Dee-luxe Apartment

Next week, the Hayseses are moving into the second house (or apartment, if you want to be technical about it) of our young marriage. The decision to leave our current complex and undo all the nesting that we’ve done over the past year was certainly the largest shared decision we’ve made so far. The process of walking and talking through this decision taught us a lot about each other, our priorities, and how we resolve the resulting conflicts between them.

I’ve lived in the Bayou Park complex for almost two years at this point; I moved in with a buddy from church in the summer of 2008, sharing between us a spacious 2-2 and desire to make our respective girlfriends into our fiancées. I moved out just before our wedding into our current home.

After Mich moved in, the place got dramatically more homey and was much better decorated. As we melded our two lives into one, ground zero was the apartment, and our attachment to its charms and quirks grew accordingly. When it felt sufficiently lived in, we began inviting people over for dinner and parties, and our pride in our shared homemaking abilities soared.

So when the time to renew our lease approached, there was a very strong pull to stay where we were. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, there were other concerns to consider. Our rent was increasing, in large part due to cosmetic upgrades to the apartment complex that really had no bearing on our quality of life there. We really craved a second bedroom in which to store the Costco purchases and miscellany that cluttered our bedroom and made it feel claustrophobic at times.

After looking at a wide variety of disappointing rental houses and apartments, we were all but resigned to re-upping at Bayou Park. But with a week left before our deadline to decide, a Craigslist posting fell in our lap: 2 bedrooms in a small Heights apartment complex, for almost a hundred dollars less than our projected rent. The new place had its quirks, too. A narrow kitchen and dearth of natural light were among the chief concerns.

The wrestling then began in earnest. Was the extra bedroom really worth the hassle, the time, and the cost of moving? Would leaving our smallish kitchen for one that’s sort of larger in some dimensions but smaller in others be a sacrifice worth making? How many months would we have to live in the new place before the money we saved each month outweighed the money we spent moving and transferring utilities?

Through all of this, I learned how important the concept of home is to Michelle, and how much ownership she takes in the places she lives. I’ve been relatively itinerant since college, living in five different places in the seven years between graduation and matrimony, and I took for granted the stability and comfort that staying in one place affords. To start from square one, even together, is no small task.

After a second visit to the prospective apartment, it had grown on us sufficiently to warrant a positive decision. We grabbed it just hours before another couple put in an offer. Now we’re in boxes in both places, but we’re looking forward to nesting again. Even more than that, we’re looking forward to the money we’re saving being earmarked for a more permanent nest.

As conflict-averse people, making decisions like this are not cause for fireworks or sweeping declarations. There was disagreement at various points, and we often found ourselves exposed to fundamental ways of looking at life that we hadn’t yet discovered in one another. The beautiful epilogue, then, is that by switching houses, our home is stronger and closer than its ever been.