TBT: Student Living {Part 2}

Well I wish I had something shiny and new for the house to write about, but I don't.  Some unexpected but necessary expenses have come up, a trip to the vet, a new windshield, you get the idea.  Isn't it the worst when life gets in the way of sideboards and rugs?

I've been especially nostalgic for Boston lately so I thought I'd share a tour of our second apartment that we lived in while up there, you can see our first apartment here.

But first a few scenes from last spring of the HBS campus in bloom:

We moved into this apartment in April 2013, the spring of Matt's first year at business school.  It was a more central Cambridge location-- walkable to Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Harvard and Central Square, much closer to campus, and pet friendly so we jumped on it when it became available.  Like our first apartment it was owned by Harvard University Housing.  The building was constructed in 1887 and is three stories with one apartment on each level all of which are about 800 square feet.  Downright palatial for student living.

This apartment had great natural light and tall ceilings in the entryway/living room.  

The photos below are not good, these are iPhone pics, but they're what I've got. 

Living room with our table in the windows, it was so fun to eat meals at that table and look out onto the street below.  It was a pretty busy street and I liked the hustle and bustle.

View from the table to the street below.

The fire on the TV was a mainstay during the winter months.  Which was mostly all months.  

Sometimes Shep just had to hide from the cold. 

Down the hallway from the living room was the bedroom, our queen bed was a snug fit.

Moving on down the hallway was the kitchen, bathroom, and second bedroom.  

That stackable washer/dryer in the middle of the kitchen was my absolute favorite feature.  It was so rare to find an apartment with in-unit laundry and after having gone without it in our previous apartment I will never take laundry for granted again. Even now my washer/dryer is in the basement and I don't think twice about hauling laundry up and down.

And how about that green linoleum floor, are you drooling yet?

The linoleum might not be your thing but let's take a second to appreciate those beautiful thick baseboards.  Looks like they did some things right in 1887.  

Guess what the door in the photo below is?  The bathroom.  Yep, the bathroom was in the kitchen.  As someone who really really really values clean that was a struggle. Character building you might say.

But at least it had generous counter space.

Here's a photo from a day when I baked something and for some reason really styled it up and took pictures of it.  I think I had just gotten my camera in anticipation of our safari and was practicing?  Turns out wild animals don't let you arrange them the way eggs and lemons do. 

We didn't have a guest bed so we put this couch in the second bedroom for guests to sleep on.  This room was also used for the printer, the linen closet, my dresser, the laundry hamper, really it was just a catch all.

                                             Christmas in the apartment

This is a sombering photo, it was taken the day the city was on lock down while police searched for the marathon suspects.  I took this in the middle of the day when we ran Shep outside for a bathroom break.  On any other day there would have been lots of traffic and people jogging along the river, but it was empty. 

This was our last walk to Harvard Yard shortly before we moved out of the apartment.  You wouldn't know it from my outerwear that this photo was taken in May. 

And while we're on the subject of New England, here we are eating lobster in Rhode Island.  

I want to end with this because can I just say how much I appreciate the screen printed ivy on the construction fencing?  It made me smile every time I walked passed it.  Brilliant.