:
Honey Graham Crackers
Fun Sized Hersey Bars
Ghost/Pumpkin Peeps
Sandwich bags (with the top cut off)
Twist Ties
Orange Ribbon- if you’re fancy!
I’m going over to my boyfriend’s sisters house tonight (she’s helping me with another Pinterest project) and I’m going to bring some over for her kiddies!
The Sugar and Spice Blog 