Apartment Hunting in London

On Monday, Tony had appointments with several letting agents. He went to look at the inventory that they had. Some of it was in some of the newer buildings to the west of London on the south side of the river. They are very modern, but they are a little removed from the main part of London, and would be a bit of a schlep to get anywhere. He was also faced with the realities of what a flat is like in London. They are very small, and most are very, very old. I could tell he was getting discouraged when he called me at work to tell me that he'd just seen a flat where you had to step over the toilet to get to the sink. I'm willing to bet that in someplaces you can actually wash your hands while sitting on the toilet. CRAZY!

By Wednesday night, Tony was starting to feel very discouraged. We had dinner with our friend Dr. David Draper, a professor from LA who was in London for the summer. It was a nice evening, but as we drank 2 bottles of wine between the 3 of us, it was clear that the house hunting was stressing Tony out. I planned to take the afternoon off on Thursday to look at flats with tony and lend a hand. I'd been speaking with a couple agents while at work, and I had some appointments setup for us for that afternoon.

We looked at a beautiful 2 bedroom up in Hampstead, which is right next to the Heath, which is a park that allows dogs to go off leash. It was a recommended area. The building was a new building built in a classic style, and the rooms were surprisingly spacious. By this time our budget of £300 had been replaced by the more realistic £400 a week. Hampstead is a cute village like neighborhood in North London. I'd highly recommend this neighborhood to anyone. It feels almost like you aren't in London, but in a more laidback residential village. The only downside of the place was the mini dorm-style refridgeratorf. Not uncommon for a flat in London.

From there, we met an agent in Islington to look at this one modern apartment. Tony was very excited by this flat. It had a largeish living/dining (what the brits call a reception) room. The kitchen is small, but adequate, and the bedrooms were moderate in size as opposed to many bedrooms where the room is much larger than a bed.








We also looked at a Muse property, which is a collection of small apartments built around an alley. These were often either the servants quarters, or the stables for the wealthy. In some cases, modern versions of these are built, where Muse simply means an apartment with immediate outdoor groundfloor access. The apt was 2 stories and beautiful. It has a great enclosed outdoor area that would be perfect to let the dogs run around in when we get home from work. It even had parking should we ever get a car. It was HUGE in london terms. We could easily fit our furniture from LA. It even had a great Artist loft with a slanted ceiling window. I really loved this place!. . . But. . . And you knew this was coming - it is located on one of those scary 3rd worldish areas of London. When we left the flat with the agent, and they took us on a brief driving tour, you could feel Tony's excitement diminish by the minute.

We went out for dinner that night, and thought a lot about our choices. In order for us to stay on our schedule of locking in a flat before Tony left, we had to decide the following morning. Ultimately, we went for the 2 bedroom modern apartment in Islington, and Saturday morning, we moved out of the hotel and took up residence in our new apartment in Islington.