I know some of you are just dying to see my new apartment!
Here it is an all its bachelor pad glory:
That’s my little dining area. The balcony, obviously, is out the door. I’m on the 3rd floor. Or, as they say around here, the 2nd floor. The counting here goes: ground floor, first floor, second floor.
That is the kitchen. It’s laundry day. Take in that range. It is dual fuel. When I was in the kitchen remodeling business, dual fuel ranges were primarily at the level of Wolf and Viking. Here they are readily available at the lowest of price points.
The kitchen again, from the living room. The dining set is just to my right from where I am standing to take this picture.
Here’s the bedroom. One of three. This is the largest. The other two look very similar. I’m washing the sheets today. In case you are wondering, floral patterns seem to dominate. Although there seems to be little concern about the patterns going together. My sheets are a very nice floral pattern that completely conflicts with the curtains.
The view from the balcony. Although I can’t see the pool very clearly, I have been here a week and know that there isn’t anything worth seeing down there.
These are two views from my kitchen window. Here is the real important information. That line of tall trees, about 1/2 mile away, are the beach. The beach has shade! It really is lovely.
For those of you that may have technical questions, ask away in the comments. There are interesting differences in construction technique. Most of it is due to all the buildings being constructed out of cement. This is because of the storms.
One of our first purchases when we moved here permanently was a dryer. I don’t know the percentage of people here who have one, but I do know that lots of folks ‘line dry’ even in the so-called Uptown neighborhoods. To me, it’s a basic necessity like hot water or a refrigerator, and ours is one of the condensation models that collect water by spinning it out, which I also like. What about you? Will you adapt to cardboard-stiff clothes and/or ironing, or will you find a place to squeeze in a clothes dryer? Or maybe a guy at your professional level ‘has people that do that sort of thing’?
Oh, I so want a dryer. I’ve shopped a little for one already. I have not found a condenser unit yet. I have nowhere to put one that requires venting. Does the one you have plug into a standard wall plug. I know the power is 220-240, but I’m having a hard time reading the amperage on the circuit breakers.
Yes- it just plugs in to a regular wall outlet with nothing else out of the ordinary.
It is important to find out if your power supply can handle it though- I hadn’t thought about mentioning that. The last couple of places we’ve lived were either new, or newly refurbished, and both had trouble at times supplying enough voltage to run all the computers and appliances. For awhile, we couldn’t run the dishwasher and the microwave at the same time. Then for awhile we couldn’t run anything but the basic survival stuff between about 7pm and 10:30pm. I measured the voltage during the day and saw it drop from around 215 or 220 to as low as 180 during that time when people came home from work.
Here, in our latest apartment, I discovered the wiring was done in basically two loops. One above for all the ceiling fixtures, and one below for all the wall outlets. It only takes one faulty device to literally shut down everything. This sort of evil comedy drove me insane at first but I’ve gotten used to it.
Might not hurt to ask some of the neighbors if there’s any problem like that.
Great to see the photo’s and read what you are up to. The concrete construction remindes me alot of the buildings in Peru. Do I see a Mini split over the window? Would not think you need AC on a island in the middle of the ocean, but what do I know coming from a guy who lives in a state nowhere near the water that reaches 100’s in the summer and -20 in the winter.
I have five split systems in the apartment, one in each bedroom and two in the main living/kitchen area. They are all controlled with remotes. One remote controls all of them. I have four remotes, one each bedroom and one for the living area. You can’t just turn on one of the A/C units though in the living area, hit the button and they both turn on! I haven’t needed A/C yet, the weather has been very pleasant. I mostly have the windows and doors open. I expect the summer to be quite warm and humid. Summer is November to May. I think then that I’ll at least be using the A/C unit in my bedroom at night.
The other thing that is interesting about the construction: All the plumbing is one the exterior. You should see the back sides of the buildings, all kinds of pvc pipe, drain and supply, crawling up and down the walls. Vents don’t pierce the roofs either. They go only as high as necessary. And yes, you can tell they don’t go through the roof with your nose. You don’t even have to look. There is always this faint wiff of…