St. Pete

One of the things that goes hand in hand with planning a wedding and getting married is deciding how the living arrangement would be once we're legally married. Some choose to buy a house, some choose to rent, some to choose to wait a little longer till they find the right house - like choosing a partner, choosing and picking a house somehow depends on the chemistry you have with the particular one.

For us, of course we are going to have to put up with long distance relationship for at least another 4 months after we get married. But knowing that didn't really stop us from searching high and low for the perfect place we could call home.

Coincidentally, Gruffy landed a great job down in St. Pete so instead of staying in our place in Gainesville and find a new one once the date for me to move there gets closer, we decided we should just find "the house" for Gruffy to move into, and for me when the time comes, in St Pete of course.

We looked online for the places that match our criteria for a newlywed house, or apartment rather: washer&dryer in our unit, minimum 2 bedrooms - one for us and one for my imagination room, great kitchen, one that allows us to have pets cos I want a fat cat and a nice neighbourhood in general.

I looked at floorplans of multiple places and some places have really nice lofts - I love love love lofts. But most lack other top criteria so we decided to ditch the lofts. We ended up with a list of few potential places and Gruffy would go down to St. Pete, check out the places and take photos to show me.

And our lady luck was on our side - we found the perfect place, at the perfect price with an awesome view. The whole place is just perfect and Gruffy kept telling me how much he liked the place. Judging from the pictures, I thought it was really nice too.

I felt instant chemistry with the house and sparks flew - so I knew, we both knew that it was the one.

Of course the place has to be more than just nice but Gruffy's great with figuring those things out, so figure those things out he did and I'm happy to report that we officially live in St. Pete now.

Fine, I don't live there just yet...but I will soon! Don't kill my excitement ok :P Anyway, some visuals!

our great kitchen :)

spacious living room that connects to the dining room. I love that the whole house is tiled and only the bedrooms are carpeted.

the part of the house that won me over - a cute mini deck that overlooks the lake. Gruffy's spotted few birds passed by and ducks swimming in the lake

The management mentions about the occasional gator sighting around the area. Though it sounds kinda dangerous, I actually am excited to hear that cos sighting a gator is a part of the experience living in Florida. Of course they have their gator control team at the ready so there's nothing to be worried about, though it'd still be a great shock (a cool one!) to open the door in the morning and find a 5 foot gator laying right at your door step :P And the fact that our apartment is so near to the lake, well, maybe Gruffy will be making friends with some and put up pictures here ;)

At least that will help remind him that the Gators will always be with him :)

Gruffy also mentioned the awesome mornings and evenings at St. Pete because it gets great views of both sunrise and sunset. So I'm anticipating tons of romantic relaxing mornings/evenings when I'm there hehe

Right now, apart from settling details for our wedding, I'm drafting my Imagination Room :) I told Gruffy that I'd start with just getting basic things I need for my book writing/illustrating like an easel, an inspiration board and a desk. I'll furnish it slowly. Then this conversation took place;

gruffy: yeah I was thinking an easel, your board, a nice day bed, some bean bags and a TV
me: TV? we're gonna put the big TV in my room?
gruffy: No that's my TV and we'll put that in the living room. I'll get you a new one and you can watch Eloise and your other shows.
me:heeeeeeeeee! Can I get like a Hello Kitty one or a Disney one?:P

so I have the choice to think that Gruffy is just so sick of my kiddy shows he's much rather getting me a new TV than having to suffer through hours and hours of Eloise on repeat or he's just being really supportive and just totally spoiling me and wants me to be inspired in the environment I work best in.

ok I choose the later :P And I can't wait to move into our new house and complete the new generation of Blythe family :)