No Doubt

2 Rooms, Attic Apartment

I’ve heard of “buyer’s remorse”—so it makes sense to me that there is also “renter’s remorse”.

It was a few weeks ago when I first visited “Apartment Obama”, my new apartment. It was at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, and I was joined by a colleague to look at the apartment. I was also joined by two other potential renters. To say it was rushed, was an understatement. I would estimate that I was in the apartment for less than 15 minutes, and I fell in love.

That weekend I sent a note to the Agent stating that she would get my application no later than 9am on Monday, unless there were problems with the trains. The application was in, and then the waiting began—it took two weeks for my application to be approved. In the meantime I looked at five additional apartments.

And then, after a great deal of angst and worry, it was suddenly mine.

And then I wondered: Was it as nice as I remembered?

It was such a rush—in and out in 15 minutes, and then it was only my memory.

Well, tonight I visited Apartment Obama again. It was much larger than I remembered—and smaller. The pantry space next to the kitchen was a whole lot smaller than I remembered—so I am ditching plastic shelves I was planning on moving in. The TV Stand: forget it. It just would never look good in the apartment, not in a million years and I would have been trying to get rid of it the day after it was moved in.

The big room is much bigger than I remember—perhaps because when I was inside the apartment the first time, there were lots of other people looking at the apartment. It’s clear that a number of decisions are made just by virtue of how the space is laid out: the television must go there, the couches must go across from the TV. The dining-room table could only go in one spot.

My bedroom is small—it’s a very good thing that my Ikea bed is only 140cm across—any wider and it would not fit. I’m pretty sure that I will have to ditch my side table. I just do not see how it could possibly fit next to the bed.

There are two things I don’t love about the apartment: First, the bathroom does not have a shower—only a bathtub. I will suffer, but not too much. Secondly, the bathroom is currently painted a lime green, and I detest lime-green. The current renter tried to convince me to leave it lime-green, but I just could not see it, and he will paint it white for me.

I guess that leaves me only one relatively minor complaint.

No big deal, and I can honestly say, the apartment is impossibly beautiful.

I have no doubt.