The Bad

Of course, with anything in life, there is good and bad. And how is it possible to have a large apartment on a quiet and safe street with a yard as big as the house, right across from your son's cheider without having some bad?
So here is the bad. The apartment is OLD. It hasn't been updated since the 70s at least. The moldings are cracked and falling away. The doorways have their frames sticking out. The light fixtures everywhere needed work. The doors are loose on their hinges. The ceilings are low.
All the walls are wood paneling. I actually like that. It makes the house look like a cabin in the woods, which is appropriate because the location and extra space we have give it a countryside feeling. Not everyone likes the paneling, and a few of the therapists have suggested I paint it, but I like it. The kids' bedroom has light, natural wood paneling. The master bedroom is painted light blue right over the panels. The dining room is paneled in dark wood. That's the only thing I don't like. If it was lighter, the room would have more light. One wall in the dining room is all white brick and it has a fake fireplace, which is cute.

The kitchen. Oy, the kitchen. Let's start with the least of the offenses: the wall of the dinette. It's made to look like it's made of irregularly shaped stones cemented together, like a stone path. But it's just a panel. I don't really like it much, and eventually I'd like to remove it and put sheetrock and paint. It's a big area and would cost to do it.

The actual work area in the kitchen- the cabinets, counters, etc... are junk. They are SO old. The cabinets look good from the outside but are close to rotten on the inside. The counters need lots of care.
I got a cleaning lady to come before we moved in and told her to scrub the kitchen. Well, she spent three hours on it, which I thought was excessive, but figured- better more than less! Imagine how I felt when I moved in and realized NOTHING was cleaned! Not the kitchen, not the bathroom, not the downstairs bathroom, none of the other cabinets in the basement. The only thing the cleaning lady did was the storage rooms because I was there with her when she did them. The other stuff I couldn't supervise because I had other duties at home... we haven't moved yet.
I can't describe how filthy the kitchen was. With one swipe of a moist cloth, the cloth became BLACK. I had to clean each cabinet for an hour before the water would run clear from the cleaning rags. So I couldn't unpack the kitchen for a couple of weeks.
Why a couple of weeks? Because, to make a long story short, there were plumbing issues which took too long to fix. The landlord took a cheap charlatan guy who messed around for two days, and in the end had to hire a REAL plumber who had to undo everything the fake one did, and start from the beginning.

Now I have most of the cabinets cleaned, most of the kitchen unpacked. The entire basement is unpacked, so that's a big relief. We have many boxes left upstairs, but those are my husband's books. I'd unpack them, but he is very particular about which shelf they should go on and all that, so I have to wait for him to do it.
We are getting a handyman this week that we hired ourselves to fix up the small stuff and some of the big stuff. I guess it's good that the weather isn't great, because I am not tempted to leave the house. I can stay home and clean/organize/unpack.

Pesach will be both harder and easier. There is much less to clean than there normally would be, but I finally organized my kitchen, and now I will have to remove the liners, wash the cursed cabinets again, find place to put the chometz utensils, and line the cabinets back.

All good things need work and effort, and I'm looking forward to the day when we are FULLY settled in!