The radiator-style baseboard heater under the living room window clicked on at 6:12 this morning, the same way it has every cold morning since we got here, and Olive moved from the bed to the floor right in front of it like she was clocking in for a shift. I was on the couch with coffee, looking around the room, and it hit me that we've now lived here for a little over two years. Long enough that the apartment has stopped feeling like a place we moved into and started feeling like a place we made.
So, in the spirit of January and taking stock, here's what changed, what didn't, and what I'd still like to fix.
The numbers, because I keep track
We moved in October 2023 from my old studio across town. The move itself cost us $640 all in, between the rented van, supplies and enough pizza to bribe friends up three flights of stairs. My studio deposit was $500 and I got $410 back, which still stings a little.
Since then, the rent has crept up each fall:
| Lease year | Monthly rent |
|---|---|
| Oct 2023 | $1,395 |
| Oct 2024 | $1,440 |
| Oct 2025 | $1,480 (notice said $1,525; we asked, and they met us partway) |
We split rent and bills by income, with me at 45% and Sam at 55%. That arrangement has held up well. Neither of us feels like we're carrying the other, and we haven't had a single argument about money that started with "but I paid for." It's the boring kind of system that you stop noticing, which is exactly what you want.
The electric bill is still the thing I watch most. With baseboard heat, our winters cost real money. The worst month so far was January 2025 at $142. I'm holding my breath for this month's.
What we added
Two years ago this apartment had a couch, a bed, a borrowed table and twenty-some boxes. Now it has a few things that changed how we live in it.
- Olive. We adopted her in spring 2024. She's changed the apartment more than any piece of furniture: the window perch, the cat tree, the toy drawer, the litter box in the hall closet. Also the general feeling that someone is always home.
- Renters insurance, which I bought in March 2024 after a kitchen fire in a unit two floors down. Nobody was hurt and the building was fine, but it shook me. It's $15 a month, and having it means I worry a bit less.
- A real balcony setup. For our whole first summer, the balcony was a storage shelf. Last June we added two folding chairs, a little table and solar lights. Now it's the place we end up most summer evenings.
- Lamps. So many lamps. Our windows face north, and the overhead light in the living room is harsh. Three lamps at different heights fixed the dim winter afternoons more than anything else.
What we gave up on
Not everything worked. A few ideas we tried and quietly let go:
- A dining table that seats four. We had one for about three months. It ate the living room. We now have a drop-leaf table that's small most of the time and only opens up when people come over.
- A gallery wall. Our lease is strict about holes, and removable strips didn't love our textured walls. Two frames crashed down in the middle of the night. Now we lean art on the bookshelf and call it a style choice.
- Hanging the laundry to dry indoors. I wanted to skip the $2 dryer cycles in the basement. The drying rack took over the bedroom for two days at a time and things smelled musty in winter. We use the dryer and I've made peace with it.
What still bugs me
The walk-up. I love our building, a 12-unit brick place from the 1960s with neighbors who actually say hello. But three flights of stairs with groceries, laundry baskets and, once, a 40-pound bag of cat litter is a daily workout I did not sign up for. We've learned to do one big grocery trip with a folding cart instead of lots of small ones, and that helps.
The galley kitchen is still narrow. We've gotten good at working in it, and we have a whole system for cooking together, but some nights I'd trade a lot for a few more feet of counter.
And the bathroom, with its pedestal sink and no cabinet, still feels like a puzzle I've only partly solved.
What didn't change
The thing I didn't expect, two years in, is how much of what I love about this place was there on day one. The way the light goes soft on the brick across the street. The creak in the third stair from the top. The neighbor downstairs who plays piano badly on Sunday afternoons. We've added a lot, but the bones were already good.
Olive has moved back to the bed now that the heater clicked off. Sam left for the clinic an hour ago. I'm going to finish my coffee, open my laptop and start year three the same way we've started most days here, which is to say, quietly, and with a cat in the way.
